The 2025 E4 Championship is officially underway. This Formula 4 series complements the Italian season with three highly competitive rounds. Promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion, the championship debuts at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, bringing nearly 30 drivers from 21 different nations to the track for its opening event.
This morning saw the first of two 40-minute free practice sessions scheduled for the opening day.
Setting the fastest lap was Kean Nakamura-Berta, the Japanese-Slovak driver for Prema Racing, who stopped the clock at 2’07.606. Just behind him, 0.355 seconds adrift, was Alex Powell of R-ace GP. The American-Jamaican driver, a Mercedes junior, is coming off an extremely positive weekend at Mugello in the fourth round of the Italian Championship and appears to be carrying that momentum into this new series.
Third place went to Zenrui Chi, the Chinese driver behind the wheel of a Tatuus car for Prema Racing, 0.627 off the top.
The rest of the top ten was also tightly packed: fourth was Gabriel Gomez, the Brazilian with US Racing, with a gap of 0.656, followed by Australian Dante Vinci of Van Amersfoort Racing, at 0.671.
Oleksandr Bondarev, a Williams Driver Academy talent racing with Prema Racing, posted the sixth-fastest time at 0.722, followed by his Colombian teammate Salim Hanna, seventh at 0.777.
Eighth and ninth were two Jenzer Motorsport drivers: British driver Bart Harrison and Swiss driver Enea Frey, with gaps of 0.798 and 0.815 respectively. Completing the top ten was Kabir Anurag, representing US Racing and a member of the Alpine Academy, 0.887 behind the session leader.
A second 40-minute free practice session is scheduled for today, Friday 18 July, at 1:13PM.
On Saturday 19 July, qualifying will take place with two 15-minute sessions, at 10:45AM and 11:10AM. The first will determine the starting grid for Race 1, and the second for Race 2, while Race 3 will be based on the drivers’ second-best lap times across both sessions. Race 1 will also take place on Saturday, starting at 4:30PM.
On Sunday 20 July, Race 2 will start at 11:00AM, followed by Race 3 at 5:25PM.
All races will last 30 minutes plus one lap and will be broadcast live on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228 and Tivůsat channel 52), streamed on live.acisport.it, and on ACI Sport TV’s Facebook and YouTube channels. An English-language broadcast will also be available on international networks carrying the E4 Championship, as well as on the series’ official social media channels