Race abandoned after 15-car pileup causes chaos

The race of a FIA sanctioned championship was abandoned at Imola this weekend after an incident involving 15 cars caused chaos in the Italian F4 championship.

Italian F4’s second race of their Imola race weekend was abandoned after only 17 seconds of running on Saturday, when Prema drivers Newman Chi and Salim Hanna Hernandez stalled on the grid with the following cars piling up behind them.

A third of the grid were left stranded on the start/finish straight as the session was immediately red-flagged, with Italian F4 releasing a statement where they confirmed all drivers involved were okay and unharmed.

“Race 2 of the Italian F4 Championship at Imola, part of the fifth round of the series, was suspended following an incident at the start that prevented the race from proceeding,” the statement read.

“The race was red-flagged shortly after the start. All drivers involved in the incident are OK.

“In the evening, bulletin no. 1 issued by the Panel of Stewards officially confirmed the suspension of the race.

“The Federation will evaluate the possibility of rescheduling the race, which, if and when it takes place, will follow the original grid order and have a reduced duration of 25 minutes + 1 lap.

“The event will resume tomorrow, Sunday 3 August, with Race 3 scheduled to begin at 12:00 PM (30 minutes + 1 lap).”

Race 2 did not get underway again and was abandoned, with Race 3 continuing as scheduled on the Sunday at Imola.

Italian F4 weekend disrupted by major crash

Race three of the Imola weekend in Italian F4 took place without serious incident, where Williams academy driver Oleksandr Bondarev took his first race win in the category.

Championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta finished second after his team-mate Bondarev pulled off an overtake on him for the lead, and Chi finished the weekend with a podium position after his first lap incident on the Saturday.

Nakamura-Berta maintains his lead at the top of the drivers’ standings after Imola, ahead of nearest championship rival Gabriel Gomez by 59 points.

The championship will take a break for the next month before heading to Barcelona for Round 6 on September 19, before the season finale at Misano in October.

Italian F4 boasts an impressive list of champions over the years including Kimi Antonelli, Ollie Bearman and Lance Stroll, and is lauded as one of the most competitive regional championships.

The series often acts as a rung on the feeder series ladder to Formula 3, which eventually leads to Formula 2 and of course – for the likes of previous Italian F4 champions – F1.

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