Photo: Double R Racing

Double R Racing is fielding Yuanpu Cui, Bart Harrison and Lorenzo Campos in Eurocup-3’s main and winter series this year.

The team, formed by Kimi Raikkonen and Steve Robertson in 2004, is returning to full-time racing after a four-year break. Following the conclusion of Euroformula’s 2021 season, its only race outings have been two British Formula 4 rounds in 2023.

As a test-only team since, Double R has run drivers in single-seaters at circuits across Britain. Its sister company Fine Moments operated W Series’ fleet of Formula Regional cars until 2022.

For its racing return in Eurocup-3, which has switched from FRegional cars to the new third-tier Dallara 326 chassis with TOM’S-developed 1.6-litre turbocharged Toyota engines, Double R will field three drivers.

Former Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Cui began 2026 by coming ninth in FRegional Oceania. His best result was fourth, in contrast to his points-free 2025 outings in FRegional’s European and Middle East championships, and the 18-year-old was 18th in GB3 last year as a part-timer.

Harrison has a podium from his two-round venture into GB3, but has primarily raced in F4 since 2024. A race-winning cameo put the 18-year-old 10th in F4 Central European Zone last year, he was seventh in Formula Winter Series’ standings, made the podium en route to 14th in Italian F4 and was 20th in British F4.

Campos, 16, represented Angola in the 2024 Motorsport Games F4 Cup and went points-free in Spanish F4’s main and winter championships in 2025.

“This is a good line-up to get us back into racing, and we are hoping to work with the drivers for some good results this season,” said Double R’s team principal Anthony Hieatt.

“Since leaving full-time racing at the end of 2021, we spent two years working on the cars used in the film F1: The Movie, and throughout this period we have done some extensive testing with our F4 and Formula 3 cars. We’ve probably been the busiest race team in Europe without actually doing any racing! As a group, we’ve been doing around 100 test days a year.”

Double R has a long history racing Dallara chassis, and ran Mike Conway to the 2006 British F3 title and Macau Grand Prix victory in a Dallara F306.

“The fact that this is a championship with fresh Dallaras meant that this was a good time to come back racing,” added Hieatt. “And it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to compete against some of the new powerhouses in single-seater racing like Hitech, Campos Racing and MP Motorsport. In our old days we never shied away from competing against Prema and Carlin. We really look forward to working with the Eurocup-3 organisers, who have made us feel very welcome.”

The team’s testing activities mean its personnel are all in place to transfer back into a racing environment.

“We’ve got a really experienced group of people who have been connected to the team for a period of years,” said Hieatt. “Everybody’s looking forward to the challenge.”

The post Double R Racing’s line-up for racing return in Eurocup-3 revealed appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

Freddie Slater has followed up his Formula Regional European Championship title by being voted driver of the season by the paddock’s team principals and managers.

In a poll conducted by Formula Scout, each of the teams in the championship was asked to submit their ranking of the top 10 drivers for the 2025 season. To maintain objectivity, team principals were not allowed to vote for their own drivers. Points in the poll were awarded on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.

Nine team principals participated, giving a maximum theoretical score of 80 points.

While Slater was unsurprisingly the first choice of many, he was not considered the best by all. As with the two previous winners, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Rafael Camara, Slater fell one point short of a perfect score, as one team manager put him behind Matteo De Palo in second place.

The top positions mirrored the overall standings, although there were significant differences between the individual votes cast.

Trident’s De Palo was a clear second, although one team principal did rank him outside the top three.

R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot were as inseparable in the voting as they had been in the overall points standings and finished tied for third place, although Clerot won a head-to-head comparison by five to three.

While the top five lined up in their championship positions, ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato edged past R-ace GP’s Akshay Bohra for sixth by a single vote.

The performances of Sainteloc Racing’s Nikita Bedrin clearly got him noticed by his competitors, who ranked him eighth, three positions higher than his championship position.

Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri and R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura tied on points for ninth.

A total of 16 drivers received at least one nomination, although surprisingly, only four drivers were included in every team’s top 10 ranking.

Those outside the combined top 10 were VAR’s Hiyu Yamakoshi and Dion Gowda, CL Motorsport’s Michael Belov, ART Grand Prix’s Kanato Le and two drivers who competed in fewer than half the rounds, Reno Francot and Ean Eyckmans, both driving for R-P-M.

Formula Scout would like to thank the following team principals and managers for their time in submitting ratings for the poll:

Ignacio Cristobal (Sainteloc Racing), Keith Donegan (RPM), Tristan Gommendy (Prema), David Li (CL Motorsport), Thibaut de Merindol (R-ace GP), Adrian Munoz (G4 Racing), Matthew Norman (Akcel GP), Mathieu Zangarelli (ART Grand Prix) and Luca Zerbini (Trident). Van Amersfoort Racing did not respond and therefore its drivers’ scores have been adjusted accordingly to ensure comparability.

2025 FREC teams’ driver poll results

The post Freddie Slater voted FREC driver of the season by team principals appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

While the final margin was large, Freddie Slater was made to work hard to become FREC champion in 2025

Freddie Slater was many people’s favourite for the title heading into the 2025 Formula Regional European Championship. The Briton had a record-breaking run to the 2024 Italian Formula 4 title with Prema, and remained with the team for the step up to FRegional, hoping to emulate its previous champions Dino Beganovic, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Rafael Camara.

Over a 10-round campaign, the last for the first-generation Tatuus T-318 chassis after seven seasons of use, fortunes ebbed and flowed as five drivers from five different teams set the pace. Trident’s Matteo De Palo matched Slater from round one at Misano onwards, but then a dominant double win for Slater in the Monza season finale crowned him with a big points gap.

