Photo: Penske Entertainment / Paul Hurley

HMD Motorsports has announced it has added Formula Regional graduate Jack Beeton to its Indy Nxt line-up for 2026.

The 17-year-old Australian came 13th in FRegional’s European and Middle East championships this year, claiming two sixth place finishes in the former and a victory in the latter.

He had spent two packed years in Formula 4 prior to that. Becoming F4 South East Asia champion was the highlight of his 2023, in which he contested three other series, then he was Italian F4 runner-up, eighth in E4, 10th in Formula Winter Series and 12th in F4 United Arab Emirates in 2024.

“I’m excited to join HMD Motorsports and take the next step in my career,” said Beeton.

“Competing in the Indy Nxt series will be an important challenge, and I’m looking forward to gaining experience and building on the open-wheel success I’ve had so far. The team has already made me feel at home, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Beeton jumps up from single-seaters’ fourth tier to IndyCar’s primary feeder series, and gained experience of Indy Nxt’s car from the championship’s official driver evaluation test at Autobahn Country Club in September then in this week’s post-season test on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course. His career is overseen by Nicolas Todt’s All Road Management firm.

“Jack showed impressive pace during his first outing with us at the driver evaluation test,” said HMD’s team president Mike Maurini said. “[He] is a proven race winner at every level of his motorsports journey, and he has a bright career ahead of him. He has already shown the focus and determination needed to take on this challenge, and we’re confident in his ability to continue learning and developing with the team.”

The next outing for Beeton will be in a test on November 10 at Barber Motorsports Park. He will be one of four HMD drivers next season, and is the first to be announced.

The post Jack Beeton to leap up to Indy Nxt with HMD Motorsports appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: FRME

Mumbai Falcons’ Jack Beeton ended the Formula Regional Middle East season at Losail with his maiden victory.

After two races where tyre management proved critical, drivers knew to be more careful in race three and the only driver to get caught out this time was R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny. He started fourth and finished 16th.

The first driver he lost out to was Beeton, who had lined up fifth on the grid. On lap two he overtook team-mate Freddie Slater and Sainteloc Racing’s Nikita Bedrin, then pursued R-ace’s poleman Ugo Ugochukwu until passing him on lap five.

ART Grand Prix’s champion newly crowned champion Evan Giltaire demoted his title rival Slater to fifth on lap four, but four laps later he was able to regain the place. The top four held position until the end, with Slater far away from the podium and focusing on ART GP’s Kanato Le in his mirrors towards the end.

Giltaire finished sixth, ahead of R-ace’s Jin Nakamura, Pinnacle Motorsport’s Ernesto Rivera and Mumbai Falcons’ Rashid Al Dhaheri.

Outside of the points was a fight decided by very close margins. On the last two lap, R-ace’s Akshay Bohra passed three drivers and he clinched 17th place by just 0.134 seconds over Origine Motorsport’s Yujia Gao.

The day before the race, Prema posted a promotional video online featuring Al Dhaheri wearing official Mercedes-AMG Junior Team kit. The Formula 1 team is yet to confirm to media whether he is a new member, and has still not added recent signing Ethan Jeff-Hall to its junior line-up on its website.

Race results (16 laps)

The post Mumbai Falcons’ Jack Beeton ends FRME season with maiden victory appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Prema

Prema has revealed its full line-ups for Formula Regional Middle East and Formula 4 Middle East, as well as the cars it will be entering under the Mumbai Falcons banner.

All four of its FRegional cars will be considered Mumbai Falcons entries, and the new additions to that line-up include three of the drivers who will also be racing for Prema in FRegional European Championship this year: Rashid Al Dhaheri, Jack Beeton and Freddie Slater.

Al Dhaheri was second in the F4-spec Formula Trophy and fourth in F4 United Arab Emirates last year, Beeton was Italian F4 runner-up and eighth in its sister series E4 (nee Euro 4), and Slater was the F4 UAE and Italian F4 champion as well as E4 runner-up.

The other new name in Mumbai Falcons’ FRME line-up is Reza Seewooruthun, who will contest the first two rounds at Yas Marina Circuit. He will be driving for Argenti with Prema in GB3 later this year, and steps up from F4 where he came third in the British championship and the Motorsport Games, and 16th in F4 UAE last year. Doriane Pin will do the rest of the season.

In F4, Prema has announced Newman Chi for a triple programme in E4, F4 Middle East and Italian F4. The 15-year-old Chinese racer primarily spent 2024 doing single-seater tests, but did contest the FTrophy series in the UAE at the end of the year and came fifth in the standings with two podiums.

His team-mates in F4 Middle East will be Williams junior Sasha Bondarev and Andretti Global junior Sebastian Wheldon. Bondarev contested the last two Italian F4 rounds of 2024 with Prema ahead of a full-time campaign in 2025, and Wheldon – the son of late two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan – will also race for the team full-time in Europe.

