Rashid's Journey: Mission Misano accomplished with a twist

The 15-year-old driver from the UAE, contesting only his second weekend, in arguably the toughest F4 series in the world racing, at Misano in Italy, delivering a strong haul of points in his Huawei and Yas Heat-backed Prema run car, including a celebration on the podium.

With only two days of testing his Tatuus F4 car at the challenging track, near Rimini, Rashid did well to qualify ninth for Race 1 and Race 2, then he went one better to claim eight on the grid for Race 3. Notably, he was only three-tenths of a second off the pole-winning time set in each session, amid what is a very tight F4 grid of 33 cars, driven by the cream of today's young aspiring F1 drivers.

Qualifying at Misano revealed how very close the margins really are in this year's Italian F4 series, with no room for error during an action-packed weekend of three races, where the top 22 drivers were separated by less than a second, the top ten (shown below) covered by less than four-tenths!

At the front, the more experienced Prema drivers ruled the roost with Arvid Lindblad taking two pole position starts and teammate Tuukka Taponen claiming the other top spot start. Other Prema drivers, James Wharton and Ugo Ugochukwu, were also in the mix among the top ten in all three qualifying sessions as was Rashid.

Thus the Qualifying phase of 'Mission Misano' was accomplished by the young Emirati. All top ten starts were more than expected before his season began when top-15 grid spots were the targets set at the time.

Before the good news, the twist... heading to the grid for Race 2, Rashid was involved in a pitlane melee with teammate Aurelia Nobels which resulted in DNS for both drivers but, on the positive side for Prema, their drivers claimed the top four spots in the race, with Lindblad taking the win from second-placed Wharton, followed by Ugochuwu in third and Taponen fourth.

The good news came before that, in Race 1. Rashid turned ninth on the grid into a solid seventh place at the end of an intense 19-lap race won by Taponen, after a race-long duel with Prema teammate Lindblad, who had to settle for second. They were followed home by Wharton, Kacper Sztuka, Brando Badoer, Ugochukwe with Al Dhaheri in tow.

After sitting out the second race through no fault of his own, things got a great deal better for Rashid in the final race. To make up for the earlier disappointment, he tackled it with extra motivation, with a mature drive that paid off with sixth place, after battling it out with drivers with more F4 experience, he was able to hang in with the top five while setting his best race lap time within three-tenths of the fastest lap set in Race 3.

It is always with trepidation that one watches 'one of our own' in motorsport, where so much can go wrong and perfect execution of race weekends is not negotiable, as I (and now you readers of Rashid's Journey) have a personal interest in monitoring his progress, hopefully, to prove my hunch right and that indeed he is heading to Formula 1. Put it this way, if you know then you know how nerve-wracking it is!

It's common knowledge in racing that moving up from karting to F4 is a huge step in a young driver's ladder to F1, and although it is still early days, many boxes were ticked during R1 in Imola - Rashid's car racing debut - and more of those are now ticked after a solid and mature showing at Misano, where he revealed he can mix it with the pace-setters on outright speed. However, as one of the least experienced drivers in the field, in terms of F4 mileage, and one of the youngest lads on the grid, inevitably the diamond is in the process of being polished.

And that's where master 'diamond-polishers' of racing drivers - Prema Racing - step in; their expertise was evident in the dominance shown by their most seasoned drivers this weekend in Italy.

No surprise because highly-rated Lindblad is on the Red Bull books while equally impressive Taponen is part of the Ferrari Driver Academy and, like Rashid (plus every other driver on the F4 grid for that matter) the goal is F1. Thus the Abu Dhabi schoolboy has very good company in the Prema garage, with nowhere to hide for him or any of his teammates.

Departing Misano (after the seven points-scoring rounds thus far) Lindblad - who made his F4 debut last year at Red Bull Ring - comfortably leads the 2023 Italian F4 Championship points standings with three wins and three-second places to his name; he also tops the Rookie standings with Al Dhaheri fifth.

After celebrating on the F4 Rookie podium, at Misano, Rashid summed up: "All weekend it has been amazing weather for us to do what we love, race! Again like Imola, it was a weekend of learning and absorbing, developing ways to move forward throughout the weekend to score some solid results, which to be honest (apart from Race 2) were above our expectations.

"I enjoyed some very tense and exciting battles with other drivers, I felt good overtaking and defending throughout the race in which you learn so much, especially since a lot of the car racing procedures are still relatively new to me; and of course running open-wheelers is becoming more and more familiar," added Rashid.

The Emirati added: "We're very proud of our Prema Racing team and the work we've been able to do together. We have two weeks to process the lessons from Misano, and we'll push forward all the time to get better and better results. Overall I am happy but, in the end, I am here to work hard to win races. That's always the goal."

Next up for Rashid is the hallowed Spa-Francorchamps. Venue of the Belgian Grand Prix, the Italian F4 Championship steps out of Italy, to set up in the Ardennes for a weekend to cherish for young drivers following in the footsteps of the greats; at the daunting venue where the great Michael Schumacher made his F1 debut back in 1991.

On 26 to 28 May, three decades on, Al Dhaheri and his generation of wannabe F1 drivers will do battle over three races during Round 3 of the Italian Championship, which is also the next episode of Rashid's Journey to the pinnacle of motorsport. Inshallah.