Photo: ACI Sport

From Italy to India, via the new Euro 4 spin-off and the all-female F1 Academy series, there was plenty of F4 racing across the globe in 2023

Italy

The starting point of FIA Formula 4 as a category celebrated its 10th season this year, and organiser ACI Sport launched Euro 4 to partner its long-running Italian F4 championship. Euro 4 visited Italy twice and Spain once for its three-round season, while Italian F4 had two international rounds for the fourth time in its history as it raced in Belgium and France. That somewhat made the existence of the new sister series pointless.

As per usual, Italian F4 had huge grids , with an average of 33 starters per race. The 24-car grid for the season-opening race was the smallest, and the round at Paul Ricard in France attracted a high of 37 drivers. But only six of the 50 drivers that took part this year won races, with a further six making the podium.

Five of the winners drove for Prema, with US Racing’s champion Kacper Sztuka being the exception. His team-mates Zachary David, Akshay Bohra and Gianmarco Pradel all brought home podiums, with Brando Badoer and Ivan Domingues doing the same for Van Amersfoort Racing and Alfio Spina taking home BVM Racing’s sole trophy. He came 12th in the standings with a second place, three fifth places, two ninths, a 10th and 14 non-scores.

Although Sztuka won the season opener, he did not win again until race 14 of the campaign as he began a run of six victories in a row. After championship runner-up Ugo Ugochukwu beat him to victory in race one at Vallelunga, he responded with two more wins to end the season as well as his sixth pole in a row.

Sztuka became champion with a race to spare, and is now a Red Bull junior.

Photo: ACI Sport

A week after losing the Italian title, Ugochukwu went to Barcelona for Euro 4. The title was decided in a four-way fight in the final race, and it likely would have been five had Sztuka been present. James Wharton led Prema team-mate Ugochukwu by two points heading into the decider, but finishing fourth in a double-points race which Ugochukwu won meant he missed out on the title by 24 points.

Prema’s Arvid Lindblad and Bohra had been the top two in the standings with two races remaining, but dropped to fourth and third respectively. Had a regular points system applied to the final round, the absent Sztuka would have been fifth rather than eighth in the standings and Prema’s Freddie Slater would have been 12th rather than 10th.

Japan

For a series that runs over six months of the year, it can be a surprise that there’s only 14 races in total in Japanese F4. Once again it was the junior drivers of Honda and Toyota who were usually filling the top positions, and Toyota won its long-running rivalry as its drivers took eight victories to Honda’s five. The top two in the points were also Toyota juniors.

Rikuto Kobayashi started the season in dominant style, taking a lights-to-flag win at Fuji Speedway by 11.8 seconds. In race two he made a mistake under pressure and finished third, but was battling for victory at the end and left round one with a 15-point lead.

Unsurprisingly the Honda juniors came to the fore in round two at Suzuka, with Yusuke Mitsui winning both races from pole. A second and a fourth for Kobayashi meant his championship lead grew by five points.

The field was back at Fuji for round three, Toyota territory, but Honda junior Yuto Nomura pipped Kobayashi to pole for both races. Kobayashi had to battle hard race-long to win race one, then in race two he took the lead down the pit straight on the final lap. Over the weekend, he almost doubled his points lead.

Photo: Japanese F4

Mitsui repeated his Suzuka double in round four, while Kobayashi had a silly collision in race one and finished fifth in race two. The title fight was back on.

Sportsland SUGO hosted round five, and the poles were shared by Nomura and Bionic Jack Racing’s Kazuhiso Urabe. Nomura converted pole into victory, and Kobayashi climbed from 10th on the grid to finish sixth, falling down to third in the standings. Mitsui took the points lead by finishing second, and extended it with an identical result in race two behind Urabe as Kobayashi had an off and finished 22nd.

Six drivers remained in title contention with four races to go, and with the stakes raised the Toyota juniors hit form. Kobayashi led home team-mate Jin Nakamura in race one at Autopolis, then it a was Toyota 1-2-3 in race two as Nakamura led Shunji Okumoto and Kobayashi who was now top of the table again. Mitsui had finished 10th, but from 29th on the grid.

Kobayashi qualified on pole for both races of the final round at Twin Ring Motegi, and between safety car periods it was a battle between Nakamura and Kobayashi for race one victory. Nakamura triumphed, meaning five points split the pair.

He immediately got into second behind his team-mate in the decider, but was not fast enough to then pass him and so Kobayashi became champion with his fifth win.

China

Chinese F4 still uses first-generation F4 cars from Mygale, and grid sizes this year averaged 16 cars despite there being only six full-time entries. Six drivers won races, and there was an intense title fight between Tiago Rodrigues and Kaishun Liu.

Ruiqi Liu was the star of round one at Zhuhai, which was originally scheduled to take place at Zhengzhou. He took two poles, two wins, a second and a third from the weekend’s four races. But he was absent from round two at Ningbo, which was postponed by a week so it clashed with his Italian F4 programme, and Rodrigues came to the fore with three wins.

Photo: Chinese F4

Pingtan street circuit hosted round three, which also took place a week later than planned, and Ruiqi Liu marked his return by taking pole then claiming a win, a second and a third in the races. But he was outshone (only slightly since the top three in Q1 were covered by 0.079s) by his namesake and Rodrigues. Kaishun Liu took two wins and two second places, and Rodrigues brought home a win and three other podiums to look after his points lead.

Other drivers came to challenge them in the last two rounds, Yingjie Xu was the only driver to inflict defeat on them.

The ‘European-style’ Tianfu International Circuit was not ready to be raced on when Chinese F4 was supposed to visit it, so round four took place at Zhuhai. Rodrigues led Liu in race one until the final lap when Liu attempted to pass him down the inside at turn one. They both went off, gifting the debuting Xu victory.

Rodrigues won races two and four, extending his points lead. Liu retired following an off in race two, won race three and was second in race four.

In rather familiar circumstances, the season finale also didn’t go ahead as planned as the Macau Grand Prix dropped Chinese F4 from its schedule. Ningbo picked up hosting duties, and Liu took both poles, won three times and finished second in race three. Rodrigues won that race, and more importantly the title.

Mexico

A run of eight wins in a row did not neccessarily make winning the NACAM F4 title an easy job for Pedro Juan Moreno.

The start of his winning streak brought him level with Cristian Cantu at the top of the standings, and two races later he was 29 points clear. It took a further four races to add another 28 points to his lead, and it looked like victorious run would come to an end in race one of the fifth round at Queretaro.

Photo: Photography Yoss Yoss

Cantu was leading Moreno by a huge eight seconds when he threw victory away by heading to the pits. He finished ninth, and Moreno ended up winning by 10.2s and adding another 23 points to his lead.

The pressure was now on for Cantu, and he responded by winning five of the season’s last six races. But Moreno took a win, two second places and a third before skipping the double-header season finale since the title was already wrapped up.

Marco Alquicira was the only other driver to win, doing so twice. A non-championship round was scheduled to take place in Mexico City two weeks ago, but was cancelled.

Spain

Sztuka started his winning form in the Formula Winter Series, where he won five of the six races he contested and the title. His only defeat was inflicted by Matteo De Palo, who only did round two at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit and he took two poles, a win and a fifth place to put himself sixth in the standings despite missing three quarters of the season.

The final round was skipped by Sztuka since he was already champion. Meanwhile, his team US Racing brought two new names to the grid Zachary David and Akshay Bohra. The former won both races with fastest lap, took a pole position and netted fifth in the points table, while the latter finished fifth and second to be ninth in the standings.

Since many of that series’ drivers headed to Italian F4, it was a different set of names that were the benchmark in Spanish F4. The all-French combination of Sainteloc Racing and Theophile Nael beat the local teams to take the title, with Nael picking up eight wins, six other podiums and five poles to become champion with two races to spare.

A late charge by Campos Racing’s Christian Ho failed to make for a close title fight despite winning the last four races. Two of those were overshadowed with Nael’s crowning taking the headlines in one and Enzo Deligny’s antics being the big talking point of the season finale.

Photo: F4 Spain

Another series sophomore, MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella was third in the standings and he took the chequered flag in all 21 races. He won two of them and stepped on the podium ten further times.

Deligny was Spanish F4’s top rookie, coming fourth in the standings with two wins, eight other podiums and remarkable consistency over the season’s 21 races. His disqualification was one of only six races he failed to be in the top five.

The next best rookie was team-mate De Palo, and while it took only three races for him to win he then only finished in the top five seven more times. Similarly Brazilian F4 champion Pedro Clerot kicked the season off with two wins and a second place, but never visited the podium again and slipped to sixth in the standings, and former Danish F4 star Noah Stromsted got three podiums in the first three rounds but only scored 50 points in the remaining four.

Middle East

Most European teams and their drivers went to F4 United Arab Emirates to warm up for their main campaigns. Prema ran its own cars and provided technical support to Mumbai Falcons, while Xcel Motorsport did the same with Yas Heat Academy.