He was champion of the F4-spec Skip Barber Formula Race Series in 2023, and last year was YACademy Winter Series runner-up, fourth in USF Juniors and ninth in FTrophy.

Joining the roster of Mumbai Falcons drivers in the Middle East are Arjun Chheda, Kean Nakamura Berta and Tomass Stolcermanis. Chheda was 24th in French F4 and 19th in Indian F4 last year, while Nakamura and Stolcarmanis were team-mates at Prema through 2024. They were second and 18th in F4 UAE, third and fifth in E4, and sixth and ninth in Italian F4.

While Nakamura will continue in those series, Stolceramis is yet to announce his racing plans beyond his upcoming campaign in the Middle East.

The post Prema reveals full FRegional and F4 Middle East line-ups appeared first on Formula Scout.

50. Abbi Pulling

New entry • Never off the podium while dominating second F1 Academy season

Photo: F1 Academy

Photo: F1 Academy

Alpine junior Pulling finally made good on her potential  as she destroyed the field in the second season of F1 Academy.

The pressure was on Pulling after a winless 2023 and she had no answer to debutant Doriane Pin’s pace in the opening round in Jeddah, where pre-season testing had also taken place. But she was gifted a maiden win in race two when Pin was penalised for remaining at racing speeds after the finish, which seemed to give Pulling a huge confidence boost that she rode for the rest of the year.

From then onwards she seemed almost unbeatable in her Rodin Motorsport-run car, claiming 10 out of what would be 13 pole positions over the remainder of the season and converting eight of those into wins. She finished all 14 races on the podium – 13 of them in the top two – and even when a strange rescheduling quirk temporarily uncrowned her as champion, she responded perfectly to put it beyond doubt once more.

F1 Academy exists under a brighter media spotlight than any other Formula 4 series but Pulling never looked to be fazed as she closed the season out.

She also returned to British F4 this year with Rodin for rounds that didn’t clash with her main programme. Results there were more modest, but she took a reversed-grid win at Brands Hatch and second to the dominant Deagen Fairclough in the opening race at Thruxton. Next year she’ll hope to impress in a British-based series once more with a deserved step up to GB3.

49. Ugo Ugochukwu

Down 19 • Macau GP win salvaged arduous FRegional campaign

Photo: FIA

Photo: Macau Grand Prix

Tall, quiet, rapid, and caught smiling after he won junior single-seaters’ most prestigious race: the Macau Grand Prix.

McLaren junior Ugochukwu primarily drove for Prema this year, but his best performances came with other, less dominant teams.

In Formula Regional Middle East, driving a Mumbai Falcons-branded entry, Ugochukwu embarked on his first campaign above F4 (having cameoed in Formula 3 in 2023) and his tally of three podiums and seventh in the standings was not too bad given he went points-free in the first two races and if the season was one race longer he could’ve jumped his team-mates in the standings.

But when Prema headed to Europe, sophomore star Rafael Camara and fellow rookie James Wharton had a clear advantage over Ugochukwu for most of the season. Team principal Rene Rosin conceded that the American’s difficulties were not all of his making: issues with two engines led to a disqualification at Paul Ricard after the team felt it had no choice but to introduce a third powerplant, and he was only able to salvage his campaign by winning from pole in the final round at Monza.

A third of the way into the season he was 16th in the standings while Camara topped the table, and 40% of Ugochukwu’s total points tally came at Monza.

He had already proven race-winning capabilities at the FRegional level earlier in the year though, contesting three GB3 rounds with Rodin and claiming three podiums. He retired while fighting for third in his final race at Spa-Francorchamps, and prior to that his average finishing position had been 3.7.

For the FRegional World Cup-awarding Macau GP in November he joined R-ace GP, and he took pole, won the qualification race then after some restart antics led lights-to-flag in the main race around the trickiest of circuits. He keeps faith with Prema though for his step up to FIA F3 for 2025.

48. Tymek Kucharczyk

New entry • GB3 title contender amid funding uncertainty

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Kucharczyk had shown flashes of great speed when he arrived in GB3 with Douglas Motorsport in 2023 without achieving the results to show for it. Securing a seat with Hitech GP for 2024 would allow him to put that right.

Indeed, he led what would be a three-way title fight in the early part of the season, setting the qualifying pace at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps and coming away with three poles and three wins from the two consecutive race weekends. He had the pace at the Hungaroring too, but an exclusion for a technical infringement and a further non-score cost him the points lead.

He bounced back strongly at another continental venue, Zandvoort, with his fourth win allowing him to reclaim the advantage. By now, however, he had been forced to tape over the logos of main backer Orlen on his racesuit as the Polish oil giant cut back its motorsport sponsorships. His win in the Dutch dunes would prove to be his last and his form wasn’t quite the same over the three British rounds that ended the season, as he slipped to third in the points.

While John Bennett, who beat Kucharczyk to second in the standings, makes the leap to Formula 2, Kucharczyk’s future remains uncertain but he would surely deserve to join champion Louis Sharp in stepping up to FIA F3.