Slater and Prema possibly made the task than it should have been. The team seemed to lack its pace advantage from past seasons, and between them the drivers in Prema’s three other cars amassed a points tally that was under 44% of Slater’s own.

“[Winning the title feels] pretty crazy, especially with the year we’ve had. It’s not been smooth sailing – we’ve had many wins but also a lot of downs – and it’s been super close,” was Slater’s assessment of the outcome of his campaign.

After being crowned at Monza, he admitted “we’ve made a lot of mistakes, some in our control, some out of our control”.

Slater thanked his mechanics “for fixing all my mistakes and crashes” but is arguably unduly harsh on himself, such are his high standards. His most significant mistake came on the opening lap of the season-opening race, when he squandered his pole advantage through wheelspin, then was trying to go alongside De Palo through turn one when he was spun out after a hit from behind.

De Palo went on to win, forging a 25-point lead Slater took five races to negate. In round six at Imola, a mistake outside of his control cost Slater 18 points when he was disqualified from second due to missing valve caps on his left-hand wheels.

His only podium-free weekend was at the Red Bull Ring. Technical issues meant he qualified 18th for race one, and finished it in 12th, then he was fourth in race two, when he said “the step we had to take was huge and there is not much chance for overtaking”.

Slater at Misano

Slater was the only driver to win both races in a weekend, doing so at both Paul Ricard and Monza. His seventh victory In the season’s penultimate race secured him the title and showed maturity, speed, intelligence and a winner’s mentality.

While he clearly had enough speed to pressure Evan Giltaire for the lead, Slater bided his time as the Frenchman’s tyres slowly gave up the fight. With De Palo down the order after a grid penalty and first-lap wing damage, Slater knew “I just had to wrap it up today” as he told Formula Scout with a smile that evening, but ultimately couldn’t resist the opportunity to do so with a victory.

Arguably his best drive of the year had come a few weeks earlier at Hockenheim, as he charged from fourth to first on a damp track, passing Giltaire, Akshay Bohra (twice) and De Palo before disappearing into the distance.

Slater managed to retain an air of chilled insouciance despite the pressures of the tight run-in against De Palo, and rarely looked flustered, in or out of the cockpit.

His eight wins matched the tally of Gregoire Saucy in 2021 (the first season following the merger with Formula Renault Eurocup), but five fewer than the 13 that Frederik Vesti managed in the 2019 season, which had three more races. Slater’s overall points haul of 313 beat the 20-race record of last year’s champion, Camara, by four.

Slater will unsurprisingly follow Camara’s path to Trident in FIA Formula 3 for 2026, with his camp confiding that “the deal had been done quite early”. Only a brave gambler would bet against him enjoying a similar season to his predecessor.

At the start of the season, the main opposition to Slater had been expected to come from sophomores Giltaire at ART Grand Prix and Pedro Clerot at Van Amersfoort Racing.

Giltaire had started his year by defeating Slater to win the Formula Regional Middle East championship and thus headed back to Europe in an optimistic mood as the highest-placed returning driver. Clerot had finished the previous season just four points adrift of Giltaire. Both had stayed with their 2024 teams, looking to build on solid rookie seasons.

De Palo

However, De Palo struck early by winning the opening race at Misano and would provide the most constant challenge throughout the season.

His victory on the Adriatic coast was not only his maiden win at this level, and his first in cars since Spanish F4 in 2023, but also the first win for his Trident team in its fourth season in the series. “We felt a lot of emotion,” recalled De Palo, and the outpouring of elation on the pit wall as he crossed the line was certainly uplifting.

Clearly, De Palo gelled perfectly with the team; the switch to an Italian team from Sainteloc Racing seemingly providing him with confidence and reassurance.

Trident team manager Luca Zerbini was not surprised by De Palo’s performance:

“From the very first moment we started to work with him, from testing at the end of last season, on the simulator, at all the technical meetings, we saw that is very good, to be honest,” he said. “In winter testing he was performing very, very well. He felt very good with the team straightaway and vice versa.

“He’s smart, and always happy, I would say. We laugh a lot, because sometimes he says funny things also on the radio. But he feels the pressure, like every driver, of course.

“At the end of the day, when you work hard, and you have a good driver in the car, results will come. So, maybe it was a surprise for a lot of people. To be honest, we couldn’t foresee how good the season would be, but we knew that it was going to be a very good season with him.”

Zerbini believes that this year’s results prove the strength of his team’s set-up and staff continuity.

“Last year could have been much better. [Roman] Bilinski had that road accident and was out for a few races. Even when he came back, he was still not at his best, but we were still performing with [Michael] Belov.

De Palo at the Red Bull Ring

“I’m proud of that because the team is very stable, also from the technical point of view. We have three engineers working together since day one in FRegional and even though they are quite different, they are able to work very well together,” he explains.

On De Palo’s day, he was untouchable. His three subsequent wins at the Hungaroring, Red Bull Ring and Barcelona were dominant. He showed that was prepared to fight his rivals wheel-to-wheel as he demonstrated in the opening corners at Misano and Barcelona.

He was a model of consistency, only failing to score points twice – the second race in Austria and the Monza opener – both due to contact damage. Unlike Slater, De Palo was never able to dominate a weekend, his best overall weekend results being a win and a third.

He was unsurprisingly a “bit sad” at losing out in the final weekend and said he “needed to step back a little.”

When he does reflect on his year, one that secured him a place on McLaren’s driver development programme, he can be rightfully proud, even though the way in which he ultimately lost out was a sad and arguably undeserved conclusion. Next year, he will need to take Slater on again, but this time from across the same garage.

Two drivers tied for third place, Clerot and R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny, with the French-Chinese driver taking the position by virtue of his four victories.