Prema-run cars filled the top three places in the standings, winning 13 of the 15 races between them. R-ace GP’s Zachary David and Hitech GP’s Arvid Lindblad won the two other races.

Ugochukwu won the first two races of the season, then Ferrari juniors Tuukka Taponen and Wharton came to the fore. Wharton launched his title fight by making history, as he won the first ever single-seater race in Kuwait. Two of the next three races at the Kuwait Motor Town circuit were won by Ugochukwu, helping him to keep the championship lead to the end of round three. Taponen did the triple in round four at Dubai Autodrome, but it was Wharton who became points leader.

Rinicella was in title contention entering the final round at Yas Marina Circuit, but Wharton put one hand on the title there with two poles and then two wins. Taponen was the only one who could deny him the crown in the last race, and started third.

Photo: F4 UAE

Wharton immediately swept to the inside off the line to defend the lead, so Taponen tried going around his outside at the opening corner. Despite running well wide at the exit, Taponen managed to take second and was able to attack Wharton again into Turn 12 (of the grand prix configuration, as F4 uses the support paddock pitlane and grid). However both ran off track and then collided as they rejoined the track for the direction change at Turn 13.

Wharton’s suspension broke and he was out of the race on the spot, while Taponen was able to creep back to the pits but retired there and so Wharton became champion. Ugochukwu took his fifth win, more than the Mumbai pair achieved.

Two weekends ago there was F4 action in Bahrain, but it was for the non-championship Saudi Arabian F4 Trophy Event which ran as a precursor to the nation launching a series next year. All 13 cars participating were run by Meritus GP, and the races were won by Oscar Wurz (son of ex-Formula 1 racer Alexander), Suleiman Zanfari and Federico Al Rifai.

South America

Brazilian F4‘s second season had an average grid size of 12.5 cars and had a round supporting F1. Vinicius Tessaro won the title with a race to spare, taking six victories but only three poles over the course of the campaign. Matheus Comparatto was his chief rival, and he also claimed three poles as well as four wins.

Seven other drivers won races, including Alpine junior Matheus Ferreira, who could only come 18th in Italian F4 with a best finish of fifth but in a cameo in his home championship won twice.

India

Announced in August 2021 with a planned launch date in February 2022 and with all cars being run by Prema, Indian F4 got pushed back by nine months in January of last year.

Photo: Indian F4

A fortnight before its new start date in November the season got cancelled, and the next update came in March 2023 when it was announced that the second-generation Tatuus chassis would be swapped for Mygale’s and racing would start in October.

MP Motorsport was revealed in June to be the team behind the centrally-run field of cars rather than Prema, and in August the group behind a new street circuit in Chennai said Indian F4 would be part of its first event in December and have a night race.

Eventually a full calendar was released, and the season opener on Hyderabad’s Formula E circuit was supposed to host round one which would be in November. But it got relocated to Chennai’s permanent circuit just a few days before action began and the track also gained extra races when fomer F1 venue Buddh International Circuit lost its round.

The inaugural event did take place on November 4/5, and Cooper Webster won two of the three races to lead the points, but later in the month there was more calendar chaos.

Chennai was set to host rounds two and three back-to-back on November 30/December 1 and December 2/3, but it was announced that round two would take place on December 1/2 and round three would be postponed to December 5/6.

Rounds four and five were due to follow a similar format, running back-to-back on December 9 and 10 on the new Chennai street circuit. That weekend was revised to feature less racing and run as one round over three days, but still include the planned night race, while round five was moved to the permanent Chennai track and a December 16/17 date.

The second round of the season had a weather-shortened race, then Cyclone Michaung disrupted the series further. Round three was cancelled on the day track action was due to begin due to the cyclone, and its impact on the streets of Chennai meant round four was relocated to the permanent track.

To make up for that, Indian F4 packed its next Chennai trip with five races (albeit on the circuit’s short layout), and Webster won three of those. He clinched the title with another two wins in the final round, which was back on Chennai’s full layout.

Photo: KSP Reportages

France

Enzo Peugeot may have won the Pau Grand Prix, but Evan Giltaire arguably took the bigger honours in French F4 by winning the title in a dramatic finale. While just four points seperated the pair at the end of the season, there was a gap of 101 points to Kevin Foster who came third in the standings.

On wins it was Peugeot who led the way, with seven to Giltaire’s six and Foster’s single succes at Nogaro, while the pole positions were shared exclusively between those three. Giltaire got eight, Peugeot started in first place four times and Foster got both poles in Pau.

The top two in the championship both stood on the podium 13 times, with Peugeot doing so three times in reversed-grid races while all but one of Giltaire’s podiums came in the higher-scoring races. That helped make the difference in the title fight. Drivers who were not fast enough to challenge the title contenders but brought home big results because of the reversed-grid races were Garrett Berry, who came sixth in the standings after winning two of them and making the podium in two others, and Yani Stevenheydens who did the exact same but also finished third in the Pau GP.

FEED Racing France scholar Foster ended up with 10 podiums, as the Pau weekend actually ended up being his lowest-scoring of the year. After mastering a drying track in qualifying, he spun down to 26th place on the opening lap of race one and recovered to 17th after being lucky to avoid damage as the field rushed past him on the narrow city streets. He was not so lucky in race two as Adrien Closmenil wiped him out, and in the grand prix he spun twice and broke his rear wing.

Having traded victories through the year, Peugeot and Giltaire went into the final round at Paul Ricard 28 points apart.

Giltaire took both poles in qualifying, while Peugeot was only fifth fastest. Pole was converted into victory in race one by Giltaire, and Peugeot had his points lead more than halved by finishing fourth.

Photo: KSP Reportages

He started four places higher than his rival for the reversed-grid race two, but contact on lap one immediately ended his race and Giltaire’s rise to fourth place meant he went into the title decider four points behind Peugeot and guaranteed to become champion if he turned pole into victory.

He did just that, while Peugeot had a desperate time trying to make his way up the order to challenge him. He sent Foster into retirement in a clash, and when he eventually passed Hiyu Yamakoshi for second he was already 3.8s behind Giltaire.

Australia

Australian F4 ran from 2015 to ’19, and will be relaunched next year. But F4 racing has still been taking place in the interim on the sixth largest county in the world. Australian Formula Open, as the name suggests, is a Formula Libre-style series that features Formula 3, Toyota Racing Series and first-generation F4 cars.

Kristian Janev won the AF04 title by topping the F4 class five times in 12 races, while Brodie Norris took eight wins from 11 starts and finished just three points behind him in the title fight as both missed the final round. Chris Huang came third in the standings by contesting 15 of the 17 races and making the podium eight times but never winning.

USA

In addition to the United States F4 championship, which was won by Patrick Woods-Toth and had eight race-winners in 2023, there are several other ‘national’ and regional F4 series in the country.

Formula Development, which is rebranding as the Ligier JS F4 Series next year as it continues to use a first-generation car, is one of those and another is Formula Pro USA which under its portfolio has the F4 Western championship.

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Dmitry Pistolyako, who has spent over a decade running an online English language school, lived his childhood dream this year by not only becoming a racing driver but a title-winning one too as he started the F4 Western season with five wins in a row then racked up four second places to become champion by 84 points over Alexander Cornfeld.

Joining the grid for the final round of the season was F1 Academy race-winner Emely de Heus, and she finished fifth in race one then was disqualified from race two.

The F4 Western Winter Series had three cars for its four races, which were all won by Australian Daniel Quimby.

Ava Dobson was the only driver to contest FDevelopment round one at Road America, and Pablo Jose Benites and Aidan Potter shared the wins as the only drivers in round two at New Jersey Motorsports Park. Three drivers raced at Virginia International Raceway, with Teddy Musella and Caleb Campbell the winners. It was a totally different trio of drivers for the Circuit of the Americas season finale, and Cash Felber won twice.

Scandinavia

Pedersen pipped Pedersen to win this year’s Danish F4 title. That was Mikkel and Magnus, and between them they won 11 of the season’s 18 races. Their main challenger was Theodor Jensen, who won four times but only did seven races so came seventh in the standings.

Mathias Bjerre Jakobsen was therefore the true best-of-the-rest driver, taking two wins en route to third in the standings, but Algeria’s Leo Robinson was another driver with a better scoring rate than the champion as he finished every single race in second or third after joining the grid in round four. His 10 podiums put him fourth in the championship, just ahead of fellow part-timer Victor Nielsen. In fact, only four drivers did the full season since the champion Mikkel Pedersen failed to start a race. That’s one less full-timer than last year, but matching 2021 and beating 2019.

The Formula Renault 1.6-spec Formula Nordic also got assimilated into Danish F4 this year. They shared grids for the two Swedish rounds and the finale, and Linus Granfors managed to beat the F4 stars to win a race overall. Next year they combine as one series: Nordic 4.