47. Taito Kato

New entry • Honda-backed rookie triumphed in tight French F4 fight 

Photo: KSP

Photo: KSP

Kato emulated Ayumu Iwasa by arriving in French F4 with Honda backing and claiming the championship at the first attempt. But while Iwasa had already celebrated his 19th birthday by the time his COVID-delayed 2020 season had concluded, Kato was still only 16 when he clinched his title.

Just as Iwasa had taken on and defeated a second-year French F4 racer in Isack Hadjar, Kato faced more experienced competition in Belgian series sophomore Yani Stevenheydens, who seemed to have the edge on outright speed with eight pole positions across the year to Kato’s four. French rookie Jules Caranta made it a three-way battle, racing to four ‘feature race’ victories despite no poles, and doing enough to land Red Bull junior status.

All three had four wins to their name going into the final round but it was Kato that would claim a crucial fifth in controversial fashion, with a pass on Stevenheydens that was initially penalised post-race for taking place off track but successfully appealed. Once the pair clashed again in race three and Stevenheydens was penalised, Kato wound up as champion.

Having Honda legend Takuma Sato in his corner was invaluable for Kato, but to find success so soon in Europe demonstrates his potential, which he will continue to develop in a French environment by joining ART Grand Prix in FRegional.

46. Jack Beeton

New entry • Second-best to supreme Slater in Italian F4

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

He may have been on the podium in close to half of the races in Italian F4 this year (10 out of 21), but that didn’t make him a regular victory contender due to the domination of Prema’s Freddie Slater.

Taking that sample of races, Beeton was on average (at the end of green-flag running in those races due to some ending behind the safety car) only 1.4 seconds off the lead so when he and US Racing were competitive he wasn’t being gapped by the dominant champion.

But Beeton also non-scored in a third of the races, so only just secured second in the standings against two drivers who were not podium contenders at as many circuits as he was.

He was a two-time podium-finisher in F4 United Arab Emirates, albeit with the AGI Sport team he won the 2023 F4 South East Asia title with, but with US Racing he was only able to take one podium in Italian F4’s sister series Euro 4.

In Formula Winter Series, which takes place in Spain, he took home three trophies from his first appearance at Motorland Aragon but was down the order in his second outing at Barcelona as his team was mostly off the pace.

Switching to Prema for the step up to FRegional next year will answer more questions about Beeton’s abilities given he has over 20 podiums but only three wins from 99 races in F4.

45. John Bennett

New entry • GB3 runner-up then shone after shock F2 step

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

2024 provided quite a turnaround in the career of Bennett, with a third year spent in GB3 ultimately yielding second place in the championship and an unexpected step up to F2.

After a promising first season of single-seaters in 2022 with Elite Motorsport was followed by a tough second campaign with Rodin Carlin – falling from eight to 10th in the standings – he joined JHR Developments for 2024 and made an immediate impression. After following the eventual champion Sharp home in the first race of the season at Oulton Park, he pulled off a bold pass around the outside of his rival in the treacherous conditions of race two to score a long-awaited maiden win.

He remained a consistent threat through GB3’s leg of races abroad, scoring another win at Zandvoort and one more next time out at Silverstone meant he closed to within four points of the lead. He wasn’t able to match Sharp’s form through the final two rounds, but did at least take the fight down to the wire.

Bennett’s career – which began with two years in the humble Ginetta GT5 Challenge – also took in series outside of Britain for the first time in 2024. His FRME campaign with Evans GP yielded only one point but did lead to a FREC outing at Zandvoort, where he qualified a strong sixth in his group.

Later came FIA F3 testing with Van Amersfoort Racing, which in turn led to him being called up for two F2 rounds with the team. He remarkably raced to 12th and then eighth in his first two races at Losail, and has secured the seat full-time for 2025.

44. Keanu Al Azhari

New entry • Fought for F4 titles in UAE and Spain

Photo: Spanish F4

Photo: Spanish F4

Category sophomore Al Azhari’s ability to fight for the title in two competitive F4 championships made for a very impressive 2024, albeit being another driver in the shadow of Slater in the UAE and losing out to a rookie in Spanish F4.

His winning form on home soil made it less of a surprise when he was then a podium regular in Europe, and he won seven races in total.

In F4 UAE he utilised the local experience of the Yas Heat Academy team, taking three poles out of four at the team’s home circuit in rounds one and two. Those were converted into two second places then a 10th place and a win in round two, but he took a reversed-grid win thanks to an opening lap charge that weekend too.

At Dubai Autodrome he claimed two podiums, and on the return to Yas Marina Circuit snatched the points lead from Slater, but in the Dubai finale qualified poorly and got a drive-through penalty in race one. Finishing fifth in race two actually grew his lead, but he came out of some scrappy racing in the decider with an eighth place finish and third in the standings.

Next were two FWinter Series outings with MP Motorsport, and in the first he converted a double pole into a win and a second place. An underwhelming Barcelona weekend still lifted him to seventh in the points table.