Deligny was a driver with something to prove as he also returned for a second season, having been dropped by the Red Bull junior programme over the winter.

His speed was never in doubt. Indeed, he was arguably the outright fastest driver in FREC this season, even having a slight edge on Slater: measured by the average gap to the best qualifying time in each qualifying group, Deligny was marginally the fastest qualifier of the year, despite struggling in the colder morning temperatures at Monza.

Deligny

Significantly, each of the top qualifiers had at least one disastrous qualifying session, whereas in 2024 Camara managed to post a time among the top four in his group at every race.

As the average times clearly show, the gap at the front was minuscule; evidence of the tightness of this year’s championship.

Qualifying performance

What Deligny lacked was consistency, although he had clearly made huge strides in maturity since his disappointing rookie season.

He was off-the-pace at the opening and closing rounds, where his team-mates Bohra and Jin Nakamura mostly struggled too, while a spin at his home event at Paul Ricard in the summer cost him dearly.

On his day, Deligny was blisteringly quick, as his wins at Spa-Francorchamps, Imola, Barcelona and Hockenheim proved. He and Slater put on some of the seasons’ best battles, notably at Spa and the Hungaroring.

The weekend in Budapest showed both sides of his character, driving a beautiful race to lead and then re-pass Slater when a technical issue arose. A third-placed finish was then lost when he was disqualified for driving in a “dangerous” and “erratic” manner on the slow-down lap.

“This year wasn’t easy,” Deligny commented. “I think the competition has been the toughest it’s ever been. We took four wins, nine podiums and four pole positions and still we barely made it into the top three.”

After what he acknowledged had been a “tricky year” in 2024, he felt that he and R-ace GP had made “a big step”, saying: “we worked really hard during the winter on the set-up and tyre management, and our speed was really good.”

His team principal Thibaut de Merindol agrees that “Enzo has improved a lot compared to last year”.

“He always has been potentially very quick. From the first test we did with him during the summer of 2023, he was able to drive the car very fast but it was very all over the place in many aspects. Where he has improved a lot is, I think, that he’s much more mature as a human being. He’s much more integrated in the team in terms of communication, in terms of feeling comfortable with everyone around.

Deligny

“He opened up a lot. We can joke, we can have fun. Last year he was like a very young teenager; very shy, very defensive. So, he made a huge step. Then the work with the team is much more efficient and I think he’s feeling much more comfortable, and then the performance on track comes.

“Overall, looking at the statistics, I think he’s the best performer in qualifying. We made some mistakes, we lost some points, talking about Hungaroring, but he’s on his way to getting better and better, and he did a mega step.

“When he lost Red Bull, I think it forced him to analyse the situation and understand that he had to change something. I’m very happy.”

And with good reason, as R-ace GP managed to wrestle the teams’ championship back from Prema for the first time since 2021, largely thanks to Deligny’s points. He will move on to Prema for his rookie F3 season in 2026.

Van Amersfoort Racing, like Trident, scored its maiden FRegional win with Pedro Clerot in 2025, just as the popular Dutch team celebrated its 50th year in motor racing. To add icing to the birthday cake, the first win came at Zandvoort, just 80 kilometres west of the team’s base at Zeewolde, with a host of former drivers and guests braving the rain to join in the festivities.

Clerot took both poles in the Netherlands but got mugged into Tarzan in race one by a fast-starting Slater. However, he made amends in race two, with team-mate Hiyu Yamakoshi following him home to make it an even more special weekend for the local team.

The team struggled at the start of the year with Clerot failing to score in either race at Spa, his only non-points finishes all year. As he told Formula Scout at the end of the year: “the year has been 90% strong. After Spa, we’ve been fighting for poles everywhere and I’m happy with the progress we’ve made.

“Spa and Misano were not so good – Misano is a very specific track – but in Zandvoort and Barcelona we had the pace.”

Clerot leads home Yamakoshi at Zandvoort

Though he ultimately just missed out on third in the standings, Clerot “looks back very positively on the season and two years of working well with the team, and not disappointment about the championship.” He swaps VAR for Rodin Motorsport for the move up to F3 in 2026.

The last of the five stand-out drivers, Giltaire somehow remained philosophical and in good humour despite a season that started strongly with a win and a second at Misano before plunging into a deep hole. He and his ART team kept battling and managed to dig their way out of the trough to bounce back with a very strong performance at the last two rounds at Hockenheim and Monza.

The car was clearly not a match for the machines of Prema, at least in Slater’s hands, or R-ace GP, and his defence of the lead at Monza on tyres that were losing grip rapidly was heroic.

Formula Scout has documented his struggles during 2025 previously, and it seems at the time of writing that a berth in Super Formula Lights in Japan beckons. But have no doubts – Giltaire, like the four who finished above him, would enrich any Formula 3 grid. Europe’s loss, though maybe only temporary, is Japan’s gain.

So, what of the rest?

Bohra was the only other driver to win a race, the Indian-American taking a perfect pole position, fastest lap and win at Imola. De Merindol sees a similarly positive development in him as with Deligny: “For a rookie, I think he’s done a very good season. Okay, obviously, Freddie Slater is a rookie as well, but we know the amount of preparation, the experience and the background of Freddie, which Akshay doesn’t have at all.”

Like his team-mates Bohra was off the pace at Misano and Monza, but was able to lead the team’s attack in races such as Paul Ricard where Deligny faltered.

Formula Regional Europe welcomed four Japanese drivers in 2025, helped by both Honda and Toyota placing junior drivers in the series. Hiyu Yamakoshi stayed with VAR where he had shone in F4, SF Lights race winner Jin Nakamura joined R-ace GP, while French F4 champion and Taito Kato lined up at ART Grand Prix, alongside sophomore Kanato Le.

