PREMA, Slater deliver three wins in torrid Mugello weekend
PREMA Racing delivered another memorable weekend in the fourth round of the Italian Formula 4 Championship, held in torrid weather at Mugello Circuit. Freddie Slater posted three more wins, increasing his total count to 10 out of 12 races entered so far. The 15-year-old Briton gained P1 with a brilliant pass late in Race 1, before dominating the other two heats from pole position.
Rashid Al Dhaheri posted a notable result by claiming his maiden overall podium finish in Race 2 after a solid qualifying effort, and the Emirati backed it up with a points finish in Race 3. It was a tough race for Alex Powell, but the Jamaican American held his ground strong with three points finishes to maximize the weekend. He also achieved a double rookie win to solidify his position atop the class standings.
Tomass Stolcermanis, who stands behind him in rookie points, continued his strong run of results with three more top-10s, while Kean Nakamura-Berta got one top-5 and a sixth place plus a rookie win, only slowed down by a stall at the start of Race 2 which jeopardized another potential result for him. Last but not least, Dion Gowda put up a solid improvement, working with the team to gain pace and insight.
The team will be back for what is expected to be another tough weekend in terms of high temperatures and challenges at Circuit Paul Ricard.
#14 - Rashid Al Dhaheri
"Overall a step forward for this weekend. We were able to improve in general pace and here at Mugello, one of the key factors is to manage the tyres, which I think we learned a bit about. We improved on what we have been able to learn in the previous race and we'll continue on this path."
#27 - Freddie Slater
"A mega weekend here in Mugello, three wins. I couldn't ask for much more. PREMA gave me such an amazing car. We had challenging conditions, with the hot it's super difficult. It was hard, but we managed to come up on top, so a massive thank you to the team. We'll go again in Paul Ricard."
#33 - Tomass Stolcermanis
"It was quite a decent weekend, especially compared to the test we had before. We made some progress. Qualifying was decent but not our strongest, I didn't make it all perfect from my side and maybe with the car as well. We gained a few positions in all three races, making progress although we didn't have the best pace, and in dirty air here it's tough to overtake. All starts were quite good, we stayed quite consistent without contacts and mistakes. Overall, we missed a bit of pace and we will be stronger in Paul Ricard."
#50 - Dion Gowda
"We had some strong pace in practice, and we made a good step in qualifying, but we had a small crash early on, which made things quite difficult going into the races. We were struggling in Race 1 and Race 2, not entirely sure why, we made checks on the car, and for Race 3, the pace was really strong again. We're all set for Paul Ricard, and hopefully, we'll be better."
#51 - Kean Nakamura-Berta
"In the end, it was a pretty okay race weekend. I could have done a bit better in qualifying on Friday because we were coming off practice quite strong. Race 1 didn't have the best result in P6, not the worst. In race 2 I stalled, just my mistake that cost me some valuable points. In Race 3, I maximized what I could. At the start, it was okay, but struggled with race pace, and towards the end, we had a lot of degradation and had to defend. Lessons learned, the start and to perfect the qualifying strategy and overall output."
#80 - Alex Powell
"Quite frankly, it was not a strong weekend at all. I've been struggling a lot with pace. Fortunately, on Saturday we were able to do two strong races, made up a few positions, and got two rookie wins. We worked quite hard last night to try and find something to be a bit further in front today, but we struggled again. We need to take a deep look into the data for next week. It's a bit of a tough weekend, but for the most part, we maximized it. Thank you PREMA for the hard work and we'll come back stronger, I'm 100 percent sure. We keep pushing, keep our heads down, and look forward to the next round."