That was a warm-up for his full Spanish F4 season with MP, in which he was on the podium at every round and only once had a two-race spell of being podium-free. His consistency, with his wins and poles coming at three different tracks, meant once he claimed the points lead in the fifth race of the year he held it for 15 races and only lost it at the penultimate race as Barcelona again proved a weak point despite taking two podiums from the title-deciding weekend.

Al Azhari will pit himself against new rivals in 2025, and on new circuits, by heading to GB3.

43. Syun Koide

New entry • Honda junior sets up Super Formula graduation with Lights success

Photo: Super Formula Lights

Photo: Super Formula Lights

Koide is on the cusp of a promotion to Super Formula with B-MAX Racing, the team he won the Super Formula Lights title with.

The third-tier series uses the same car as Euroformula and is an alternative option for drivers who cannot afford to race in FIA F3 but actually operates more like F2 in that it acts as a proving ground for drivers targeting seats at single-seaters’ top level in Japan.

Now 25, Koide started his car racing career later than most who target open-wheel success as he was already in his 20s. But he impressed enough during an incomplete rookie Japanese F4 season to become a Honda junior from 2021 onwards, and he followed up one win in the championship that year with nine and the title in 2022.

Four victories for the one-car Toda Racing outfit in his rookie SF Lights campaign earned him his place at the crack B-MAX outfit for 2024 and he absolutely made the most of it with victories at every round bar one, six poles and a near-repeat of his 2023 efforts at Okayama when he went unbeaten. This time he won twice and took a second place on a wet track in race two.

Rain is a common challenge for drivers on the Japanese racing scene, and Koide proved more than capable of pulling off passes in tricky conditions between safety car interruptions. There was plenty of talent and experience on this year’s grid, and Koide convincingly became champion.

42. Max Garcia

New entry • Winning start to USF2000 season aged 14 set up title success

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Garcia was only 14 when the USF2000 season began in St. Petersburg, but any age concerns were shaken off by two poles that he converted into two wins and the points lead on a circuit he was too young to drive as a rookie in 2023.

In race one he made an error on the rolling start, but after a caution period looked impressive when pressuring drivers and pulled off moves that brought him back to the front of the field. He also lost the lead at the start of race two, but again found a way to reclaim first place.

The points lead remained in Garcia’s hands all the way to the end of the season, but it was more the inconsistency of his rivals rather than his own form that led to him becoming champion by 73 points, the equivalent of two wins and an eighth place.

A win at NOLA Motorsports Park (having now turned 15) was followed by two poles and a podium, and at Indianapolis Motor Speedway he won from sixth on the grid. Seventh place in USF2000’s only oval race followed, then another pole at Road America but no podiums. In the Mid-Ohio triple-header there was a single podium while his rivals picked up the poles and wins, but he was the weekend’s second-highest scorer.

Garcia led a Pabst Racing one-two in qualifying for race one on the streets of Toronto, and was 0.1846 seconds short of doing the double. But after leading the first half of race one he messed up a restart and finished third, with a fourth place following in race two. Again, he was the second-highest scorer though.

In the Portland finale the single-seater sophomore returned to winning ways, starting off with taking pole by just 0.0746s in a dry qualifying session. But a drive-through penalty for corner cutting in a sodden race one meant he had to charge up the field to earn second place. He then had to work hard from fourth on the grid to win race two, a result that sealed the title, and was runner-up in race three.

His scholarship prize for being champion will be spent on a step up to USF Pro 2000 with Pabst.

41. Max Taylor

New entry • USF Juniors champion fought for USF2000 title too

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Velocity Racing Development loyalist Taylor reaped the rewards of contesting three different series this year, just as he did as a car racing rookie in 2023.

Last year he won in USF Juniors, cameoed in United States F4 and had a best finish of sixth from a part-time USF2000 campaign, then for 2024 he did USF2000 and its immediate support series in full with a GB3 outing – also with VRD – on the side.

It actually took a while for Taylor to win in IndyCar’s support series, and swapping between two very similar but slightly different cars between weekends was as difficult as having to do the same thing on the three weekends where he could have a window as short as half an hour between hopping out of one car and being ready to drive the other.

But once it all clicked in USF Juniors, it truly clicked, and when he visited circuits in USF2000 he had already raced on in 2023 that experience in the bank also pushed him into race-winning form.

In the second half of the USF2000 season he won three races, took a second place, a pole position and secured third in the standings, while in the slightly slower USF Juniors machinery he had two victories, three other podiums, three poles and went from being two points behind in the title fight to winning the title.

That earned him a scholarship to spend on USF2000 for 2025, but instead he will move another step up the latter to USF Pro 2000 with VRD.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 50-41 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Prema

Italian Formula 4 runner-up Jack Beeton has secured a Formula Regional European Championship seat with Prema for 2025.

The 16-year-old Australian joined Nicolas Todt’s All Road Management stable a year ago, and since then has accumulated plenty of F4 experience with rival teams to Prema.

