BONDAREV CLINCHES MAIDEN WIN IN ITALIAN F4
The Williams junior Bondarev has finally won his first ever race in single-seaters after a fierce battle with his team mate Kean Nakamura-Berta until the end.
The Ukranian has had his best ever weekend in Italian F4 by far here at Imola, starting from qualifying where a P2 in race 2 and pole position in race 3 would possibly lead him towards some good points. Race 2 got sadly cancelled and will be hardly recovered due to conditions not allowing it, as the organisation could not find an agreement with the track.
This is a very unfortunate episode mainly for the runner-up Gabriel Gomez, who was slowly starting to reduce the gap to the championship leader, and perhaps lost his second win in a row.
Onto race 3 though, Bondarev has had a good start keeping the lead ahead of his team mate Kean Nakamura-Berta, but while trying to defend on sector two, he got overtaken just before the Safety Car came out due to a Maffi car on the gravel. The chaser, Gabriel Gomez started from eighth and managed to get two positions at the start, going up to P6.
Bondarev has never let Nakamura-Berta open up a gap and always stick to the Japanese’s tow. Kean Nakamura-Berta started to feel the attack coming from behind and started to wave close to the braking zone, to avoid a move from Bondarev.
Kean went under investigation for moving under braking, but got reprimand only. After countless tries and misses around the outside into turn 1, Bondarev got an incredible exit out of Rivazza 2 and overtook Nakamura-Berta before getting to Tamburello. The Ukranian then managed to bring the car home and won the race, with Gabriel Gomez climbing up to P4 and Zhenrui Chi finished third.
Italian F4 now goes into the Summer Break seeing Kean Nakamura-Berta leading the standings 55 points ahead of Brazilian Gabriel Gomez. The next round will be at Barcelona in september.
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