PREMA Racing put up a stellar showing at Misano World Circuit, home to the opening round of the 2024 Italian Formula 4 Championship. Fielding a six-strong lineup, the team posted three stunning wins, with British racer Freddie Slater dominating the weekend’s three races from pole.
The team delivered outstanding results all around, with Jamaican-American Alex Powell taking a triple second place overall and securing three rookie wins in an extremely consistent run. But it didn’t stop there. Kean Nakamura-Berta rounded out the podium in Race 3 to rebound from contact in Race 2, as PREMA fully locked out the overall and rookie podiums.
Rashid Al Dhaheri posted two top-5 finishes in Race 2 and Race 3, delivering a triple points finish to gain valuable points. Starting his first full-time campaign, Latvian Tomass Stolcermanis had an ever-improving weekend, which resulted in a double rookie podium and a seventh-place overall finish in Race 3. Indian racer Dion Gowda also posted two points finishes and one seventh place, making gains throughout the weekend after a challenging qualifying.
The Italian F4 Championship will go back underway between May 31st and June 2nd at Imola.
#14 RASHID AL DHAHERI
“Interesting start to the season. The early part of the weekend was quite challenging with changing conditions, and the preparation had a lot of different conditions as well. I think we did a good job in adapting and maximizing what we could do in the races. The goal for the next races will be to start as high as possible because racing is quite tricky and it will probably be the same in Imola.”
#27 FREDDIE SLATER
“It was a mega weekend, but I couldn’t have done it without PREMA. They are one of the greatest teams in motorsports and do an amazing job to put the car underneath us. All teammates were fast and we executed it really well. The goal before race three was to put three cars on the podium and we did exactly that. Mega job to my teammates and to the team.”
#33 TOMASS STOLCERMANIS
“It was quite a good weekend. In practice, we put some great laps in, and then in practice, managing the traffic was not easy for me, but it’s better to learn as soon as possible. Race 1 went quite OK. The start was good although I couldn’t overtake in the last couple of laps to gain more positions. I had another good start in Race 2. We went up and down due to some small mistakes and contact avoidance but still finished in the top 10. I lost a few spots at the start of Race 3 and struggled a bit with the grip in the beginning. However, I came back very strong, managing several overtakes to P7. In the end, we got two good trophies and we are leaving Misano happy.”
#50 DION GOWDA
“We were a bit on the back foot in the first practices, and then in qualifying, we ended up in P12 and P13. We made good work of damage limitation during the races, gaining four or five positions every race on a track where it’s pretty difficult to overtake. I managed to get good points in the last two races. We need to improve qualifying and it should be good, the pace is there!”
#51 KEAN NAKAMURA-BERTA
“We had a challenging weekend start, but as we went on, we managed to stabilize. Race 1 was pretty OK, but not the best, then we got a DNF in Race 2, which wasn’t amazing. We managed to recollect after that, and today, I went in just trying to enjoy the race and grab a few points. It was a tough race, but I managed to claim P3, which is great.”
#80 ALEX POWELL
“Overall, it was a super consistent weekend. The pace was there from the get-go and it was a really positive way to start our Italian Championship campaign. Coming off from the UAE Championship where it was a bit more difficult, I’m super happy with the work we did collectively as a team this weekend. We achieved three second-place finishes which is the maximum we could extract from this one. We’ll take it and move on to the next one to keep building. “