Italian F4: Cotty achieves season-best qualifying at Imola

In the third-to-last round of the Italian F4 season at Imola, Emily Cotty secured her season-best qualifying position of 19th during a chaotic weekend in which the second race was indefinitely suspended following a start-line accident.

Ph: ACI Sport

R-ace GP's Emily Cotty achieved a career-best 19th place in the second qualifying session for Italian F4's third-to-last round at Imola and was able to finish in that position in race three in a difficult but promising weekend for the British-New Zealand driver.

On-track action began on Thursday for the Imola round of the Italian F4 season, with two 2-Hour collective test sessions held at 9:00 and 14:00 local time, respectively. Cotty was the fastest of the three female drivers in the two tests, securing the 26th and 29th fastest times in both sessions, whilst Payton Westcott was less than a tenth off the former in both sessions and Kornelia Olkucka continued to get closer to the rest of the field.

Following two difficult practice sessions in which Cotty was only able to set the 30th best time in the second session, qualifying then took place on Friday afternoon at 18:10 local time.

In the first session, Cotty set the 23rd best time, while Westcott was only able to muster the 35th best time and Olkucka was 38th, ahead of Elia Weiss. The second session then commenced just four minutes later, in which Cotty broke through with the 19th best time, putting her within a second of Gabriel Gomez' pole time. While Cotty secured her season-best starting position, Westcott and Olkucka had more tricky sessions as they set the 37th and 39th times, putting them on the backfoot for the second race.

Before the drivers left the paddock, it was revealed that nine drivers were given two-place grid penalties for race one as they were deemed to have impeded others during the first qualifying session. Among those drivers, Cotty and Westcott both received penalties, meaning they would start in 25th and 37th for race one.

Race 1

In race one, as Gomez started from pole, Cotty lined up in 25th and made progress on the first lap by overtaking Aleksander Ruta, but was also overtaken by Kirill Kutskov on the opening lap, in which Ludovico Busso and Arthur Lorimier crashed at Rivazza 1, bringing out the safety car.

Just as the safety car was about to come in on lap three, however, Olkucka and Weiss collided on the run-up to Rivazza, forcing both drivers to retire and the safety car was prolonged for one more lap as debris was cleaned off the track.

On the restart, Gomez led as Marcus Saeter pulled into the pits with a rear-left puncture, promoting Westcott up to 34th just before a collision between Guy Albag and Javier Herrera brought out the safety car not long after.

The race resumed on lap nine, with Andrija Kostic spinning at Variante Alta, before Kabir Anurag went off course a lap later, promoting Cotty to 21st as she began lap 11. However, her race came to an end at Tamburello as she stopped on the side of the track with a rear-right puncture.

Up front, the order remained unchanged as Gomez led from start to finish on his way to his second win of the season, ahead of Salim Hanna and Kean Nakamura-Berta. Payton Westcott was the highest-finishing female in 26th, while Cotty was classified in 33rd despite retiring with two laps to go.

Ph: ACI Sport

Race 2

In race two, Cotty took advantage of Javier Herrera's 8-place grid penalty to start 18th and get up to 14th before a crash on the start finish line took out 15 cars and caused the red flag to be immediately deployed.

With most of the field using a clear visor, some were left with very little visibility as the race started, thus making it hard to see Chi's stranded car on the grid, who had stalled as the lights went out. Despite Cotty not seeing the starting lights due to the sun, she made it through the wreck unscathed, which is something Westcott and Olkucka weren't able to do, as they were both collected in the melee.

Despite organizers initially shortening the race to 25 minutes and cleaning the race track, the restart was called off and the race was suspended, with the date of its restart yet to be confirmed.

Ph: Marco Albertini

Race 3

On-track action resumed Sunday morning, as race three commenced at 12:00 local time, in which Cotty started 21st, Westcott 30th and Olkucka 34th as five cars withdrew due to excessive damage from race two's start-line crash.

Despite falling to 22nd at the start, Cotty made up places following an early safety car for David Walther stuck in the gravel at Tamburello, as she got up into 20th as Emanuele Olivieri, Reno Francot and Andrea Dupé all hit trouble ahead of her.

However, her progress was halted as she was passed by Phil Colin Strenge, Marcus Saeter and Oleksandr Savinkov overtook her on lap six. Struggling with engine problems, Cotty fell to 24th while Olkucka spun at Tamburello on lap 10, forcing the safety car to be deployed with a handful of laps left.

On the restart, the US Racing trio of Maxim Rehm, Kostic, Luka Sammalisto all hit trouble and retired from the race, promoting Cotty and Westcott to 26th and 27th in the closing stages. Up ahead, Bart Harrison suffered a rear-right puncture at Piratella, whilst Dante Vinci went off at the same corner with two laps to go, triggering the double yellow flags to be deployed at that corner until the end of the race.

As the checkered flag waved, Oleksandr Bondarev took his maiden Italian F4 win ahead of teammates Nakamura-Berta and Chi, whereas Cotty ended in 23rd and Westcott in 24th, but they were both promoted to 19th and 20th following post-race penalties for other drivers.