The battle for the Italian F4 championship rages on as all three title contenders finished on the podium in the opening race of the weekend at Monza. German Mick Schumacher, who took the lead on the opening lap took the honours, cutting the gap at the top to 18 points.
A surprise in qualifying gave Sebastian Fernandez his first pole position of the season. Having not scored a podium all year, this was the best opportunity for him to garner success as the season draws to a close. Sadly for the Venezuelan, the start did not go as expected, being bumped down to twenty-second.
This left Schumacher in the lead as the cars completed the opening lap. Two drivers who had been caught out at the start were Artem Petrov and Devlin DeFrancesco, both of which needed recovery from their turn two incident.
All eyes were on the other championship contenders though as Raul Guzman and Marcos Siebert started tenth and eleventh respectively. This would not hold them up though and in the course of two laps had avoided the incidents to run third and fourth.
The pair found themselves stuck behind the rookie of Lorenzo Colombo as Schumacher continued to build a sizable lead. Guzman knew finishing ahead of Schumacher was paramount, but was left on the back foot after a failed overtake, dropping behind Siebert and Ye Yifei, into fifth.
Colombo was clearly struggling and a queue to fourteenth place formed behind the Italian as Siebert finally got past. A few laps later and it was the recovering Guzman who made it into third as Colombo settled for fourth.
In the end, it was a comfortable victory for Mick Schumacher, but for the first time this season, he was joined on the podium by both his championship rivals. Siebert was eleven seconds down on the winner as Guzman cruised into third.
Despite his notable lack of pace in the first half, Colombo would still finish as top rookie in fourth as a sterling drive from Yan Leon Shlom saw him claim fifth from Ye. Elsewhere, Job van Uitert had spent the majority of the race outside the top ten, but a surge in the final half of the race leaped him up to seventh in the order, in front of Giacomo Altoe.
