PREMA Racing delivered multiple podium finishes in the opening round of the 2025 E4 Championship - formerly known as the Euro 4 Championship - at Circuit Paul Ricard. The team did not achieve victory, but looked to maximize the potential and the points score.
Kean Nakamura-Berta brought home a triple podium with two second places and a P3. The Japanese-Slovakian was fast and got a double pole in qualifying, but while he briefly led in Race 2, he could not find his way to the win and focused on achieving the best possible results. He's now second in overall points.
Sebastian Wheldon posted a double podium in third place as he also couldn't find his way to P1. A fourth spot in Race 2 completed his tally for the weekend, which means he's fully in the hunt for the series.
Oleksandr Bondarev executed a positive weekend, qualifying three times in the top-5 and fighting within a tight pack to achieve three points finishes overall and as many rookie wins. That handed him the early advantage in the class standings, highlighting some remarkable consistency.
While showing pace, Zhenrui Chi came home with P8 in Race 1 as his best overall result. The Chinese racer faced front wing damage in Race 2 before stalling at the start of Race 3. His recovery from that was amazing, though, handing him his second rookie podium of the weekend.
Salim Hanna faced a challenging event as two issues in qualifying meant he was forced to recover in all three races from near the back of the pack. The Colombian put up a bold fight, and his recovery to P10 in Race 1 spoke for itself. Unfortunately, in Race 2, he was forced to settle for P24 by a penalty, while contact pushed him down to P22 in the final race.
He will be back in a couple of weeks for round five of the Italian F4 Championship at Imola.
#27 - OLEKSANDR BONDAREV
"We made a step and finally put a clean weekend together, all three top 7 finishes and three rookie wins. I'm quite happy about that. Still, we have a long, long way to go to go until we get to the pace of the leaders, but I'm happy with the step we made. A big thank you to the whole team, they put in some great work this weekend. We will sit down, have a look, and find areas where we can improve for the next one."
#28 - NEWMAN CHI
"It was probably one of my toughest weekends. Practice was good but in qualy 1 we struggled with the strategy doing only two push laps and in qualy 2 we were just not fast overall. In Race 1 I did what I could to manage the tyres, while in Race 2 we lost the front wing on a kerb without even hitting the floor, it was an unlucky one. In Race 3 it was on me. I stalled at the start, but the car was really good and we could have got a podium without without that. I'm not doing that again and we are going to get it next week!"
#51 - KEAN NAKAMURA-BERTA
"The team did a mega job and put the effort in, we really tried but it wasn't meant to be. Marc my main engineer couldn't be here and it was quite tough, but with Luis, my engineer last year, we gave the best. We got P1 in both qualifying sessions, and third in second fastest laps. In Race 1 we struggled a bit in terms of race pace, we finished in P2 but there was still work to do. We tried a few things for Race 2, and we led for a few laps but it was a tough one, we struggled at the end. For Race 3, we tried some things again and it was promising. It was a step forward and we seemed to have more pace towards the end of the race. We gave it one last go three quarters of the race in and we took the fastest lap but couldn't hold that pace. Not the way I wanted to start the championship, but we take the ponts. We will be back stronger for the second round of E4 and the next round of Italian F4 at Imola."
#88 - SALIM HANNA
"Not a good weekend. We had issues in Q1 with the tyres and in Q2 with the car. Race 1 was the only positive one of the weekend, while in Race 2 we had no pace no matter what I did to be as perfect as possible. Race 3 was a bit of a disaster as I broke my front wing when a car turned into me. We move forward, we'll be back at Imola."
#98 - SEBASTIAN WHELDON
"Overall it was a difficult weekend, and we struggled to find a little bit of speed compared to Gomez in front. Overall I tried the best I could, I drove well and definitely I learned a lot about the car. I'm ready for the next round of the Italian Championship at Imola."