“I’m really looking forward to next year. Prema is a really professional team with a lot of great history and just won the 2024 championship,” said Beeton.

“I will try to do the best I can and have fun. I’m sure that, with Prema, I will be able to do that, so I cannot wait to see what we will be able to achieve together.”

Beeton spent 2021 and ’22 in junior karting at home, winning a club title and coming seventh in the national series’ KA4 Junior class in 2021 and then coming third and fifth in the Queensland and national championships respectively in 2022.

He travelled to Europe to compete in the Ferrari Driver Academy’s World Scouting Final and to begin F4 test preparations with Cram Motorsport, US Racing and Van Amersfoort Racing. To make his car racing debut he headed back to Australia, competing in the Formula Open races at Phillip Island’s ‘Island Magic’ event.

Beeton’s 2023 began in F4 United Arab Emirates, where he raced for Pinnacle VAR and came 23rd in the standings with six points. He remained with VAR for Euro 4 and Italian F4, coming 15th in the former and 23rd in the latter, scoring eight points across the two series.

Next on his schedule was F4 South East Asia, where he raced for Australian team AGI Sport. Two wins from pole in round one and a further three podiums in the remaining events comfortably delivered Beeton the title, although he was one of only two full-time drivers in the series.

At the start of 2024 he and the team headed over to F4 UAE, and two podiums put Beeton 12th in the standings. He then signed with US Racing for a triple F4 programme.

First up was the second half of the Formula Winter Series season, and three podiums put him 10th in the points table. Next up was Italian F4, where he finished second in seven races before finally breaking his victory duck at Barcelona at September. Two more podiums in the final round at Monza were crucial to clinching the championship runner-up spot.

Alongside that he raced in Euro 4, and a singular podium from from the three-round series left him eight in the standings.

In FREC, he will be team-mate to runaway Italian F4 champion Freddie Slater who was the winning driver in all but one of the races that Beeton finished second in.

The post Italian F4 runner-up Jack Beeton lands Prema seat for step up to FREC appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

Jack Beeton and Freddie Slater added to their Italian Formula 4 pole position tallies at Monza, where the 38-car field featured several new faces.

Hudson Schwartz continued as Alvise Rodella’s replacement at Van Amersfoort Racing after debuting last time out at Barcelona, and Dante Vinci replaced Andrija Kostic. The 16-year-old Australian came 30th in the WSK Super Master Series for OK karts this year.

AKM Motorsportreplaced Wiktor Dobrzanski with Mattia Marchiante, who came 36th in Euro 4 with the team, Andrei Duna returned to Real Racing Team after missing six three rounds and Jan Koller reunited with BVM Racing.

Jenzer Motorsport was without Ethan Ischer for the weekend, butadded Bart Harrison and Ciro Sobral to its line-up. Harrison came 20th in British F4 this season, and Sobral is currently fifth in Brazilian F4.

ART Grand Prix also made its first series appearance with McLaren-backed Bianca Bustamante and Williams junior Lia Block. They usually race for the team in F1 Academy, where they are currently seventh and eighth in the standings.

The final change to the entry list was at Maffi Racing, where Kirill Kutskov took the place of the absent Gabriel Holguin. Kutskov began 2024 by coming third in Saudi Arabian F4, then was F4 Central European Zone runner-up.

Drivers faced wet conditions throughout Friday, and in the first 40-minute practice session in the morning nobody did more than 10 laps as three red flag periods interrupted running.

R-ace GP’s Luka Sammalisto and Enzo Yeh traded fastest laps at first, before US Racing’s Maxim Rehm pipped Yeh to top spot. VAR duo Gustav Jonsson and Hiyu Yamakoshi each lowered the pace, before Prema’s already crowned champion Slater put in two laps good enough to be quickest.

He ended the session 0.396s ahead of Jonsson, with team-mate Kean Nakamura Berta 0.837s behind in third and US’s Gianmarco Pradel 0.859s back in fourth. Everyone else was more than a second off the pace.

FP2 was also shortened by red flags, caused by an incident for Koller. Before that, there had been more running and faster laptimes. Nakmaura laid down the first benchmark, and was swiftly beaten by team-mates Dion Gowda, Alex Powell and Slater.

Yamakoshi and Jonsson were then at the top, followed by Jenzer’s Reno Francot, PHM Raciong duo Davide Larini and Maximilian Popov, then Beeton.

Slater surpassed Beeton 15 minutes in, but then did not feature at the top again until the very end as Pradel, Popov, Beeton, Jonsson and Francot each lowered the pace. Francot led the way with a 1m52.895s before Slater beat him by 0.3s at the end.

Nakamura demoted him to third, and also within a second of Slater were Pradel, Rehm and Prema’s Tomass Stolcermanis.

The first qualifying session towards the end of the day was wetter and slower, and once more disrupted by an incident. This time Real Racing Team’s Luca Viisoreanu was the guilty party.