Kato

Yamakoshi admitted to feeling extra pressure to beat his compatriots: “they are nice friends, so I don’t want to break our friendship, but racing is racing, so I want to beat them on the track, of course.”

Honda protege Kato was undoubtedly the most impressive, often pushing more experienced team-mate Giltaire hard. From mid-season he was a regular points scorer, aided by the presence in the paddock of Honda guru Takuma Sato, finishing the year with two fourths at Monza.

Yamakoshi had surprised many in Italian F4 in 2024 but could not match those results upon stepping up to FREC. A poor weekend at Misano dented his confidence, although a front row start and podium in the following race at Spa got his season underway. He followed it up with another second place at Zandvoort, and excelled in the wet part of qualifying, but his year rather tailed off thereafter with just one points finish after the summer break.

Toyota junior Nakamura took time to adapt but his season was the reverse of Yamakoshi’s, picking up momentum from Paul Ricard, apart from a terrible weekend at Imola. However, his season lacked consistency with too many mistakes blemishing his record.

He initially found the step down from SF Lights quite “difficult, because of the lack of grip” but the move had been driven by a push to learn “the tracks, the teams, everything” about racing in Europe. The presence at race weekends of Kazuki Nakajima and Kamui Kobayashi from Toyota provided extra support and motivation, making him, he said, “the happiest man in the paddock.”

The attraction for the Japanese contingent overall, he believes, was the “competitiveness of this championship; every team has good performance.”

All four Japanese drivers will move up to FIA F3, with Nakamura the only one to trade teams, moving to Hitech TGR as his backer looks to move him onto the next step towards F1.

Nakamura

Rashid Al Dhaheri looked promising on occasions at Prema, as the step up to a more powerful car seemed to suit his style after F4. If he remains in FREC, the Mercedes-AMG F1 junior could show his potential. He followed Slater home to take second-place finishes at the Hungaroring and Paul Ricard, where he also topped his qualifying group, in a mid-season run of strong results.

For team-mate Jack Beeton the year was a nightmare from beginning to end. Runner-up to Slater in Italian F4, he now struggled to even score points. His Monza weekend summed up his year: crashing at the first corner in race one, incurring two separate grid penalties for misdemeanours in qualifying for race two and then leaving for IndyNxt testing before the second race.

Prema fielded Doriane Pin in a fourth entry from the second round at Spa, with her F1 Academy commitments taking priority. However, amid the constant swapping from F4 to FRegional machinery she struggled to make an impression and ended her campaign after Paul Ricard to focus on her ultimately title-winning F1 Academy season.

The fourth Prema car was run as a wildcard entry for Pin’s then fellow Mercedes juniors Alex Powell and Yuanpu Cui in three late-season rounds. Neither could get a handle on the car in the limited running available.

Prema has been the gold standard in FRegional since its beginning, with the exception of the very start of the Alpine era, so its apparent struggles were surprising. Was Slater’s talent such that he could compensate for any inherent deficiencies in the set-up or were the other drivers unable to extract the maximum from a front-running car?

Having said that, Prema still got close to the teams’ title in a year when no team apart from R-ace GP took wins with two different drivers.

VAR’s Dion Gowda picked up the official rookie title but with most first-year drivers ineligible having driven in the Middle East series, he had close to no competition. Of the other “eligible” rookies only Edouard Borgna did a full season, although offered little challenge.

Gowda leads Bedrin

Nikita Bedrin put in some strong performances at Sainteloc Racing, notably at the Red Bull Ring, but the team lacked any experienced back-up for most of the year.

For RPM and G4 Racing the sooner the year could end, the better. At least both gained entries for the 2026 championship, not without some drama in G4’s case.

Both seemed to operate revolving doors for their driver line-ups. G4 went through six drivers while the Italo-Irish squad managed to get through 10 drivers in the two remaining cars alongside ever-present Giovanni Maschio.

In truth, Keith Donegan’s team was using the latter part of the season as an extended driver test for 2026 and, Jan Przyrowski, Ean Eyckmans, Reno Francot, Tomass Stolcermanis and James Egozi all showed promise on their limited appearances.

Both outfits have the potential to run at the front and win races, and the series would be poorer without them.

Of the two new teams, Akcel GP only appeared on the eve of the season start and disappeared again after Imola, while CL Motorsport went for experience in their driver line up, and series veteran Belov duly delivered once he had joined the Italian-based team from Spa.

FRegional Europe goes into a new era in 2026 – new Tatuus chassis, a new Toyota-based engine from Autotecnica, and increased direct FIA involvement in technical and marketing matters. In addition, it will introduce some reversed-grid races as part of an overhaul of the calendar.

The final round at Monza also marked the 100th race of the championship’s partnership with Alpine, having adopted the Alpine-badged, Oreca-developed engine from 2021 following its merger with the Formula Renault Eurocup.

The end of the partnership with Alpine marks the end of Renault’s involvement in the junior single-seater ladder. The history of Formula Renault dates back to 1971 and counts the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri among its graduates. FRegional Europe had continued the link through the “by Alpine” suffix to its official championship name.

Nevertheless, the championship can go into its next phase full of optimism if the quality of this year’s drivers is a guide.

The post How Freddie Slater ended a Formula Regional Europe era on top appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: ACI Sport

His first season in Europe didn’t quite yield a title, but Sebastian Wheldon stood out in one of the most competitive F4 fields. Roger Gascoigne got his thoughts in the paddock.

Sebastian Wheldon, son of the late two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon, has wasted no time in establishing his own reputation in his first year racing in Europe.