Photo: Formel 4.dk

Finland used to have its own F4 series, but now it is just F4 racers who attend Formula Open Finland rounds and other racing events in the country. Nestori Virtala was the only attendee for several of those, against drivers in F3 cars, and also contested the Estonian Grand Prix in Eastern Europe.

FIA zones

F4 South East Asia returned after three years off, and began its four-event schedule with a first ever visit to China. There was a field of 10 cars for the opening round at the Zhuzhou circuit, and Jack Beeton won two of the three races.

A non-championship event at the Macau Grand Prix followed, and the grid ballooned to 22 cars with many stars of Europe’s Formula Regional, F4 and karting scenes attending. Ginetta Junior champion Freddie Slater set the practice pace while Prema team-mate Arvid Lindblad crashed, but the latter rebounded in qualifying as he beat the former to pole by 0.549s. Third fastest was Hadrien David, the 2021 FRegional European Championship runner-up.

Wet and windy conditions hit Macau ahead of the safety car-filled qualification race, which Lindblad won. Slater was second and two-time Macau GP winner Charles Leong was third. The track had mostly dried in time for the main race, where having pole proved crucial once again for Lindblad taking victory ahead of Leong and Rashid Al Dhaheri, while Slater suffered mechanical issues.

The series reconvened at Sepang two weeks later with an impressive 18-car entry list. Exciting newcomers included sportscar star Doriane Pin and karting graduates Kean Nakamura Berta and Tomass Stolcermanis. All three made the podium, but couldn’t beat David who took three wins.

Sepang hosted the finale with 17 cars the week after that and Nakamura dominated qualifying. But he couldn’t translate that into success in the races, even in the absence of David, and the wins were shared between Al Dhaheri, Nicolas Stati and Pin. Her victory made her championship runner-up behind Beeton.

Photo: Macau GP Organising Committee

ACCR F4 evolved into F4 Central European Zone for 2023, and attracted an average grid size of less than eight cars as it raced in Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Ethan Ischer beat his Jenzer Motorsport team-mate Reno Francot to the title by two points, but only after a penalty was applied in the final race.

Needing only to finish second to become champion, Francot had appeared to be on course for that despite a late challenge from Michael Sauter. On the penultimate lap, Sauter dived inside Francot into turn one. As Francot then fought to regain the place, the two touched, forcing Sauter into the gravel and preventing any further attacks on Francot.

However, Sauter ended up finishing ahead of Francot, who was relegated to third by a five-second penalty. Therefore, the title went to Ischer as he took his eighth win of the season.

F1 Academy

The all-female F1 Academy series launched this year and filled the spot in the market previously held by the FRegional-spec W Series. It raced in Europe and the USA, supported F1, NASCAR and the DTM, and as with many F4 series was won by Prema.

The team’s line-up was led by Marta Garcia, who came ninth in Spanish F4 back in 2017, and she won seven races. The last of those at Circuit of the Americas meant she lifted the title with two races to spare, and also earned her a 2024 FREC seat.

Sauber junior Lena Buhler was her closest rival in the points table, and took the first two wins of her single-seater career. Two fifth places had been her previous best results from two-and-a-half years of racing in cars.

The Al Qubaisi sisters proved they can win away from their home circuits in the UAE, with Hamda victorious at three different tracks to put herself third in the standings while older sister and MP Motorsport team-mate Amna took two reversed-grid race wins and was sixth in the points table.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Alpine junior Abbi Pulling was far from matching pre-season expectations as she finished fifth in the standings with a total of seven podiums but no wins.

The sole rookie was 16-year-old Chloe Chong, who despite being with Prema came 14th in the standings and never beat the sixth place finish she achieved on her debut.

2023’s F4 stars

The post 2023 International Formula 4 season review appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: ACI Sport

Tuukka Taponen is a karting world champion and a Ferrari junior finding his feet in Formula 4. Roger Gascoigne spoke to him to find out more about the journey that has taken him from Finland to Maranello

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Finnish karting world champion Tuukka Taponen was in no rush to make the step up into single-seaters. However, having now joined their ranks he is clearly not planning to hang around, despite a tough start to the Ferrari junior’s first full season in Formula 4.

“I started karting when I was two years old,” he says, when father Marko, himself a racer in jokkis, a particularly Finnish form of low-cost rallycross, “decided to buy me a go kart, and since that I have done a lot of laps in karting.”

Taponen was hooked immediately. “He never said ‘I don’t want to go,’” his mother, Satu, remembers. As a boy, Taponen could be found watching “his father’s jokkis videos or other motor sport instead of children’s stories,” she adds.

His competition debut came at the age of five at the Vihti karting track, close to his hometown of Lohja, some 60km to the west of Helsinki. The talent was immediately obvious as “I won the race, my first race.”

The Taponen family criss-crossed Finland in their camper van to support Tuukka’s racing. And success came quickly – in his rookie season in 2017, he won the Finnish championship in the Raket 95 class before moving up to the national OK Junior series the year after.

Under the tutelage of experienced karter-turned-team owner Jussi Kohtala, who had taken a young Valtteri Bottas to karting success domestically and internationally, from 2019 to 2021 he was unstoppable in domestic competitions, winning three Finnish titles in successive years.

But his sights were already on competing abroad and so, “when I was 11 years old, I started to do international races.”

After a few tentative outings in 2017 and 2018, Taponen stormed to an unexpected win on his European Championship debut at Angerville in 2019, winning four out of five heats and dominating the final (pictured below).

Photo: FIA / KSP Reportages

Next time out, at Genk in Belgium, he suffered “a technical issue in qualifying, so I needed to stop the car which made the rest of my race meeting difficult,” fighting through the order from 63rd to 18th.

“It was a big surprise to win the first European Championship race,” Taponen admits. “Even for the rest of the 2019 season in Europe I had good speed all the time but lacked a bit of experience, though I still finished fifth in the European Championship in my first proper year.”

Racing for Kohtala, “was fun,” he says, looking back. “I was, of course, getting experienced but the speed was every time on the top, to be honest. Now, when thinking back, it was also a bit special to be with a small Finnish team against some big factory teams.”

For 2020, however, he switched to the Tony Kart works team but had to settle for third in the final European Championship junior standings behind his current Prema team-mates, Arvid Lindblad and Ugo Ugochukwu, although he went one better in the World Championship at Portimao.

Despite the exceptional results, Taponen felt that the year “wasn’t really promising. I had quite a lot of technical issues that year.”

Twelve months later it all came together at the world championships at Campillos, Taponen storming through the field in the OK class final in wet conditions to win the world title, “which no other Finn had done ever before,” he adds proudly.

“In qualifying I did a small mistake, and I was really like a bit worried about that. I needed to start from the fourth row of the grid. It wasn’t ideal at all.

“We had the speed all the time. And we got good material for that race. Luckily, I was able to do a really good tyre management on that race weekend. We were able to put perfect setup for the final and was easy to drive and obviously, everything was perfect.

Photo: FIA / KSP Reportages

“I knew the speed was all the time top five, maybe not the fastest one. But the race weekend before that that we did was like preparation for the World Championship.”

His performances won over an even more sceptical group, his schoolteachers. Initially, as his mother explains, his teachers were not too supportive of Taponen’s extracurricular racing activities, “but when he won the world championship they were cheering for him and saying ‘go race’. They were then big fans.”

Having turned 15 in October 2021, Taponen could have made the decision to follow karting rivals Andrea Kimi Antonelli or Lindblad straight into cars at the earliest opportunity but chose to continue in karting for 2022, alongside an extensive testing programme.

“We discussed this also with many different people, but for me, some drivers go really fast forwards and if they do a good result they need to of course, go [another] step forward and maybe [there] is a big chance that at some point you can’t be at the same level as some other drivers because they are older than you, they are doing second year.”

In order to get more racing experience and to come into single-seaters fully prepared, “we decided to stay in karting, be more ready for this year and do a good amount of tests before. Also we needed to find money for that.”

He tested with Prema, Campos and Iron Lynx, but “our main target was to be with Prema Racing. I didn’t want to even think about any other teams.”

Thanks to his Tony Kart connections, he was selected by the Ferrari Driver Academy to participate in the 2021 Scouting World Finals.

While Ferrari ultimately plumped for the more experienced Ollie Bearman and Rafael Camara from the exceptional group of young talents assembled that year, Taponen was “happy for really good job that I did on that scouting camp.”

Photo: Ferrari

In any case, he had already taken the decision “to be in karting one more year” but he had left a very strong impression with Ferrari: “They said they’re gonna keep an eye on what I will do next season.”

For 2022, Taponen combined another season in the OK class with what ultimately proved to be a more limited campaign on KZ shifter karts, although he still managed an impressive ninth in the world championship.

He fell just short of retaining his OK world championship at Sarno, although still took a third top-two finish in three years, but overall felt the season “was once again really good.”

He finished sixth in the European Championship and third in the WSK Euro Series, despite only competing in one of the two events.