It was a battle between Prema and US’s line-ups to be fastest, and Beeton prevailed by almost half a second by setting a 1m58.547s. Slater was second-best, and both Francot and Powell were 1.16s behind. US’s Akshay Bohra and Pradel were fifth and sixth, ahead of four Prema drivers.

Block and Harrison were the red flag culprits in Q2, which had a similar story at the top to the previous session. This time Slater was fastest, setting a 1m57.666s to lead Nakamura by 0.318s. Beeton and Jonsson were 0.582s and 0.657s behind respestively, and AKM Motorsport’s Emanuele Olivieri made it into the top top five but was 1.188s off pole.

Drivers’ second-best laptimes from the two qualifying sessions set the race three grid, and Slater was on top again by 0.332s over Sammalisto. Pradel and Powell will start third and fourth, ahead of Francot and Beeton.

Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Jack Beeton US Racing 1m58.547s
2 Freddie Slater Prema +0.497s
3 Reno Francot Jenzer Motorsport +1.160s
4 Alex Powell Prema +1.160s
5 Akshay Bohra US Racing +1.451s
6 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +1.475s
7 Tomass Stolcermanis Prema +1.491s
8 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema +1.492s
9 Dion Gowda Prema +1.533s
10 Rashid Al Dhaheri Prema +1.558s

Race 2 grid
1 Slater 1m57.666s
2 Nakamura +0.318s
3 Beeton +0.582s
4 Gustav Jonsson Van Amersfoort Racing +0.657s
5 Emanuele Olivieri AKM Motorsport +1.188s
6 Everett Stack PHM Racing +1.539s
7 Al Dhaheri +1.631s
8 Gowda +1.737s
9 Pradel +1.792s
10 Luka Sammalisto R-ace GP +1.804s

Race 3 grid
1 Slater 1m59.267s
2 Sammalisto +0.332s
3 Pradel +0.608s
4 Powell +0.642s
5 Francot +0.740s
6 Beeton +0.832s
7 Nakamura +1.007s
8 Gowda +1.082s
9 Al Dhaheri +1.131s
10 Bohra +1.150s

The post Beeton and Slater takes Monza poles in expanded 38-car Italian F4 field appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

Jack Beeton led Gianmarco Pradel in a US Racing one-two as he broke his Italian Formula 4 victory duck in the third race at Barcelona.

Beeton started on the front row alongside Prema’s champion Freddie Slater, with his US team-mate Akshay Bohra and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi on row two.

At turn two Beeton was one of several drivers to go off, and the opening lap ended with Slater leading Bohra, Beeton, Pradel, Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta and Yamakoshi.

Kabir Anurag exited the race with a smoking car on lap two, then team-mate Bohra hit trouble too on lap three as his car slowed and he fell to the back of the order. Beeton and Pradel continued to pressure Slater, and on lap four a deep entry and a handful of controlled oversteer into turn one enabled Beeton to slide past Slater into the lead in a stylish way.

He immediately pulled away, putting himself 1.7 seconds clear by the end of the lap. Slater lost out at the same corner next time by, as Pradel snuck down his inside.

Beeton put in a dominant display thereon, depite a huge lock-up at turn four on lap nine, but he had to go on a charging drive twice as the safety car was summoned on lap 10 following an incident that eliminated Jenzer Motorsport’s Reno Francot and R-ace GP’s Luka Sammalisto.

Francot had been in plenty of battles, being forced onto the grass on the pit straight by US’s Maxim Rehm on lap six, forcing him off at turn one as he went past then spending almost the entire final sector side-by-side with him as Rehm got back ahead. Prema’s Alex Powell had slipstreamed past him on lap seven, an off had followed on lap eight but he had remained in the points positions before retiring.

Racing resumed on lap 14 and Beeton had four laps to repeat his earlier efforts. He achieved that in style, going 1.4s clear in just a single lap then pulling away to win by 3.958s over Pradel who also achieved his best result.

Nakamura had managed to pass Slater on lap eight, and when his team-mate tried passing him on the restart he went off at turn one and did not challenge Nakamura again.

Their other team-mate Tomass Stolcermaniss passed VAR’s Gustav Jonsson at turn two on lap six after some side-by-side action, then got by Yamakoshi at the end of the race to finish sixth.

Powell finished eighth, with PHM Racing’s Davide Larini and Jenzer’s Enea Frey taking the final points.

Rehm got as high as seventh, having passed Jonsson, but after the restart he lost out in all of his battles and fell to 12th. Just behind him was new team-mate Edu Robinson.

Race results (17 laps)

The post Jack Beeton breaks Italian F4 victory duck in Barcelona race three appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

US Racing’s Jack Beeton and Prema’s Freddie Slater were quickest in Italian Formula 4 qualifying at Barcelona.

Beeton set the pace in Q1, although initially it was Maffi Racing’s Nathanael Berreby who was the surprise pacesetter. AKM Motorsport’s Emanuele Olivieri was first to a more representative pace, then Slater set a 1m42.200s to go top.

