Andrea Rosso made home advantage count in opening Formula 4 Cup practice at Vallelunga this morning.
Familiarising themselves with KCMG’s hybrid F4 chassis was top priority for all 20 drivers who sampled the new machine for the first time during the 45-minute session.
And it was Italy’s representative who deployed his prior knowledge of Vallelunga to top the standings. Rosso was seldom far from the summit but finally saw off the competition when, with 10 minutes remaining, he set a 1m36.460s before lowering it again to 1m36.089s. Neither were beaten by anyone else.
Instead, early pace-setter Niklas Kruetten (Germany) finished best of the rest, albeit 0.479s down on Rosso, while Laszlo Toth (Hungary) was just 0.030s further back after also featuring near the top throughout.
William Alatalo (Finland) and Reshad de Gerus (France) completed the top-five ahead of Israel’s Ido Cohen, who had briefly deposed Rosso with a third of the session remaining.
Rosso aside, places second to 15th were covered by just one second.
Today’s second practice session begins at 15:15.