“The speed wasn’t all the time the best, but it was good enough every time and I was really good in racing. So, I was experienced against some other drivers and I was able to use it. I was really smart every time and I was driving so I think that was the key for good results.”

This time around, a place in the FDA was never in doubt, after “they invited me straight to world finals and I won it,” despite again competing against drivers with significantly greater single-seater experience.

As a boy he admits he wasn’t a died-in-the-wool Ferrari tifoso: “To be honest, I was quite neutral. I wasn’t like, really fan of anything but, of course, Ferrari is a really legendary brand and it was our first option [to go] into some Academy.”

“Now I’m together with FDA and it’s really good,” he smiles. “They’re pushing us really much on the FDA inside Maranello. It is really good to have that kind of coaches that are able to push us more.”

“We do a good amount of physical and mental training, also some media activities, a lot of different stuff,” he says, with “some Italian lessons as well.”

Photo: Kaisa Jalava

There was never any likelihood of Taponen ending up anywhere apart from Prema for his first full season in cars, and his dual F4 campaign in the United Arab Emirates and Italy was duly confirmed in December 2022.

While much of the media, and Ferrari itself, reported that he was making his single-seater debut in the opening F4 UAE round in Dubai, this was not in fact the case.

In 2021 and 2022 Taponen had entered three rounds of the Formula Academy championship back home in Finland, remaining unbeaten in all seven races he competed in.

After taking a double victory on his debut at the Kymiring in August 2021, he returned with the newly-established Koiranen Kemppi team to score a hat-trick on his next appearance ten months later at the Botniaring.

Another double in August 2022 at Alastaro rounded off his learning experience and maintained his 100% record.

“It helped me,” he says, “but to be honest, you can’t really call it a race because there are three or four cars on track and the [difference in the] level of drivers is quite big. But it was more having fun and making some laps again with the old F4 car.”

While the less pressured environment in Finland helped him “realise how big the car is,” and allowed him “to work on driving,” the step to the second-generation F4 car and the level of competition in Italy was a big challenge.

With his karting record and an intense testing schedule behind him, much was expected of Taponen in the UAE where he ran in the colours of the Mumbai Falcons team, operating with technical support from Prema, particularly when he topped pre-season testing in Dubai.

Even so, testing is one thing, a race weekend against more experienced rivals something else. Despite losing ground with a poor start in race one in Dubai, he came away with two second places and third in the early standings.

Photo: F4 UAE

“From my opinion, it was a bit surprising that I was able to set the good lap times immediately in the first practice of the year, of the season,” he admits. Not unsurprisingly, inexperience cost him a little in the races, leaving him with some “question marks” on how to “stay on the top with that pace.

“It wasn’t easy but immediately I improved for the next race [in Kuwait] and I improved a lot during that season in UAE,” he says.

The first weekend of the Kuwait Motor Town double-header netted another podium, but when the series returned three days later, he claimed his maiden win in second-generation F4 with a superb drive in race two, passing Ugochukwu and fellow Ferrari junior James Wharton in the process.

“It was a good feeling,” he says of the win, “I started in third place and overtook both my teammates. The speed was good. I was again improving all the time [which] was the key for winning.

“I didn’t improve that much the pace compared to the others but was just more experienced [in] racing situations.”

The highlight of his campaign came next time out back in Dubai as he headed both qualifying sessions and went on to take a hat-trick of victories, putting him within six points of Wharton ahead of the championship finale at Yas Marina.

“It was getting quite hot, so it was important to manage the tyres, not to push too much and was quite easy to be in the front. Of course, some safety cars helped me again to cool down the tyres a little, and just to be calm, to not do any mistakes.”

Ultimately, he had to settle for second in the championship after a disappointing weekend in Abu Dhabi ended with him and Wharton coming together in the final race, eliminating both drivers.

Taponen is philosophical about losing out on the title and says that both he and Ferrari were more than satisfied. “Our target was to improve. P2 in the championship was really good, a rookie win [comfortably beating Lindblad by 100 points]. I was still fighting until the last race but then I had a small accident. I was happy for that result, it was really good.”

Photo: F4 UAE

Taponen explains that he had had “no targets” from Ferrari ahead of the F4 UAE championship. “The most important thing was to learn and after the championship, all of the FDA guys were really happy with my result.”

Taponen has renewed his rivalry with Lindblad, Wharton and Ugochukwu in his primary campaign for this year, Italian F4, as all four line up together in a formidable Prema squad. Taponen is not phased by the tough competition: “Last year I did a really good amount of testing with the team at the end of the season and I did a really good improvement. And then this season what we did in UAE, although on different tyres.”

“I think I was able to be at their level already there, so why not also here in Italy, or even better.”

While the FDA has not set any specific “results expectation for me but, of course, I will do my best and they want me to do a best as well.”

Even though “the progress hasn’t been so good, to be honest,” he says that Ferrari “does not give me any pressure. They just say they want to see any improvement and decent results.”

Taponen has set himself a target of “winning the championship or at least [finishing in the] top three.”

After flying again in pre-season testing ahead of the start of the Italian championship, the opening round at Imola proved something of a trying experience as a poor qualifying left him scrambling for points in the races.

But he wouldn’t have to wait long for his maiden Italian victory, dominating from pole to win the opening race at Misano next time out.

Unfortunately, he has not been able to repeat that Misano victory, “for many different reasons,” he says.

“It is not at all as we expected,” he admits. “We thought the speed is going to be similar as it was in the winter championship in UAE. It’s been much more difficult for many different reasons and also some crashes that I have not able to avoid, but I just need to do my best and I think that’s enough,” he told Formula Scout just before the summer break.

Frustration at lack of results has, he believes, led him to start overthinking his racing and overdriving the car.

“Sometimes when you look at data or video you try to copy someone who is slightly faster and it makes driving more difficult. I try now to not overthink too much and just drive because it feels like, I’m trying to look at the data as much as possible. I’m trying to improve but sometimes it’s just not easy,” he concedes.

His frustration was evident at Spa-Francorchamps where he had a disastrous qualifying session, leaving him “speechless” after not finishing in the top six in any of the three races. “It’s feeling really difficult, and luck hasn’t been on my side as well. We need to analyse what’s the problem at the moment because, I know that we can be fast!”

But a strong performance at Paul Ricard, where he took two podiums and a fourth to climb back to fifth overall in the standings, brought a smile back to his face and left him feeling more positive for the season run-in.

And with the championship regulations allowing a driver to drop their five worst results, “everything is still open. We have two rounds left and it will be for sure a better rest of the season.”

He is enjoying “the preparation that we do before races [which is] much more than in karting. Normally in karting we just do a track walk and in F4 you do a sim, you look at some videos, some data, or you work on the setup already before you hit the track first time.”

“I’m learning all the time. And it’s always funny to see onboards from the different drivers and the different approach in the corners.”

“For me, the speed is really on the top, so we don’t need to worry about that. We need to just try to do the best and make sure everything is correct every time we go to the track.”

That he has the pace is surely not in doubt. While karting successes do not always translate into single-seater glory, three top-two finishes in karting’s world championship and his early F4 results demonstrate that he will bounce back from these early setbacks.

Having mapped out a clear career path via Formula Regional in 2024, FIA Formula 3 in 2026, Formula 2 in 2028 and Formula 1 in 2030, the quietly-spoken but determined Finn is a young driver in a hurry.

CV

Age 16
D/O/B October 26, 2006
Country Finland

Car racing
2023: 2nd in F4 UAE (4 wins, 2 poles, 2 fastest laps), currently 5th overall in Italian F4 (1 win, 1 pole) and 2nd in rookie standings; 10th in Euro 4

Karting
2022: 2nd in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK and 9th in CIK-FIA World Championship – KZ, 3rd in WSK Euro Series – OK, 4th in WSK Super Master Series, 6th in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK, 12th in Champions of the Future – OK
2021: 1st in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK, 1st in WSK Open Cup – OK, 4th in Champions of the Future – OK, 4th in WSK Super Master Series – OK, 4th in WSK Champions Cup – OK, 6th in WSK Euro Series – OK, 9th in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK, 1st in Finnish championship – OK
2020: 2nd in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK-Junior, 3rd in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK-J, 4th in WSK Open Cup – OK, 5th in WSK Euro Series – OK-J, 13th in WSK Super Master Series, 1st in Finnish championship – OK-J
2019: 5th in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK-J, 18th in WSK Final Cup – OK-J, 33rd in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK-J, 1st in Finnish championship – OK-J
2018: 13th in FIA Academy Trophy, 17th in Rotax Challenge Grand Finals – Rotax Junior, 3rd in Finnish championship – OK-J
2017: 1st in Finnish championship – Raket 95

The post Scout Report: Tuukka Taponen appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: YACademy Winter Series

Formula 4 once again kick-started the careers of a large number of drivers this year, in series across the globe. Ida Wood runs through the FIA series, and some of the lesser-known championships too

Most of the plaudits in Formula 4 this year went to the dominators of the three most high-profile series. Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli crushed the opposition in ADAC and Italian F4, Alex Dunne took British F4 honours despite missing the final round and Fernando Alonso protege Nikola Tsolov, a car racing debutant, dominated Spanish F4.