It started with victory on his Italian Formula 4 debut at Misano, preventing any scepticism forming that he was another over-hyped second-generation driver on the lower rungs of the single-seater ladder. And his subsequent performances continued to demonstrate his talent.

The 16-year-old was embarking on his third year of car racing, the first two having been spent at home in the USA. Wheldon won the F4-spec Skip Barber Formula Race Series title in 2023, then he switched across to USF Juniors for 2024. He came third in the main championship for those cars, after being YACademy Winter Series runner-up.

Rather than tackle the next step of the USF Pro championships, he opted to continue his development across the Atlantic: “Because the level and the atmosphere is just way, way more intense. Everything’s done here in a more professional way.”

He went on to come third in Italian F4, fourth in the E4 championship and FIA F4 World Cup, and seventh in F4 Middle East.

Wheldon impressed with his speed, commitment and level of professionalism throughout the year, showing resilience to bounce back from a couple of disappointing rounds.

His European adventure began with a test for Prema at a hot Red Bull Ring in 2024, which paved the way for an F4 seat in Europe with the powerhouse team this year after “we were able to get the budget sorted”.

Photo: F4 Middle East

Another programme with Prema was added in the United Arab Emirates, inclusive of F4 Middle East and the final round of the 2024 Formula Trophy season last December where he claimed victory from pole in the first of the weekend’s two races.

“The UAE season was a bit tough for me, especially with the different tyre compound. I did have a pretty good FTrophy race, which I was able to win but we just kind of struggled a bit in UAE, mostly with the tyres.”

Pre-season testing in Europe restored Wheldon’s confidence going into the Italian championship. He was second in practice for round one, then narrowly missed out on pole in qualifying before storming to victory in the season-opening race.

After what he calls “a difficult middle part”, Wheldon went on to take another six wins in E4 and Italian F4, including “finishing on a high note” with a hat-trick of victories in the Italian finale at Misano.

“[It’s] a track I love. It is one of my favourites on the Italian calendar,” said Wheldon.

Prema was once again the dominant force in Italian F4, with its drivers filling four of the top five places in the standings, and Wheldon credited the competitive environment for accelerating his development:

“All the team-mates I had are extremely talented. You’re really able to learn from them in every single session and do things that they’re doing that you may be doing wrong, which is really helpful and it just makes you a better driver in the end.”

Wheldon ended up 11 points behind US Racing’s championship runner-up Gabriel Gomez, but won two more races than him.

A lack of consistency allied to some minor scrapes ultimately proved costly, and Wheldon was never afraid to get his elbows out in his on-track battles. He showed a willingness to defend his position robustly and an ability to attack decisively when opportunities arose. This was evident in his wheel-to-wheel battles with champion Kean Nakamura-Berta, the two making contact at Vallelunga and Monza, as Wheldon showed he was prepared to take on his team-mate as he marched to the title.

Photo: Macau GP Organising Committee

Pole position for the FIA F4 World Cup in Macau was further evidence of Wheldon’s talent, although a lap one crash in the qualification race meant he had to start from 15th for the main but he charged to fourth with the fastest lap.

Wheldon has been an Andretti Global junior since 2021, and throughout his single-seater career has raced using a black-and-yellow livery due to primary sponsor Gainbridge. It is a subsidiary of Group 1001, which like Andretti is owned by TWG Global.

“Andretti and Gainbridge have always been with me, they feel like family. Dan Towriss, the guy that owns Andretti [and is the Cadillac Formula 1 team’s CEO], has always been helping us as much as he can. I feel really connected, especially to the team, knowing all the drivers and stuff like that, just being able to take some advice from some of the IndyCar drivers there. It’s really cool, and I’m really grateful to be part of their team.”

He added: “[Having the Andretti name behind me means a lot. I’ve got to keep on my A-game, to keep proving myself [but] it’s such a privilege to be part of that team.”

The Floridian proudly flies the USA’s flag, which is alongside the British one on his overalls since his father hailed from England, and has acknowledged he has already been able to learn so much from racing in Europe this year. Reflecting on his first year outside of the USA, he also noted the higher level of competition:

“In the US, I’d say it’s a bit less competitive. You really only have about maybe five guys that can fight for the championship, but I feel like over here you can have [more] people fighting for the championship. Obviously, you want more competitive because it just makes you a better driver.”

Wheldon added: “F1 is looking at some of the junior drivers here, so that’s pretty cool. Overall, [it feels] like a more professional deal over here in Italy.”

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

The Anglo-American is yet to announce his programme for 2026. Another year in Europe or a return to the USA? He has proved that he is at home on either side of the Atlantic.

But looking forward, if he had to choose between winning F1’s Monaco Grand Prix or IndyCar’s Indy 500? “Oh shoot! It’s super close. How about both maybe?” was Wheldon’s diplomatic reply.

Maybe with an eye to the European environment around him, he hesitantly ventured: “Probably Monaco. Just driving through Monte Carlo, there’s nothing more special [than] that, but the Indy 500 is right up there too.”

In either case, he stands ready to continue representing the Wheldon name with distinction.

The post Sebastian Wheldon: The Anglo-American making his mark in Europe appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Tatuus

The glint of a proud father was evident in the eyes of Tatuus’s CEO Giovanni Delfino when he spoke to Formula Scout about the company’s FRegional Gen2 car, the T-326, during its public unveiling at Monza

“The car’s look is exactly what we wanted to achieve. The overall package, the line of the car, the aero that you can feel looking at the car. I like it very much. So, it’s not a single detail, but it’s the overall look of the car which I like,” says Giovanni Delfino as he discusses the design of the new Tatuus T-326 to Formula Scout at the car’s launch.

