Written by Lorenzo Baer, Edited by Sean McKean
2024 Italian Formula 4 Championship
The “Factory of Talents” of F4, the Italian championship is the most prestigious F4 tournament in the world, being the oldest – (having been founded in 2014 –) and most coveted trophy of the discipline worldwide.
The championship is known for bringing together the drivers with the best prospects in motorsport every year.
This could be observed in the follow-up of the championships, where many of the names that have passed through Italian F4 quickly climbed fast the ladder of Formula categories, such as 2021 champion Ollie Bearman and 2022 champion Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
As has been the case in recent years, the tournament would be made up of seven weekends, each consisting of three thirty-minute races plus one lap.
The Italian F4 homes throughout 2024 were Misano, Imola, Vallelunga, Mugello and Monza, with Paul Ricard (France) and Barcelona (Spain) also serving as host venues.
However, it is not on the circuits, but in the drivers, that the highlights of Italian F4 can be found, many of them already title winners or holders of excellent campaigns in other F4 series.
Some names that stood out on the entry-list have already been mentioned in other chapters of this recap, but it doesn't hurt to remember them.
We start with Freddie Slater, the winner of the F4 UAE title at the beginning of 2024. One of the great promises of English motorsport, the driver was part of the Prema squad for the Italian F4 campaign in 2024. He was accompanied by another strong name for the tournament, Kean Nakamura-Berta, who finished runner-up in F4 UAE.
Akshay Bohra was also registered with US Racing. The American-Indian has shown a constant improvement in his results in F4 over the last few years, which made the driver a dangerous opponent for the tournament.
Other names such as Gustav Jonsson, Hiyu Yamakoshi, Alex Powell and Rashid Al Dhaheri – all of which with impressive resumes – appeared as the most interesting outsiders for the title.
The championship kicked off in Misano on the 4th and 5th of May. Slater quickly proved why he was considered the clear favorite for the title, completely sweeping the weekend with three victories in the three races contested.
In the following race, in Imola, it seemed that the title race could open up again, as it had been a weekend of ups and downs for the driver: despite winning the first race, Slater would be demoted from his victory, following irregularities found on the front wing of the pilot's car.
Then, a ninth place in the second heat had contributed little to Slater's ambitions, who now found himself second in the general classification, behind Hiyu Yamakoshi.
However, this would be the only time throughout the championship that a driver other than Freddie Slater would be at the top of the standings. In the last race at Imola, Slater had his redemption, achieving a well-deserved victory on that difficult weekend.
This moment was significant, as it began an impressive sequence of results for Slater, who achieved a string of seven consecutive victories, beginning with his win in Imola.
Slater's winning streak could have been longer, had a mechanical problem not prevented him from starting the first race at Paul Ricard in round five.
But that was just a little seatback, and throughout the following stages, Freddie would add five more victories, bringing the total tally of victories in Italian F4 in 2024 to 15 – breaking the previous record held by Andrea Kimi Antonelli of 13
With such an overwhelming performance, it was difficult for any other driver to contest the title, with Slater easily winning the Italian F4 title.
If the fight for the top of the tournament was a monologue from Slater, the same cannot be said for the other positions in the general classification. Until the last stage, it was unclear who would take second place, with Hiyu Yamakoshi, Akshay Bohra and Jack Beeton having a chance of it.
The Australian eventually came out on top though, with Beeton adding a second and a third places at the end of the season in Monza and winning the symbolic title of the “champion of the rest,” so to speak.
Rounding out the top three of the season was Yamakoshi, just two points behind Beeton in the standings. Bohra was also close, finishing in fourth place just three points below Yamakoshi.
Who also deserves to be highlighted is Alex Powell, winner of the Rookies' Championship, a sub-category within the Italian F4.
As is to be expected from Italians, they are proud of and value the automotive products manufactured in the country. So, it is not surprising that the Italian F4 uses nationally manufactured F4-T421 Tatuus chassis, powered by 1.4-litre Abarth engines.