Another junior who took a big title win was Honda’s Syun Koide. He won nine races out of 14 in Japanese F4, and has been rewarded with drives in Super Formula Lights and Super GT300 for 2023.

Fellow Honda junior Yusuke Mitsui left the opening round (which attracted 42 cars) as championship leader with a victory and a second place despite starting no higher than sixth. Koide took pole for race one, but contact with team-mate Kazuma Nishimura led to a spin and retirement.

That put Koide on the back foot, but he responded by winning the next five races at Fuji Speedway and Suzuka to take the points lead. He got pole in round three at Fuji based on topping free practice, as qualifying was cancelled due to fog.

Mitsui reclaimed the lead on the return to Suzuka with two wins and two poles, despite feeling ill pre-event, while Koide had to pull off some brave overtakes to finish second twice.

Toyota junior Jin Nakamura was the star driver at Sportsland SUGO, finishing second in race one behind Koide who retook the points lead. Nakamura claimed pole for race two, although lost the lead on lap one to team-mate Rikuto Kobayashi.

The safety car then came out, and Koide passed Nakamura for second before the restart which resulted in a drive-through penalty. He did assume the lead for a while as Kobayashi locked up several times and fell down the order, and only after taking his penalty did Nakamura inherit first place and the win. Mitsui finished second, and moved back ahead in the championship.

Photo: Japanese F4

Koide bounced back with a near-perfect Autopolis weekend, and went into the final round 14 points ahead.

Kobayashi set the qualifying pace at the Twin Ring Motegi finale, with Koide on the front row for both races. He converted pole into an assured first win in race one, with Koide in second and Mitsui fourth.

A huge crash meant the title decider was neutralised almost instantly, and once racing resumed the top two broke away. Koide took several attempts before passing Kobayashi, and victory secured him the title.

Kobayashi meanwhile lost further ground, making contact with Mitsui on the last lap and finishing sixth. Behind the winner were Arakawa, Miyashita, Mitsui and Nakamura.

Even more dominant was Chinese F4 champion Gerrard Xie, who won 12 races out of 14. In most races he was simply untouchable, even the reversed-grid ones. Crashing out of the fourth race at Ningbo was his first non-win, and the next was the Macau Grand Prix where the 16-year-old finished second to the vastly more experienced Andy Chang.

His title success should have earned him a scholarship to race in Formula Regional Middle East, but that hadn’t been finalised by mid-December and it is yet to be announced if he will indeed be on the FRegional grid next month.

He also won the Formula Renault Super Challenge series in China, although his crowning is yet to be confirmed as the final round was cancelled and a replacement round then remained perpetually in the works.

This year the United States added another F4 series to its already expansive list, but some continued to have huge grids.

The national championship had an average entry list size of 21 cars, and the title was won by Jay Howard Driver Development’s Lochie Hughes.

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Multiple drivers fought for victory in the opening race at NOLA Motorsports Park, and 2019 Australian F4 runner-up Hughes won. Bryson Morris hunted down then pulled away from Matt Christensen to win race two, and F4 returnee Nicholas Rivers handled two safety car restarts and being passed by Noah Ping in race three on his route to victory.

At Road America, Hughes and Christensen fought hard for the race one win and the latter took the lead for the final time with around the outside at the penultimate corner of the race. He repeated that triumph in race two, then Ping won race three.

Morris won the opener at Mid-Ohio, with Hughes claiming the next race but denying himself a double by spinning in race three. He minimised the points loss by finishing fifth, helped by further drama among the lead group of seven, and Ping passed Morris to win.

There was another victory-costing error for Hughes at New Jersey Motorsports Park. He looked to have converted pole into victory in race one, but he was handed a five-second post-race penalty as was deemed to have accelerated too early on a rolling restart which came about when the race was red flagged following a crash between Ping and Gabriel Fonseca. Hughes redeemed himself by winning the next two.

Morris took a small bite out of Hughes’ points lead at Virginia International Raceway, where the big story was that two of the races only counted for half-points due to a lack of racing under green flag conditions.

The top two were close going into the final round at Circuit of the Americas, but a penalty for Morris in race one – won by Ping – put the ball in Hughes’ court for the final two races. He made the most of it, winning both to become champion.

Rivalling US F4 was USF Juniors, the new Anderson Promotions series created to be a feeder series to USF2000. The 2021 US F4 runner-up Mac Clark shuffled across and promptly won the first four races and the title, with Velocity Racing Development’s Sam Corry and Nikita Johnson being his closest rivals across the season.

Jack Holmes won F4 Western and Jack Zheng won its winter series, while Johnson won the YACademy Winter Series at the start of the year. US F4 also launched a sister Formula Development series aimed at 14-year-olds, but it usually only attracted one car: JHDD’s Eric Wisniewski.

Like Formula Race Promotion’s short-lived F4 Eastern, Parella Motorsports Holdings has not commented on if FDevelopment will run for a second year.

Down in Mexico, Juan Felipe Pedraza comfortably won the NACAM F4 championship as the series returned after a year spent entirely running non-championship events. Four of the six rounds were at the Mexico City F1 track, although Pedraza won just as many races elsewhere. After the season, there was also a non-championship event in Mexico City where Pedro Juan Moreno won all three races. The results only listed three cars taking part, although those present said there were more.

Even further south in the Americas, Brazilian F4 was launched (and the only American series to use a Gen2 F4 car) while Argentinian F4 came to an unexplained end after just one season of action that had been many years in the planning.

The Brazilian series looks like it has a far securer future thanks to its relationship with the popular Stock Car Brasil series, and its inaugral season was won by the prodigious Pedro Clerot. Despite cars being rotated between drivers as an equality measure, Clerot was simply unmatchable through much of the campaign and he won seven races.

His rivals included champion karters Lucas Staico and Vinícius Tessaro, ex-F1 driver Rubens Barrichello’s son Fernando and nephew Felipe, and recently signed Ferrari junior Aurelia Nobels.

Hugh Barter was the most successful driver in French F4 this year, but the Australian’s parralel campaign in Spanish F4 meant he was ineligible to score at Spa-Francorchamps and Valencia, where he claimed four wins, two poles and five fastest laps. He claimed six wins elsewhere, while champion Alessandro Giusti only netted two wins but was consistently on the podium.

Photo: Ida Wood

Honda junior Souta Arao was a title outsider for some time and came third in the standings, and along with Barter and Romain Andriolo was one of the winners on the streets of Pau. French F4 was the only series to use Mygale’s new Gen2 car.

The Danish F4 title probably would have gone to Formula 5 driver Mads Hoe once again if he had wanted to do the full season, but instead the series veteran – who is now focusing on web development as well as running his own team – skipped two rounds and still came third in the standings with six wins.

Runner-up Sebastian Gravlund also missed a round as he doubled up in Spanish F4, so rookie Julius Dinesen ended up becoming champion with four race wins through the season. Another particularly impressive driver was 14-year-old South African Mika Arabhams, who missed the first races but went on to take two wins and come fourth in the standings.

Further north, fellow first-generation F4 series Formula Academy Finland continued to share its grids with old Formula 3 cars and it had a small but talented grid of drivers.

Leevi Vappula emerged from the opening event at Kemora as championship leader, having shared the wins at Alexi Jalava and Iker Oikarinen. Having made a cameo in the series in 2021, World Karting champion Tuukka Taponen joined for round two at Botniaring and he won all three races.

The next event was cancelled, and round three eventually took place at Alastaro at the end of August. Taponen took pole and dominated both races, but then didn’t appear again.

A week later the rest of the field was back in action at the same track, with Oikarinen heading Vappula in qualifying. Jalava came through to win the opening race, then Oikarinen struck back in race two and took an assured 6.274-second win in race three.

The title fight ebbed and flowed, and Vappula emerged on top in the Ahvenisto finale. Jalava took pole, and beat the F3 cars to take overall victory in the first race, then Oikarinen was the top F4 driver in race two. Jalava won again in the final race, and therefore came second in the Formula Open Finland standings (Jalava 227 points, Oikarinen 206, Vappula 205). However taking the F3 cars out of the picture, and still using the Finnish points system rather than the regular FIA one, then the Academy standings had a different look.

There’s no doubt Taponen would have swept the floor had he done the full season, and as another new Ferrari junior he’s now off to Italian F4 with Prema.

2022 FAcademy Finland standings

The post The Formula 4 title battles you might have missed in 2022 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Alexi Jalava Racing

Alexi Jalava moved ahead in Formula Academy Finland points in round four at Alastaro as he picked up his second win of the season.