Tatuus and its northern Italian rival Dallara have come to dominate the global market for single-seater chassis. While Dallara has plenty of contracts in the top three tiers, Tatuus has built its niche in Formula Regional and Formula 4.

The T-326 is Tatuus’s second-generation FRegional car and succeeds the T-318, which had been in use since the category’s inception in 2018. Its introduction was delayed by 12 months to 2026, ostensibly on grounds of cost, with the FIA keen to get international alignment ahead of a unified global rollout. It can be said its arrival now comes not a moment too soon, as Tatuus’s newer fourth-tier single-seaters for Eurocup-3 and GB3 has led to the T-318 showing its age.

FRegional’s European Championship and Middle East Trophy will adopt the T-326 straight away, and a deal with FRegional Oceania for after 2026 is expected to complete the global picture.

Nicolas Caillol, motorsport manager for FRegional Oceania’s promoter Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand, told Formula Scout earlier this year that staying with Tatuus would be a “no-brainer” given their 20-year history together that began with the preceding Toyota Racing Series. “They’ve been a great partner from the start so there’s no reason [to] change.”

Tatuus will update GB3’s new-for-2025 car next year, while Eurocup-3 adopts Dallara chassis to become a third-tier series.

Delfino is convinced that the development of the T-326, undertaken “in strong co-operation with the FIA”, represents a major step forward for FRegional in safety, performance and drivability.

Giovanni Delfino

“What we have done has been decided together with the FIA, because in reality FREC will be a full FIA championship, so we are really committed to have the best car we can do in terms of performance, reliability and safety. But I would say safety first,” Delfino explains.

It’s not a buzzword; safety’s embedded in every aspect of the car’s design from the chassis to the attached crash structures.

“Safety for me is the complete chassis, so the complete line, starting from the chassis itself, the nose and the rear crash box. And so, we have been working to gain the best safety we can, while keeping the chassis as light as possible,” he adds.

Enhanced safety measures inevitably bring a weight trade-off and Delfino is at pains to emphasise the word ‘light’, not ‘lighter’, but concedes “the chassis itself is heavier than the old car”.

The T-326’s 15-inch wheels “weigh almost 20kg more than the 13-inch rims” on first-generation cars, but Tatuus has tried to compensate by making “the mechanical parts and the engine lighter; while the rest is more or less the same” as the T-318.

That car was frequently criticised for being heavy, unresponsive and sluggish, making wheel-to-wheel racing difficult. Delfino does not reject the criticism but stresses the importance of the car’s drivability for drivers’ perception of heaviness:

“I believe that drivers felt and said that the car was heavy, not because of the real weight of the car, but because of the effort you have to exert on the steering wheel to turn the car.”

Tatuus has addressed this with its T-326 design by focusing on refining the suspension geometry to make the steering “lighter” and the car more responsive to driver inputs. This follows adjustments made to the T-318 ahead of the 2024 season with similar aims, particularly to make the car more accessible for female drivers.

“The feeling from the driver is totally different. In our development phase, we asked Marta Garcia and Vicky Piria, both of whom have experience of driving the first generation, to drive the car and they say this is a totally different car to drive. So, result achieved, I would say,” Delfino reckons.

During the T-326’s early development stages, Tatuus president Gianfranco De Bellis told Formula Scout “while our main target is of course safety, after that [it was] to make a very nice car for the driver; a car that can transmit to the driver and to the team the right direction to improve the driver’s skills for the future”.

Within the framework of the FIA’s homlogation specifications for FRegional, Tatuus has also made significant improvements to the aerodynamics with the aim of reducing the ‘dirty air’ when following another car, thus making overtaking easier.

“The aerodynamics will be less sensitive to being behind [another car] so that will definitely be the main step to create more attractive racing. It is the same philosophy as Formula 1 that the [following] car suffers less turbulence affecting the aerodynamics,” explained De Bellis. “This has been the main point where we have worked for the new FRegional.”

Delfino has been keen to point out Tatuus did not use a full test team to develop the T-326, instead comparing its simulations to the data from running a single car on track: “So, we are not announcing that overtaking will be easier. But that is what our calculations say.”

Through this summer and autumn, Tatuus ran the prototype chassis at a variety of European circuits including Cremona, Cervesina, Vallelunga and Mugello in Italy as well as Paul Ricard and Magny-Cours in France.

In addition, Tatuus and the FIA made use of the 1.678-mile Catesby vehicle testing tunnel in England to provide further data to the design teams from both the constructor and the federation in optimising the car’s aerodynamics.

The T-326 prototype in the Catesby tunnel

Former Minardi F1 test driver Matteo Bobbi and Le Mans 24 Hours podium-finisher Lorenzo Colombo shared in the testing duties with Garcia and Piria, and were still putting the car through its paces at Cremona last month as teams were taking delivery of the first chassis off the production line.

Powering their laps of the track has been FRegional’s first ever three-cylinder engine, derived from a 1.6-litre Toyota G16E unit used in road cars that is also the basis of third-tier series Euroformula, Super Formula Lights and soon Eurocup-3’s engines.

The development work done by Autotecnica, which like Tatuus is part of the newly-created Korus Group, to prepare the engine for FRegional means the unit used will be called the ATM163T.

That means the end of FREC’s five-year run with Oreca-developed and Alpine-branded Renault engines, while the Autotecnica-built Alfa Romeo-based powerplant still used in FRME and the Macau Grand Prix will now be replaced.

Delfino reveals that “Autotecnica is the only manufacturer accredited by Toyota to homologate the engine for FRegional, ensuring consistency and reliability across all markets”, and actually worked closely with Japanese firm TOM’S after procuring the untuned units and spec parts from them.

