HOT NEWS - F4 - After Stroll's bad move at the start, Race 3 turns into a great solo performance by Diegi Motorsport's Andrea Russo.

Andrea Russo (Diegi Motorsport) ends the weekend with a stunning victory. He takes advantage of a starting mistake by Lance Stroll (Prema Power Team), sweeps past Brandon Maisano (Prema Power Team), who was starting from P2, and simply takes off. He has to fight off the French rival only in the first laps, then he flies away and at the end crosses the finish line with an advantage of almost 9 seconds and the best lap of the race (1'16.534).

Mattia Drudi also seems really with it. The driver of Team Adria Raceway by Cram works his way up to third place and keeps an incredible pace, then something goes wrong. On lap 10 he is behind Maisano, whom he even trid to pass, then suddenyl slows down.

With the "son of talent" (Franco Drudi is an esteemed tuner) out of the picture, Leonardo Pulcini (Euronova Racing by Fortec) claims the role of third runner up. There seems to be something different about him compared to the qualifyings and the first two races. His driving style is different and the team must have also changed something set-up wise.  Result? The knight defending the colors of Vincenzo Sospiri's team makes his move on lap 15, hooking up with Maisano (who is struggling at this point). Remember that the French driver is too old to compete for the Championship title (in fact he is contending the F4 Trophy for drivers 18 and over) so he is "transparent" in terms of results. Even so, the Roman driver offers a grabd show behind the Frenchman and manages to "jump" past him with an overtake that made the trip to Adria worthwhile!

Another great duel takles place behind these two, incolving Alain Valente (Jenzer Motorsport) and Ukyo Sasahara (Euronova Racing by Fortec), who seems to be struggling and is noweher close to the briliant performance he did in Race 2. This otehr duel ends well for Valente, while his rival is forced to withdraw.


Here is the full order of arrival in Race 3:




Save the date: round 2 is in Imola, June 28-29.


Here are the provisional points standings of the Italian F4 Championship powered by Abarth after Round 1:

1.  Russo  53 points
2.  Stroll  51 p.
3.  Pulcini 30 p.
4.  Sasahara 25 p.
5.  Kasai 17 p.
6.  Cairoli 15 p.
7.  Valente 15 p.
8.  Matveev 12 p.
9.  Mauron 11 p.
10. Drudi 10 p.
11. Defourny 9 p.
12. Valente 8 p.
13. Bandeira 4 p.
14. Haxhiu 2 p.
15. Vieira 1 p.
16. Ridlisbacher 1p.