The youngster qualified third behind Iker Oikarinen and Leevi Vappula, who made a great start to take the lead at the beginning of race one. The lead trio ran closely together until lap six of 15, when Oikarinen tried passing Vappula at turn one but could not pull it off and then got demoted to third by Jalava at the end of the back straight.

Oikarinen reclaimed second on lap nine with a move that ended in contact, then two laps after that he was pressuring Vappula for the lead. He managed to get through on lap 12, and Jalava also passed Vappula a lap later on the back straight.

Going into the final two laps the top three were still extremely close, and Jalava took the lead with a dive that send Oikarinen deep and allowed Vappula back into second. At the final corner Oikarinen came back through with his own diving pass, but Vappula returned the fact as they reached turn one for the final time.

In the end it was Jalava who won, and Oikarinen got back into second as a Formula 3 car competing for Formula Open Finland honours passed Vappula in a way that forced him wide and enabled Oikarinen to get through.

Jalava started on pole ahead of Vappula for race two, but Oikarinen was in second place by turn two and at the start of lap three he took the lead from Jalava down the inside of turn one. After a few more laps he had built a lead of 1.4 seconds, as Jalava started to come under pressure from Vappula.

The positions did not change, and Jalava was able to finish just 0.94s behind Oikarinen. Further back, Joonas Jaaskelainen held off Nestori Virtala in their battle for fifth.

Jalava had pole again for race three, ahead of Oikarinen and staller Vappula. That left Jalava and Oikarinen to fight for the win, although it was more of a one-sided race this time as Oikainen got through on lap one and then pulled away by 6.274s.

Vappula qucioly recovered to third, but any further progress was stunted by being held up by an F3 car, a problem Jaaskelainen and Virtala also had later in the race.

Results round-up
Race 1 (15 laps)
1 Alexi Jalava Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport 19m41.579s
2 Iker Oikarinen Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport +1.794s
3 Leevi Vappula Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport +2.744s
4 Joonas Jaaskelainen J.O.E Racing Team +3.048s
5 Nestori Virtala privateer +9.917s
Pole: Oikarinen, 1m16.348s
Fastest lap: Jalava, 1m16.972s

Race 2 (15 laps)
1 Oikarinen 19m26.997s
2 Jalava +0.940s
3 Vappula +4.893s
4 Jaaskelainen +16.182s
5 Virtala +18.841s
FL: Jalava, 1m16.684s

Race 3 (15 laps)
1 Oikarinen 19m31.279s
2 Jalava +6.274s
3 Vappula +14.923s
4 Jaaskelainen +25.485s
5 Virtala +27.801s
FL: Oikarinen, 1m17.303s

Championship standings
1 Jalava 197   2 Vappula 184   3 Oikarinen 180   4 Tuukka Taponen 125   5 Jaaskelainen 114   6 Virtala 74

The post Jalava moves ahead in FAcademy Finland at Alastaro appeared first on Formula Scout.

The factory Tony Kart driver made his car racing debut in the series last August, winning both races at Kymiring, then didn’t appear again until signing to race with Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport for this weekend.

He claimed pole for the Formula 4 series by 0.625 seconds over team-mate Iker Oikarinen, then won by 0.443 seconds in race one.

Fellow Koiranen driver Leevi Vappula had passed Taponen early in the 14-lap race, and held on in front until lap 10 when Taponen finally got back past. He then stayed on his tail as they lapped two Formula Historic cars they were sharing the grid with, but couldn’t find a place to make a move back.

Koiranen’s fourth driver Alexi Jalava rounded out the podium, almost 14s back, while Oikarinen retired on lap seven.

Taponen started on F4 pole and fourth overall on the grid in race two, as there were three of Formula Open Finland’s Formula 3 cars ahead, and a mega start by Vappula from fifth on the grid put him into the lead ahead of Jalava, while Taponen dropped back behind Oikarinen.

Vappula comfortably led the race’s first half, but once Taponen had clear air in second place he closed in by a few tenths of a second per lap until lap eight where Vappula upped his pace in response. That wasn’t enough, as Taponen got by on lap nine and had brought Oikarinen with him.

The top three ran closely to the end, with Taponen victorious by 0.320s and Oikarinen only 0.428s off second place. Jalava was a few seconds back in fourth, and Joonas Jaaskelainen, driving for the Koiranen-supported J.O.E Racing Team, was a very distant fifth.

Oikarinen and Jalava were the top two F4 cars on the race three grid, followed by Vappula and Taponen.

A slow start for Oikarinen meant Jalava went straight past and Taponen latched onto his rear at the first corner. In the middle of lap one however, Oikarinen was able to reclaim top spot.

Taponen passed Jalava down the inside of the turn 12 hairpin on lap five, and had a 1.557s gap to make up on the leader. That margin didn’t initially decrease, but as Oikarinen got lapped by FOpen leader Jussi Kuivakangas it enabled Taponen to rapdily close in. On the penultimate lap he had the better run through the fast turn 10 but there wasn’t room to make a move at turn 11.

He then tried the dummy at turn 12, but at the turn 13 kink Oikarinen came across the front of Taponen and spun into the grass. He was able to continue far back in third, while Taponen wrapped up his third win.

Results round-up
Race 1 (14 laps)
1 Tuukka Taponen Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport 22m30.061s
2 Leevi Vappula Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport +0.443s
3 Alexi Jalava Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport +13.715s
4 Joonas Jaaskelainen J.O.E Racing Team +28.737s
5 Nestori Virtala privateer +1 lap
Ret Iker Oikarinen Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport
Pole: Taponen, 1m34.293s
Fastest lap: Taponen, 1m34.627s

Race 2 (12 laps)
1 Taponen 19m21.054s
2 Vappula +0.320s
3 Oikarinen +0.748s
4 Jalava +3.103s
5 Jaaskelainen +29.270s
6 Virtala +41.107s
FL: Oikarinen, 1m35.024s

Race 3 (12 laps)
1 Taponen 19m19.133s
2 Jalava +1.999s
3 Oikarinen +8.316s
4 Vappula +21.590s
5 Jaaskelainen +26.036s
6 Virtala +40.120s
FL: Taponen, 1m34.903s

Championship standings
1 Vappula 109   2 Jalava 100   3 Oikarinen 88   4 Taponen 75   5 Jaaskelainen 68   6 Virtala 26

The post World Karting champion Tuukka Taponen takes triple win on F4 return appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Leevi Vappula

Formula Academy Finland, the nation’s first-generation Formula 4 championship, began this weekend at Kemora and it was Leevi Vappula who took the points lead.

As in 2021, the small grid was combined with three cars from the Formula 3-led Formula Open Finland series for its races, and it was the F3 cars that led the way in qualifying courtesy of reigning FAcademy Finland champion Jussi Kuivakangas.

Iker Oikarinen was 1.370 seconds back in third place and as the top F4 runner, and was 0.254s faster than 2021 title runner-up Vappula.

Kuivakangas stalled and fellow front row man Rasmus Karenmaa was slow off the line too, meaning Oikarinen had to take avoiding action as he launched away. Vappula streaked past but the greater speed of the F3 cars meant Karenmaa was ahead into the first braking zone and Kuivakangas locked up to stay in third ahead of Oikarinen.

After a few laps Vappula was demoted to third, with Karenmaa way out up front. Vappula’s gap over Oikarinen had grown to over four seconds by the middle of the race, and he moved up to second overall when Karenmaa retired.

Kuivakangas’s car then ground to a halt on the penultimate lap, making Vappula overall victor by 1.769s from the chasing Oikarinen.

Fastest lap put Alexi Jalava on F4 pole for race two, but he stalled and Vappula directly behind squirmed through at the start to be the top car in class. Jalava recovered one spot from Oikarinen at turn one, and the trio went three-wide as the F3 pair raced away.

Vappula held on to the lead but had Jalava in his mirrors for several laps until he dived down the inside of the banked turn six hairpin. Oikarinen was just behind, but the order then went unchanged and oonas Jaaskelainen got put a lap down by FOpen winner Kuivakangas.

Another fastest lap put Jalava on F4 pole again for race three ahead of Vappula, with Oikarinen and Jaaskelainen at the back of the seven-car grid. Vappula had to avoid a stalling Karenmaa ahead of him but emerged second overall and with the FAcademy lead at turn one.

Oikarinen managed to get past Jalava before the end of the lap and chased Vappula, but it never looked like a move for the lead was on until lap five when he surprised Vappula by going around his outside at turn six.

Jalava almost immediately then put Vappula under pressure, which gave Oikarinen a bit of breathing room, and the recovering Karenmaa coming through helped Oikarinen too. After a few laps the top three were all in line again though, and Oikarinen had his mirrors until the end but held on to win.