It developed the engine for third-tier single-seaters, so a collaboration began “since they know the engine very well, so they have been supporting us wherever they can” and will continue to support Tatuus and Autotecnica going forward.

There is at least one party in Korus wanting TGR NZ to give up Toyota power in FRegional Oceania for Autotecnica’s new engines, and if such a deal was pursued on the other side of the globe it would require sharing responsibilities with TOM’S.

“We are willing to supply all the engines, but it would be not cost-effective for example to take care of all the rebuilds in the Asia-Pacific area,” Delfino says on behalf of Autotecnica. “That’s why working alongside TOM’S is a key factor: partnering with them means to guarantee time effective and efficient overall services to the teams.”

The ATM163T engine

With the T-326’s power-to-weight ratio having been limited by the FIA to 3.25kg/KW, Autotecnica’s freedom of movement has been limited but it has “been working a lot on the engine side to have the best performance”.

“Our engineers have been working on the dyno and on track to improve the drivability, the power curve and the torque curve and probably we can say right now that the perception and the feedback we have had from the drivers is that the engine is powerful enough,” Delfino adds. “When you activate the push-to-pass, I believe that there’s a strong difference between the current car and the new generation of car.”

Whatever might be said by them about safety, drivers still always seek more performance. So, what can be expected?

“We don’t develop cars in terms of performance,” stresses Delfino. “[That’s the job of] the teams which will be racing in the championships, but I believe that in Monza, we can be 1.5 to two seconds faster than the old generation. This is what we have been working to achieve.”

Third-tier championships FIA Formula 3 and Euroformula raced at Monza this year, as did FREC, Eurocup-3 in its FRegional-based form and GB3 which has moved further away from FRegional in technology and pace with its 2025 car. While GB3 targets lap records with upgrades for 2026, Delfino has not put a number on the scope of pace improvement there so if the target pace gain for the T-326 is achieved in real-world conditions it could place FREC above GB3.

Monza laptimes in 2025

Delfino says bringing chassis and engine companies together within Korus “has been a big, big advantage for us”, particularly with the challenge caused by the FIA’s late publication of homologation specifications for second-generation FRegional cars.

“[I don’t believe] that with different companies working alone, we would have achieved the same result. Being in the same group has given the fastest result possible to achieve to have a car running already in August for testing and at the same time building 30 cars to be delivered in November for the Middle East.”

Since the T-318’s introduction in 2018, Tatuus has been approached by its customers to develop variants on the base chassis for use in other championships. This includes Eurocup-3’s outgoing car and two generations of GB3 machinery. Clearly, Tatuus has been able to implement some of the lessons learned from those in the T-326.

“Obviously, every new car we design takes what we have done in the past as a reference and then we try to develop the car. So the new GB3, which has been a real platform that we are continuing to develop, is the base of the FRegional car.

“It helps a lot when you can develop cars with different shapes, but with the same skeleton, because you can develop the drawings, the design, the concept to achieve always the same results, which is an FIA-compliant car, but with a different level of engineering.”

GB3 promoter MotorSport Vision has not been bound by the strict requirements of the FIA’s regulations, giving Tatuus a freer hand in developing cars for use there. That has included more complex aero specifications and introducing the drag reduction system to 2025’s MSV GB3-025 car, but Delfino emphasises that “the chassis and the crashboxes were exactly compliant to the FIA regulations”.

Which raises the question: how frustrating is it for an innovative engineering firm to be boxed in by the demands of the governing body?

Having the FIA in an active role, not only in providing the category’s updated technical specifications but also determining how it will help organise FREC from 2026 onwards, has increased the number of meetings and delayed the final specification of the car and that championship’s calendar.

“It has been a strong co-operation with FIA, but with the timing of FIA, in reality the technical regulations have been set really late during the development phase,” Delfino states. Nevertheless, he sees its greater involvement as “very positive”.

“For Tatuus and Autotecnica, it will be a very good thing to work with them and to have FIA people on track during the races. It gives the [European] championship and the manufacturers a greater credibility.

“We are working to have a reliable car, to have the performance we need, to have exciting races. Once we are on the same ship, we will help each other to achieve the results. So, if we need to do something more to [put] on the show that people want to see, I believe that working with the FIA people will be a positive aspect of this championship.”

Tatuus is in the business of designing, building and selling customer cars as a commercial operation. Engineering excellence is important, but it has to be achieved at a price that is affordable for its customers but profitable for its shareholders.

No easy feat, as countless constructors have discovered in the past.

Tatuus, Delfino says, only knows one way: striving for the highest standards of quality. “Our business model is quite clear: we don’t make any profit on the car. We try to develop the car, with the best parts, but obviously, we cannot spend much more than the price we can sell the car for.”

“Our business model works after the car sales, so it’s spare parts, it’s the championship, it’s track support which give us a good reputation, and the reason why the promoters we work with choose Tatuus.”

Junior single-seater series using Tatuus chassis in 2026

Alongside meeting the technical challenge, winning a supply tender depends on reputation, history and teams’ satisfaction.

Volume production and efficient supplier relationships are key to keeping costs down. Having projected the expected production volume for a new car, Tatuus can go to its own suppliers and tell them “okay, we have to keep a cost like that”.

“I think Tatuus is leading the market in terms of, let’s say, entry-level single-seater cars all over the world,” claims Delfino.

“The reason is that we design a car to be safety-first, easy to drive, reliable, cost-effective, and something that a team and the driver can trust. It is this complete package that keeps us on top of the market.”

The post Tatuus on the design philosophy behind its FRegional Gen2 car appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS’ Jak Crawford set the fastest time in free practice for Formula 2’s final round of 2025 at Yas Marina Circuit.