Maxim Rehm beat that by 0.367 seconds, then his team-mate Beeton smashed his benchmark out of the park by 0.461s and improved again to 1m41.347s to take pole by 0.105s over team-mate Akshay Bohra. However a two-place grid penalty carried across from the previous round meant Bohra earned the pole.

Slater was a further 0.086s behind in third, with US’s Kabir Anurag impressing in fourth ahead of Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi.

Berreby’s team-mate Gabriel Holguin was first to the top in Q2, then US’s Edu Robinson (who had moved from AS Motorsport) and Rehm started trading fastest laps and brought the pace down into the low 1m41s.

Soon Beeton and Slater had found clear air and were fighting each other for pole once again, with a 1m40.829s putting Slater ahead with five minutes to go. Beeton responded with a 1m40.806s, an effort that Slater was just able to beat by 0.006s.

On his next lap Beeton failed to improve, and neither could Slater, then they faced more traffic and the fight for pole appeared to be over. Slater clinched first place on the grid for race two not only by a tiny margin over Beeton, but with three other drivers alo within 0.1s of him.

Yamakoshi was just 0.045s behind in third, Nakamura a further 0.012s back in fourth and Bohra completed a top five covered by 0.091s. There were 20 driver within 0.87s of pole,

Williams Formula 1 junior Sasha Bondarev (Prema) and Hudson Schwartz (VAR) were 25th and 26th respectively on their debut. Schwartz came eighth in USF2000 this year with one podium, and was eighth in USF Juniors last year.

Drivers’ second-best laptimes set the grid for race three, and that meant laps from Q2 for all but one in the 32-car field. Slater secured another pole, again by a tiny margin of just 0.05s over Beeton, with Bohra, Yamakoshi and Nakamura in third, fourth and fifth.

Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Akshay Bohra US Racing +0.105s
2 Freddie Slater Prema +0.191s
3 Jack Beeton US Racing 1m41.347s
4 Kabir Anurag US Racing +0.378s
5 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema +0.389s
6 Hiyu Yamakoshi Van Amersfoort Racing +0.457s
7 Maxim Rehm US Racing +0.486s
8 Gustav Jonsson Van Amersfoort Racing +0.499s
9 Alex Powell Prema +0.571s
10 Dion Gowda Prema +0.593s

Race 2 grid
1 Slater 1m40.800s
2 Beeton +0.006s
3 Yamakoshi +0.045s
4 Nakamura +0.057s
5 Bohra +0.091s
6 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +0.275s
7 Jonsson +0.283s
8 Edu Robinson US Racing +0.299s
9 Rehm +0.376s
10 Anurag +0.440s

Race 3 grid
1 Slater 1m40.829s
2 Beeton +0.050s
3 Bohra +0.159s
4 Yamakoshi +0.165s
5 Nakamura +0.182s
6 Pradel +0.324s
7 Robinson +0.391s
8 Rehm +0.453s
9 Jonsson +0.484s
10 Luka Sammalisto R-ace GP +0.541s

The post Beeton and Slater fight closely for Italian F4 poles at Barcelona appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

US Racing’s Jack Beeton was fastest by just 0.041 seconds in Italian Formula 4 practice at Barcelona on Friday.

He was only fifth fastest in FP1, 0.725s off the pace, but in the quicker afternoon session came to the fore as a second covered the top 20.

Cram Motorsport’s Kai Daryanani began the day as the quickest driver on track, before US duo Akshay Bohra and Gianmarco Pradel dropped down into the 1m43s.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi was first to drop into the 1m42s, but held top spot for less than a minute before Prema’s Freddie Slater beat him by 0.106s.

Beeton was in Slater’s slipstream and pipped him by 0.061s, but Slater responded on his next lap to take back first place with a 1m42.591s lap.

Slater then began trading fastest laps with a different Australian, as Pradel twice usurpsed him. But on his final lap Slater regained the upper hand, breaking into the 1m41s to go 0.269s clear at the top. Pradel was unable to improve on his final lap, while team-mate Bohra did to sit 0.439s behind in third.

Maxim Rehm and Beeton meant US’s drivers occupied four of the top five places, with Slater’s team-mates Kean Nakamura Berta and Alex Powell in sixth and seventh.

FP2 had a quicker beginning, as Jenzer Motorsport’s Reno Francot, Beeton, Pradel and then VAR’s Lin Hodenius topped the times and were lapping in the 1m42s just six minutes in.

Slater beat Hodenius’s benchmark by 0.059s, but the latter was able to reclaim first place by 0.044s and then improve by a further 0.022s two laps later. That kept him on top for 17 minutes, before another surprise name hit the top in Real Racing Team’s Luca Viisoreanu.

His 1m42.156s stood as the session’s best only for 12s as VAR’s Gustav Jonsson then set a 1m41.719s to beat Slater’s FP1 time.

Pradel skimmed ahead by 0.025s not long after, and half a minute after him Beeton set an unbeatable 1m41.148s.