Results
Race 1 (17 laps)
1 Leevi Vappula 19m07.686s
2 Iker Oikarinen +1.769s
3 Alexi Jalava +12.716s
4 Joonas Jaaskelainen +1m03.611s
Pole: Oikarinen, 1m05.663s
Fastest lap: Jalava, 1m06.060s

Race 2 (17 laps)
1 Jalava 18m56.553s
2 Vappula +1.526s
3 Oikarinen +2.141s
4 Jaaskelainen +1 lap
FL: Jalava, 1m05.748s

Race 3 (17 laps)
1 Oikarinen 19m03.185s
2 Vappula +0.554s
3 Jalava +0.910s
4 Jaaskelainen +22.825s
FL: Jalava, 1m06.212s

Championship standings
1 Vappula 61   2 Oikarinen 58   3 Jalava 55   4 Jaaskelainen 36

The post Leevi Vappula leads Formula Academy Finland opener at Kemora appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Japanese F4

Formula 4 once again kick-started the careers of a large number of drivers this year, in series across the globe. Ida Wood runs through the FIA series, and some of the lesser-known championships too

Since 2014, F4 has grown and grown to become the de facto entry point for single-seaters. There’s series taking place on four continents, and Ollie Bearman won the two biggest this year. You can read our review of his double triumph here, and about his fellow trophy recipients at the FIA Prize Giving Gala below…

In a championship where gaps between cars can sometimes balloon on narrow circuits, it has to be said that Japanese F4 was the most hard-fought F4 series of this year.

Honda bowed out of the series at the end of 2019 after doing the title double for the second year in a row, and Toyota slotted in with its own junior team in 2020 and promptly won. It wasn’t a big surprise that Honda returned for 2021 to fight its rival.

Toyota had four drivers to Honda’s three, and the stability of a line-up mostly carried over from the previous season, but the experienced Kakunoshin Ohta led the Honda trio and it looked tough to call who could come out on top.

Newly-signed Toyota junior Rin Arakawa drew first blood by taking pole for race one of the Fuji Speedway season opener, but was handed a seven-place grid penalty for repeated track limits violations and it resulted in Honda’s Iori Kimura and Syun Koide filling the front row.

They turned that it onto a one-two finish ahead of Toyota’s Seita Nonaka, who was pipped to race two pole by Koide but had the path cleared for him to win when Kimura spun around Koide at the first corner. Honda’s hopes totally expired when Ohta locked up, spun and hit Toyota’s Eijirou Shimizu before plummeting down the order.

Shimizu fought hard to then complete a Toyota 1-2-3, and it may have been the race that ultimately cost Honda title glory.

Round two was a triple-header at Twin Ring Motegi. OTG Motor Sports’ Reimei Ito edged Nonaka to pole, but the latter dominated all three races to leave with a massive 47-point lead over team-mate Arakawa.

Honda was back on top on its home soil of Suzuka, with Kimura winning twice on the road. He kept his wet race one triumph, but a five-second penalty for a strong defence against Nonaka on a safety car restart cost him race two victory to Arakawa.

He didn’t let that knock him back, as Honda was in form again at Sportsland SUGO. Koide won race one, Kimura held off Ito to win race two, then was on course for race three victory too but got pinged for the same offence as at Suzuka and the resultant drive-through penalty left him down in 26th while Ito got his maiden win and OTG’s first since 2018.

Kimura was 18 points behind championship leader Nonaka at this stage, but aggressive driving earned him a win on the second trip to Motegi and cut that gap down to five points.

Arakawa claimed pole for race two of that weekend, but had Nonaka and Kimura overtake him on lap one. He soon led again though as they collided, and Arakawa went on to take the win and points lead.

Nonaka retired immediately, while Kimura dropped out of the top 15 but charged back up to ninth.

The final round took place at Fuji, and Ito took a double pole. Nonaka beat him to victory in race one, setting up a Arakawa-led showdown with Nonaka and Kimura for the title in race two.

Ito made a great launch from pole, as Arakawa and Nonaka went side-by-side into turn one. Kimura made it three-wide at turn two and snatched second, with Koide also passing Arakawa.

The safety car was then summoned after Dragon went off; Nonaka now leading the championship. On the restart Ito jumped away again, while the manufacturer juniors went four-wide behind.

Arakawa braked super late on the inside to go from fifth to second, but had a few corners of fighting Nonaka after. A four-car battle formed again before safety car boards were shown for a collision.

Ito immediately jinking right down the pit straight on the restart, but Arakawa went further right and braked late again. Both went deep, he led and Ito went behind Nonaka and briefly Kimura too.

Kimura slipstreamed past Ito, and Koide passed too, on the next lap while Nonaka chased leader Arakawa. After several attempted moved he passed him under braking at turn one on the penultimate lap, putting him back in the points lead.

The late braking brought the Honda juniors back into it too. Ito made a lunge, Ohta passed Kimura for third then got passed back, but Nonaka held on to win the race and title.

In the non-FIA JAF Japan F4, Seiya Motojima won the 10-race, seven-round season despite missing four of the races. He won every single race he turned up to, and was unbeaten in qualifying too.

The ‘Special Battle’ event at Suzuka that ended the year didn’t go Motojima’s way. He took pole and dominated the semi-final, but hit trouble on the penultimate lap of the final and retired, leaving Satoshi Kato to gladfully take the win instead. In Japanese F4 he didn’t have too much success either with Saccess Racing, coming ninth in the standings with one podium.

Kohei Tokumasu was title runner-up in JAF on dropped scores, finishing second five times after missing round one. The driver who lost out as a result was Hammer Izawa, who won at Motegi in Motojima’s absence and outscored Motojima too but had to drop 20 points after always finishing in the top four. He did however claim the F4 Association’s ‘Grand Champion’ title.

Rest of Asia

Photo: F4UAE

The year started with a ding-dong battle between Dilano van’t Hoff and Enzo Trulli in F4 United Arab Emirates, eventually won by Trulli after holding off van’t Hoff for third place in the final race of the season. Trulli went on to Euroformula, while van’t Hoff moved across to Spanish F4 where he dominated.

For the second year running Chinese F4 was beset by multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but did include the Macau Grand Prix again and was often dominated by the guesting Charles Leong. His fellow Macanese Andy Chang became champion, with one win from 10 races, while Leong won all six of the races he started.

There should have been a South East Asian series in action too after the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 season, but lockdown periods and travel restrictions prevented F4 SEA from returning and it now targets a 2022 comeback.

Europe

The tastiest rivalry in Europe ended up in court, as French F4 title contenders Esteban Masson and Maceo Capietto collided on the last lap of the season. Capietto was initially champion, but was then excluded from the Magny-Cours season finale and that gave the crown to Masson. That punishment was appealed by Capietto’s father, but it was not upheld in the national court of appeal of the French governing body FFSA earlier this month and Masson was confirmed as champion ahead of Australian Hugh Barter and Capietto.

• Feature: Why a former Grosjean rival made a brief French F4 return at Monza

Masson won six races in the centrally-run series, while Barter won twice – including the controversial title-deciding race, and Capietto was classified as the first placed finisher on four occasions but also got the points for victory from two Monza races where guest driver Elliott Vayron (who has recently tested with Drivex School in Spanish F4) won. French F4 Junior champion Alessandro Giusti won twice and made the overall podium four other times.

Photo: FFSA/KSP

Behind van’t Hoff in Spanish F4 was ex-Danish F4 racer Sebastian Ogaard, who led Campos Racing’s first attack at F4, and his team-mate Pepe Marti was third in the standings with two wins from his rookie campaign. He’s linked to a move straight up to FIA Formula 3 for 2022.

• Feature: How Spanish F4 boomed in 2021, and what it has planned next

Juju Noda brought a lot of eyes to Danish F4 again this year, after a very brief attempt at United States F4 with Jay Howard Driver Development that is understood to have ended before even making her race debut there in part due to a technical controversy the team had been involved in the year before in the series.

Noda’s battles with Sauber junior Emmo Fittipaldi, and their ex-Formula 1 racer parents’ responses to those, caught the headlines but the real star of the series were Mads Hoe – who won the title in a Formula 5 car in addition to running his own team – and Noah Stromsted who missed the first third of the season but debuted less than a month after turning 14 and won on his debut. A further eight wins propelled him to the title runner-up spot.

Jussi Kuivakangas was Formula Academy Finland champion after technical issues took down one of his rivals in the season finale. He sealed the deal with a dominant win over his other rival in the title-deciding race. Earlier in the season there was a starring cameo from single-seater debutant Tuukka Taponen, whose primary focus next year will be karting, under the watchful eye of Ferrari, despite winning his first two races in cars.

The Austrian F4 Cup was won by 17-year-old Patrick Schober, who has been racing single-seaters since 2018. While he rarely had any more than one on-track rival, and did miss the season finale, the Red Bull Ring round was contested by ADAC F4 drivers and British F4 champion Luke Browning took a double win.

The Americas

Photo: NACAM F4

Noel Leon followed up his 2020 NACAM F4 crown with the United States F4 title, but he had no successor to his first triumph. For reasons still not fully understood by those competing, the NACAM season was turned into a four-round calendar of non-championship events in Mexico and the USA and concluding with a support slot at F1’s Mexico City Grand Prix.

