Emily Cotty returns to Misano for Italian F4 season opener

16-year-old British-Kiwi rising star Emily Cotty heads to Misano to begin her second full-time season in the highly-competitive Italian F4 Championship, returning to R-ace GP following a promising rookie season in which she clinched the Female Trophy title.

Photo credits: ACI Sport

British-Kiwi rising star Emily Cotty heads to Misano to begin her second full-time season in the highly-competitive Italian F4 Championship.

The 16-year-old trailblazer returns to R-ace GP for her second season in the series, following a promising rookie season in which she clinched the Female Trophy title, as well as outqualifying and outracing junior drivers from Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams and Alpine.

Last year, Emily made her series debut at this venue, showing impressive growth from the start, as she was able to make her way to the final race, as the only Female on the grid to do so that weekend. Just over a year later from her Italian F4 debut, Emily returns with high spirits, after a brilliant campaign in the UAE4 Series earlier this year, which yielded an overall podium at Yas Marina and a top-10 points finish.

This weekend will mark the first of seven rounds on the Italian F4 calendar, and it will also feature the four-race format for events whose number of entries exceed the track’s maximum capacity.

As a result, the field will be split into three groups, starting with Thursday’s collective tests, in which Groups X, Y and K will take to the track. Emily will be part of the latter, which will turn laps with X and Y in the last two sessions of each test.

Following that, the field will be split into two groups ahead of Friday, which will feature two practice sessions for each group. Before qualifying, all drivers will be once again split into two groups, decided by a draw, and will only have one session to set a lap time, which will ultimately determine the final set of groups for the races on Saturday and Sunday.

At the end of qualifying, a ranking is drawn, in which the fastest driver from the first group will be first, the fastest from the second group will be second, and so on. According to the drivers’ positions in this ranking, Group A will be reserved for drivers who are first, fourth, seventh, and so on; Group B for those in second, fifth, eighth, and so on; while Group C will be for the remaining drivers.

The races will kick off on Saturday, with B facing off against C, followed by Group A facing against B and then on Sunday morning, A will race against C. After the “heat” races, the grid for the final race will be set by the points achieved in the three races, while the drivers who haven’t scored points will be sorted by their best result. Fourty-seven drivers are on the entry list for the first round of the season, who will all be fighting to be on the grid for the final race, which will feature 37 grid slots.

For the first time in the championship’s history, points will be awarded to the top 15 finishers, with 30 being awarded to the winner, 26 to second, 22 to third. From fourth onwards, which awards 20 points, the number of points decreases by 2 integers per every position up to 15th place, which will get one point, with the exception of 10th and 11th (which award 9 and 8 points).