Reigning GB4 champion Ary Bansal was one of the stars of the opening round of the Italian F4 Championship season opener, which kicked off at Misano last weekend.
The young Indian, who claimed last year's GB4 crown with four victories, secured two podiums from the first three races of the year, against a field of 46 other drivers.
The 16-year-old qualified sixth in his group, but started the opening two races from eighth and seventh respectively.
Showing the same fighting abilities he demonstrated on the way to the GB4 title, Bansal carved his way up to fourth place on the road for the first race of the year, though he was awarded the final spot on the podium after the original race winner was handed a penalty.
Bansal then banked more solid points in his second race, claiming eighth, but it was a thrilling final contest in tricky damp conditions where he really laid down a marker of intent.
Holding sixth on the first lap, he had to wait for a few laps to begin his charge when the safety car was called following a heavy start-line shunt further down the order. On the restart lap alone he moved up four spots with passes on David Cosma Cristofor and Oleksandr Bondarev in short order, before dispatching David Walther and Niccolo Maccagnani around the outside in one manoeuvre towards the end of the lap to run second.
He then gave chase to leader Alp Aksoy, and was generally within half a second for the remainder of the contest. Then, on the final lap he applied massive pressure, getting within the slipstream through the final corners and finished just 0.265s away from victory.
"A solid opening weekend where fought our way forward and picked up important points for the championship," Bansal said. "Qualifying didn't quite reflect the pace we had, but I'm happy with how we approached the rest of the weekend and capitalised on our race pace.
"I think what worked for me [in the final race] was a good safety car restart and I was able to maximise the conditions becuase it was slightly slippery. I was able to find all the grippy parts and managed to overtake everybody except Aksoy, and once the race settled in I was just pressuring him until the end of the race."
Image credit: Fotocar / Eduard Cartana