You can read about the confusion the loss of championship status caused here, as well as the full story and results from a season that won’t go down in the history books besides being a footnote in the oddly-advertised Formula USA.

The USA had several regional and winter series in action too.

Nine wins from 12 races meant William Ferguson cruised to the F4 Western title, after being runner-up last year. Before that, Nick Persing won the F4 Western Winter Series ahead of Ryan Yardley, with both then stepping up to Formula Regional Americas and making the podium.

On the other side of the USA a poorly-contested F4 Eastern series, from the organisation behind the Atlantics series, came into existence and it went the way of Christian Weir. An average grid size of 3.4 gave the Turn 3 Motorsport driver not much of a challenge, but the then-14-year-old made the podium in both of his US F4 appearances and performed well in USF2000.

He debuted in YACademy Winter Series, which is becoming the official winter series of the Road to Indy’s new-for-2022 F4 championship USF Juniors and is helmed by IMSA race-winner Gustavo Yacaman.

Nico Christodoulou edged Mac Clark to the title of the two-round series, and they went on to finish fourth and second in US F4 respectively. Weir came seventh and Noda was 11th in the standings.

F4 returned to South America in 2021 via the new Argentinian F4 championship, won by some margin by Federico Hermida. His points gap was huge, but the races were often very closely fought.

More on international F4
The route Bearman took to his momentous F4 title double
The question that has led Mucke Motorsport to leave single-seaters
ADAC F4’s record low grid explained, and why it will be a one-off
The youngest ever winners in FIA F4

The post The Formula 4 title battles you might have missed in 2021 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Facebook.com/jussikuivanangasracing

Jussi Kuivakangas was crowned the 2021 Formula Academy Finland champion with victory in the final race of the season at Alastaro.

The weekend started with pole for Kuivakangas, but he was pipped to victory by Leevi Vappula in race one and by a slim margin of just 0.589 seconds.

Title contender Henri Saaskilahti didn’t take part, as car issues plagued his weekend. The technical trouble struck early, preventing him from setting a lap in qualifying and initially meaning he was to start race one from the back of the grid.

“Unfortunately we didn’t manage to start the race,” he said after race one’s conclusion, and with no fix on his car.

“This is the end of the season. Due to the technical problrms of the last race the position in the series has dropped down to third. Thanks to rubintor racing for the season.”

It was the same for race two the next day, with Saaskilahti unable to get on track. Kuivakangas ended the season with a dominant win in the wet, putting half a minute between himself and Vappula in second place to win the title.

Nestori Virtala finished a lap down in third place, his gap to the front coming down to the series sharing its grid with the faster Formula 3 cars of Formula Open Finland. The result moved Virtala up to fourth in the standings ahead of the absent Nikita Alexandrov.

Over in Mexico, the NACAM F4 series should have been racing at Queretaro this weekend for its first points-scoring round of the year after two non-championship rounds in the United States. However it was called off, and now the series is set to hold its third event of 2021 – and only ‘official’ one – in support of Formula 1’s Mexico City Grand Prix on November 5-7.

NACAM F4’s CEO Flavio Abed told Formula Scout that the three-race round could award points for what would essentially be a ‘NACAM F4 Cup’ given one round alone does not qualify to make it a championship this year.

FAcademy Finland results
Race 1 (18 laps)
1 Leevi Vappula 22m58.767s
2 Jussi Kuivakangas +0.589s
3 Nestori Virtala +1 lap
DNS Henri Saaskilahti
Pole: Kuivakangas, 1m25.171s
Fastest lap: Vappula, 1m15.439s

Race 2 (15 laps)
1 Kuivakangas 22m05.278s
2 Vappula +38.710s
3 Virtala +1 lap
DNS Saaskilahti
FL: Kuivakangas, 1m27.126s

Championship standings
1 Kuivakangas 183   2 Vappula 170   3 Saaskilahti 125   4 Virtala 108   5 Nikita Alexandrov 99   6 Tuukka Taponen 50   7 Arto Ojaranta 37

The post F4 round-up: Kuivakangas wins Finnish title, NACAM season reset appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: FIA Karting / KSP

Tony Kart driver Tuukka Taponen made the perfect start to his single-seater career with a double win in Formula Academy Finland’s first visit to Kymiring.

The FIA Grade 1 track is set to join the MotoGP calendar in 2022 but is yet to host a major motorsport event since opening two years ago.

Taponen has done several tests in Formula 4 cars ahead of his FAcademy Finland debut, and was recently in a Ferrari Driver Academy scouting camp. He usually races in Finland’s national karting championship and came ninth in this year’s CIK-FIA European Karting Championship in OK karts.

In qualifying it was fellow karting graduate Leevi Vappula who set the pace, and he and Taponen diced for victory in race one. Taponen triumphed by two seconds, and the podium was completed by Henri Saaskilahti who finished over 11s behind.

Saaskilahti had to do a full brake change between sessions early in the weekend, and said “it was pretty hard to get the feeling for them” as he qualified third before finishing in the same position.

To take that spot he had to hold off championship leader Jussi Kuivakangas.

The top four was the same again in race two, but this time Taponen looked more confident up front and put almost five seconds between himself and Vappula to win. Taking the runner-up spot under pressure from Saaskilahti actually lifted Vappula past him to second place in the standings, while fifth-placed Nikita Alexandrov remains in title contention going into next month’s Alastaro season finale.

Results
Race 1 (13 laps)
1 Tuukka Taponen 24m01.347s
2 Leevi Vappula +2.296s
3 Henri Saaskilahti +11.492s
4 Jussi Kuivakangas +12.523s
5 Nikita Alexandrov +25.665s
6 Nestori Virtala +1 lap
Pole: Vappula, 1m48.786s
Fastest lap: Taponen, 1m49.713s

Race 2 (13 laps)
1 Taponen 23m51.821s
2 Vappula +4.917s
3 Saaskilahti +5.452s
4 Kuivakangas +16.118s
5 Alexandrov +16.838s
6 Virtala +1 lap
FL: Taponen, 1m48.790s

Championship standings
1 Kuivakangas 140   2 Vappula 127   3 Saaskilahti 125   4 Alexandrov 99   5 Virtala 78   6 Taponen 50   7 Arto Ojaranta 37

The post Tony Kart’s Tuukka Taponen wins on F4 debut at Kymiring appeared first on Formula Scout.

Championship leader Jussi Kuivakangas set the pace in qualifying, taking pole by just 0.099 seconds ahead of Alexandrov.

Henri Saaskilahti was 0.696s off the pace in third place, ahead of Vappula and Nestori Virtala who did not set a representative lap.

Rain that came and went through Saturday meant the choice of tyres for race one was left until the final moments, with grooved tyres the option that came out on top. The track itself ended up not being too wet, and there was a lead quartet of cars for much of the race before Vappula made an error that plunged him back.

Kuivakangas lost his pole advantage but stayed with the close battle between Alexandrov and Saaskilahti for victory. Alexandrov triumphed by just 0.289s to finally take his first win, having raced in the series in 2018 and then been title runner-up in 2019 but never made the top step of the podium.

Saaskilahti in second place held an advantage of just 0.343s over Kuivakangas (who opted for slicks) in third, while Vappula dropped 14s and Virtala was lapped by the winner in Formula Open Finland (which shared its grid with FAcademy Finland and had Formula 3 cars competing).

Race two took place in torrential rain, and Vappula made use of having no spray to worry about to lead from the front and take victory on his sixth start in single-seaters. The young Finn is also embarking on a rookie campaign in senior karting.

In second place, and less than a second behind with almost zero visibility ahead of him, was Alexandrov. He was battling with Saaskilahti until he “tried to overtake on the last lap and locked all four wheels on braking from a speed of 180kph and went off the track”.

Saaskilahti managed to recover his car to finish almost 12s back in fourth while Kuivakangas maintained his points lead by taking third place.

Results round-up
Race 1 (12 laps)
1 Nikita Alexandrov 23m19.856s
2 Henri Saaskilahti +0.289s
3 Jussi Kuivakangas +0.632s
4 Leevi Vappula +14.434s
5 Nestori Virtala +1 lap
Pole: Kuivakangas, 1m49.174s
Fastest lap: Alexandrov, 1m44.201s

Race 2 (11 laps)
1 Vappula 23m19.036s
2 Alexandrov +0.726s
3 Kuivakangas +3.274s
4 Saaskilahti +11.736s
5 Virtala +27.088s
FL: Kuivakangas, 1m53.390s

Championship standings
1 Kuivakangas 116   2 Saaskilahti 95   3 Vappula 91   4 Alexandrov 79   5 Virtala 62   6 Arto Ojaranta 37

The post Alexandrov and Vappula take first FAcademy Finland wins at Botniaring appeared first on Formula Scout.