Luka Sammalisto, driver of US Racing, has achieved his first victory in the Italian Formula 4 in the second race of the weekend held in Misano. The Finnish driver dominated the competition from the start, achieving a lights-to-lights victory.
After two seasons in the category and a frustrated attempt to move to Formula Regional with Trident, Sammalisto set the best time in the qualifying sessions on Friday, leaving his closest rival, Alp Aksoy, 0.145 seconds behind.
In the second race, which featured Groups A and B, Sammalisto and Aksoy started from the front row. Although the Prema driver improved his start compared to the previous race, he could not avoid a wide exit at Turn 2, dropping to fourth place.
Prema also lost another prominent driver, Sasha Bondarev, who got caught in a tangle during the first lap, finishing seventh after being overtaken by Ludovico Busso of US Racing and David Walther of Maffi Racing.
An incident between Georgiy Zasov and Fabricio Fogaca at Turn 14 caused the safety car to come out, although Fogaca was able to resume the race shortly thereafter.
Upon the restart, Aksoy took the opportunity to overtake Robinson, while Bondarev climbed to sixth position. Despite his efforts, David Cosma Cristofor could not close the gap with Sammalisto, who maintained a comfortable margin of about 1.138 seconds throughout the race.
With a consistent pace, the rest of the group of the four main drivers kept their distances, with Walther finishing seventh, only one of the few drivers outside the entries from Prema and US Racing among the top eight. Thomas Bearman of Van Amersfoort Racing finished ninth, unable to match his performance from the previous race.
In the first race of the weekend, Aksoy had inherited the victory after Niccolo Maccagnani, originally the winner, received a 10-second penalty for starting the engine before the one-minute signal. This caused Maccagnani to finish fourth, while Bondarev moved up to second place and Ary Bansal from US Racing completed the podium.
Race results (16 laps)
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luka Sammalisto | US Racing | 26m48.745s |
| 2 | David Cosma Cristofor | Prema Racing | +1.138s |
| 3 | Alp Aksoy | Prema Racing | +2.782s |
| 4 | Edu Robinson | US Racing | +5.494s |
| 5 | Sasha Bondarev | Prema Racing | +8.155s |
| 6 | Arjen Kraeling | US Racing | +8.405s |
| 7 | David Walther | Maffi Racing | +13.553s |
| 8 | Ludovico Busso | US Racing | +14.072s |
| 9 | Thomas Bearman | Van Amersfoort Racing | +14.166s |
| 10 | Bader Al Sulaiti | Jenzer Motorsport | +14.678s |
With this victory, Sammalisto is in third place in the championship, with Aksoy leading and Bondarev in second place.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