Formula 4 Spanish Championship
The last but not least important of the European national championships covered in this retrospective is the Spanish one.
Certainly the least predictable of all tournaments, the 2024 edition of the tournament featured a beautiful battle between representatives of different nationalities, with an Italian being atop of the standings in the end.
Certainly one of the most multicultural championships on the F4 circuit, 30 nationalities were represented on the tracks of the Spanish tournament in 2024.
Representatives from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania battled it out, which made the tournament take on an extremely international tone
This transnationality also applied to the places where the tournament took place: In addition to the ‘national stages,’ the Spanish F4 championship had two rounds outside the country's borders: In Portugal and France.
Thus, the tournament's 2024 calendar was divided into seven legs, each containing three races. The first stop was the Jarama circuit on the outskirts of Madrid. Then, a double-header abroad, first with a weekend in Portimão, then another in Le Castellet.
From the fourth round onwards, a definitive return to Spanish lands, with races in Aragón, at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Jerez de la Frontera and, finally, the season finale, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Traditionally, MP Motorsport and Campos Racing are the teams that call the shots in the tournament, with only 2019 and 2023 being the exceptions to this rule. So, it was to be expected that favorites would emerge from these teams.
For MP, the strongest names were the UAE’s Keanu Al Azhari – who finished third in F4 UAE during the winter, and Australian Griffin Peebles – who won the second running of the Formula Winter Series 2024).
In addition to them, Italian Mattia Colnaghi, Spaniard Lucas Fluxá, Polish Maciej Gładysz and Dutchman René Lammers (son of former driver Jan Lammers) joined the Dutch team's roster.
At Campos, the name who would lead the team's charge for the championship would be Peruvian Andrés Cárdenas, runner-up in FWS and second-year driver in Spanish F4.
At his side, an army of freshmen would join the team’s efforts for the 2024 campaign: Thai driver Enzo Tarnvanichkul, Mexico’s Ernesto Rivera, Britain’s Nathan Tye, America’s James Egozi and Poland’s the Polish Jan Przyrowski.
In the first race of the year in Jarama, it was Fluxá who came out on top, winning in two of the three races of the weekend.
However, the Spaniard was unable to stay in the championship fight for long, with poor results throughout the year knocking Fluxá down the leaderboard.
Then, it was Al Azhari's turn to shine, grabbing two victories in the next race, on the Algarve circuit. Although the Emirati managed to maintain a certain regularity throughout the tournament, he also was left behind when the tournament was resolved.
Other drivers also had their ephemeral moments in the tournament, such as Maciej Gładysz, who achieved a streak of three consecutive victories in the middle of the season.
Juan Cota would prove to be the best Spanish driver in the tournament, sweeping the weekend on the circuit Ricardo Tormo and finishing fourth in the general classification.
However, it was Mattia Colnaghi who did best. The Italian stealthily collected good results throughout the year, with his first big moment being two consecutive victories in Le Castellet.
The driver's consistent results throughout the remaining stages – including four other race victories – were part of the Italian's winning strategy, which granted, in the end, the 2024 Spanish F4 title to Colnaghi.
The Italian finished the tournament with 282 points, ten more than second-placed Al Azhari.
The Emirati had his title chances compromised in the second race of the finale in Barcelona, when a five-second penalty saw Al Azhari's third position in the race melt away into a disappointing 18th place. Third in the standings was another MP Motorsport driver, Maciej Gładysz.
In addition to the overall tournament title, Colnaghi took home the Spanish F4 Rookie of Year title.
The most curious thing about all this was the story behind Colnaghi taking part in the Spanish F4 Championship.
Only because of the Italian's victory in the Richard Mille Shootout contest, a pre-qualification stage for the Spanish tournament, did Mattia obtained the necessary support and funds to enter the event.
As in other European F4 series, the Spanish one uses Tatuus F4-T421 chassis, equipped with Abarth 414TF 1.4-litre engines.
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