Drivers still improved their pace in the remaining minutes, with Nakamura getting closest to Beeton. Yamakoshi was 0.134s behind in third, Slater just a further 0.022s back in fourth and Bohra rounded out the top five.

Viisoreanu ended up down in 21st, 1.008s slower than Beeton, and VAR’s Andrija Kostic had all his laptimes in FP2 deleted for causing red flags.

Free practice results

The post Beeton beats Nakamura to top spot at Barcelona in Italian F4 practice appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Prema

Jack Beeton, Freddie Slater and Alex Powell will start this weekend’s Italian Formula 4 races at Vallelunga from pole position.

Maffi Racing’s Nathanael Berreby was the driver to beat at the start of both qualifying sessions on Saturday morning, and in Q1 the first driver to beat him was US Racing’s Maxim Rehm who set a 1m35.433s to go fastest by 3.515 seconds.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Gustav Jonsson reduced that advantage to 2.067s with his second lap, then Prema’s drivers began to lower the pace. Dion Gowda set a 1m34.656s, Rashid Al Dhaheri posted a 1m34.190s and then Slater set a 1m34.006s. Powell completed a Prema 1-2-3 ahead of US’s Akshay Bohra, then when Rehm finally set his second flying lap he rose back up to third plac.

Cram Motorsport’s debuting Filippo Fioreninto had incidents at turns 11 with AKM Motorsport’s Emanuele Olivieri and at turn one with Jenzer Motorsport’s Enea Frey before the third laps came in and the order was shaken up again.

US driver Beeton went to the top with a 1m33.598s, putting him 0.031s ahead of Slater and 0.231s clear of Al Dhaheri, with Beeton’s team-mate Matheus Ferreira slotting into fourth ahead of Powell, Bohra, Jonsson and R-ace GP’s Luka Sammalisto.

Ferreira gained another spot with his fourth lap, putting him just 0.107s off pole, and VAR’s Hiyu Yamakoshi rose to fourth as Powell was shuffled down to fifth despite improving.

Slater found a 0.002s gain with a three-and-a-half minutes to go, as Gowda went seventh fastest, and there were scant changes in the top 10 after that. Prema’s Tomass Stolcermanis and Kean Nakamura Berta traded 10th place and Bohra moved past team-mate Gianmarco Pradel into ninth after the chequered flag.

Berreby led Q2 almost until the halfway point of the session, when he fell all the way down to 23rd place as his rivals’ second flying laps came in.

Slater set a 1m33.724s to go fastest, leading Bohra by 0.043s, Beeton by 0.201s and Al Dhaheri by 0.238s. Sammalisto and then Powell held fifth place.

On his next lap Slater improved to 1m33.488s, with Stolcermanis 0.121s slower in second. Al Dhaheri improved to stay in fourth, and PHM Racing’s Andrej Petrovic jumped up to sixth. It took a little longer for others to set their third laps, and Ferreira and Yamakoshi went third and fourth fastest with their efforts while Sammalisto and Jonsson improved in seventh and eighth. Powell’s lap came in even later as he pursued clear air, and having dropped to 13th place he then jumped up to second, 0.068s off Slater.

Yamakoshi also got within 0.1s of Slater with just over three minutes to go, and Jenzer’s Ethan Ischer went from 27th to seventh with his fifth lap. Improvements were harder to make on a busy track after that, meaning Slater secured his fourth pole of 2024.

Drivers’ second-best laptimes from the two sessions were used to set race three’s grid, and a 1m33.564s earned Powell pole by 0.06s over Slater, with Yamakoshi and Beeton 0.079s and 0.093s behind and with the top 29 covered by 0.948s.

Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Jack Beeton US Racing 1m33.598s
2 Freddie Slater Prema +0.029s
3 Matheus Ferreira US Racing +0.107s
4 Hiyu Yamakoshi Van Amersfoort Racing +0.158s
5 Alex Powell Prema +0.220s
6 Rashid Al Dhaheri Prema +0.231s
7 Dion Gowda Prema +0.234s
8 Akshay Bohra US Racing +0.243s
9 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +0.265s
10 Kean Nakamura Berta Pema +0.313s

Race 2 grid
1 Slater 1m33.488s
2 Powell +0.068s
3 Yamakoshi +0.084s
4 Tomass Stolcermanis Prema +0.121s
5 Ferreira +0.131s
6 Bohra +0.181s
7 Ethan Ischer Jenzer Motorsport +0.241s
8 Pradel +0.267s
9 Al Dhaheri +0.294s
10 Gowda +0.294s

Race 3 grid
1 Powell 1m33.564s
2 Slater +0.060s
3 Yamakoshi +0.079s
4 Beeton +0.093s
5 Ferreira +0.146s
6 Bohra +0.174s
7 Pradel +0.198s
8 Stolcermanis +0.267s
9 Al Dhaheri +0.280s
10 Gowda +0.292s

The post Beeton, Slater and Powell share Italian F4 poles at Vallelunga appeared first on Formula Scout.