British-Kiwi trailblazer Emily Cotty navigated through the chaos of the Italian F4 season-opening Misano round to take her first points finish of the season, as she battled against F1 junior drivers in a highly competitive 47-car grid.
Eight months after clinching the Italian F4 Women’s Trophy title at the Misano World Circuit, 16-year-old Emily Cotty returned to the venue, situated near the Adriatic sea, to begin her second season of Italian F4 competition.
Emily’s weekend began on Saturday morning, in the only qualifying session of the weekend, which was split into two groups for each half of the 47-car grid. Participating in the first group, the strongest of the two, Emily set the 18th-fastest time, which was then converted into a 22nd-place starting position for her first two races of the weekend.
As a result, Emily was put in Group B, which contested the first two ‘heat’ races, in the Italian F4 series’s four-race weekend format.
The first of three races took place on Saturday, during which Emily made a lightning start from 22nd, jumping to 16th on the opening lap. Following an early safety car period, Emily reached the points-paying positions, moving up from 15th to 13th as cars ahead hit trouble.
However, she then fell to 17th after being held up by the car directly ahead of her, which had driven without a front wing for an entire lap. In the closing laps, Emily clawed her way back to 16th, which then became 15th post-race after another driver was given a penalty, meaning she scored her first point of the season.
In race two, held later that day, Emily had another clean race, battling Mercedes-backed drivers to finish in her starting position in her penultimate race of the weekend.
After race three on Sunday morning, the top 36 drivers who scored points that weekend made it to the final, with Emily being only one of three girls to make it to the weekend-closing race. From 30th on the grid, Emily avoided a start-line crash and stayed out of trouble during the rest of the race to cross the line in 23rd position to begin her second season in Italian F4.
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