The Texan set his best time in the final seconds of the morning’s 45-minute session to pip Prema’s Gabriele Mini by 0.085 seconds. Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad was third fastest, a further 0.011s back from Mini.

After a couple of installation laps to scrub in Pirelli’s medium compound tyres, the field was soon back in the pits with the exception of Rodin Motorsport’s Martinius Stenshorne. However, his attempt to lay a time down early was thwarted by traffic as he encountered drivers exiting the pits as he started his flying lap.

Instead, it was Hitech GP’s Dino Beganovic who set the first representative laptime, although Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and then AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen immediately jumped to the top of the times.

Mini was back in front next time around, before being demoted by Montoya and MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe. However, as the session moved into its final 20 minutes, Mini again went fastest with a 1m39.866s on his eighth lap.

Turn two was proving tricky, with both Montoya and DAMS’ Kush Maini having wild moments but managing to catch their slides and press on with their laps.

The Prema pair were first to pit, as Mini’s benchmark remained unchallenged, with most of the rmaining runners following them in a lap later. The Invicta Racing duo of Roman Stanek and new champion Leonardo Fornaroli enjoyed an almost clear track but struggled to maintain pace for the full tour, with the latter only able to move up to sixth.

With under eight minutes remaining, Lindblad briefly moved top the top but his 1m39.790s laptimes was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn one, dropping back to eighth.

Mini improved again to 1m39.630s, which was briefly beaten by Crawford only for his time also to be struck from the timesheet for running outside of turn one’s track limits.

There were few legitimate improvements in the final minutes, but Lindblad later managed to keep his car within the white lines to go second with a 1m39.641s, then Crawford timed his final run to perfection to grab first place as the chequered flag came out.

Duerksen ended up fourth ahead of Goethe and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins, another with a late improvement. Half a second split the top eight, and a full second covered all but the four slowest drivers.

Free practice results

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Photo: ACI Sport

While the Formula Regional European Championship’s 2026 calendar is not yet published, recent paddock gossip has revealed what changes are expected.

Delays in formalising the agreement between FREC promoter ACI Sport and the FIA to collaborate on organising the championship going forward has subsequently prolonged negotiations with circuits but teams have already received an eight-round draft calendar.

That would end a five-year run of 10-round seasons, and Formula Scout understands nations are now limited to two rounds per year. ACI operates from Italy, which has appeared at least three times on the calendar in all previous seasons.

The draft calendar retains Monza but drops Imola and Misano for Mugello, which had featured each year until 2025.

Hockenheim, Paul Ricard, the Red Bull Ring, Spa-Francorchamps and Zandvoort will be retained, and it is believed Barcelona will be off the calendar for the first time as FREC was unable to secure a suitable slot to race there.

The Hungaroring is likely to be absent as GB3 retains its position supporting Euroformula’s event there, while Germany could have two rounds as the Nurburgring is touted to join. It and Hockenheim’s round are expected to support the DTM.

In 2021, FREC planned to visit the Nurburgring but severe flooding in the Eifel region made the track unavailable and it was swapped out for Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit. It would therefore debut next year.

FREC has long sought a return to Formula 1’s support bill, having started its 2021 season with three rounds on its undercard and racing in Monaco again in 2022. Championship partner Renault then had to cede that support slot to FIA Formula 3.

While being in F1’s 2026 support paddock appears unattainable, FREC’s increased support from the FIA is likely to add pressure to achieve its ambition.

Despite a reduced calendar length, FREC will continue to have a 20-race season. Four rounds will feature a third race, which will be the first reversed-grid encounters in championship history.

The top 12 from the first qualifying session will be reversed to form the grid, with the aim of helping drivers adjust to the format used further up the ladder in FIA F3.

Formula Scout understands qualifying would likely be shifted to Friday afternoons, at least for the triple-headers.

A joint announcement by FREC and the FIA before this season’s penultimate round at Hockenheim named the 10 teams that will compete in 2026. That had one notable change from a draft list circulated to teams, as Michael Meadows’ Argenti Motorsport outfit had been set to join and replace G4 Racing.

Argenti competes primarily in karting and British Formula 4, and expanded into GB3 this year in partnership with Prema.

G4 has raced in FREC since 2021, won five races but endured a tough 2025 in which it scored one point. Team manager Adrian Munoz explained that they and rivals were surprised by their initial omission, and were informed of the changed decision days before the announcement. G4 then submitted its 2026 entry fees immediately.

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Photo: ACI Sport

Evan Giltaire has his sights set on a move to Japan after his absence from the FIA Formula 3 post-season tests.

Though he has not given up hope of grabbing one of the few remaining F3 seats for 2026, he admits that the chances at this stage “are 0.1%”. Without a financial boost or support from a Formula 1 team, he acknowledges that the road appears closed.

The Frenchman sees no gains from a third year in Formula Regional, with a step up to Super Formula Lights in Japan his current preferred destination and the USA as a possible alternative.

Giltaire entered the 2025 FRegional European Championship on a high, having won the FRegional Middle East title. While he showed flashes of speed in FREC, fifth in the standings with a solitary victory failed to match expectations with his talent.

“It has been a tough season,” he told Formula Scout. “[Having won FRME] it was very frustrating. I wanted more for sure. In the first part of the season, except for some mistakes that we did, we still had the pace. But then in the middle of the season, we struggled a bit.”

As in 2024, his FREC season began with a win in round one. Despite its trials, Giltaire called that event at Misano “my best weekend” of 2025.

“It was a difficult weekend at first for us. Then we managed to secure P2 and the [track] record in qualifying, winning the race, [but] we were not the fastest. We just maximised 110% of what we could do. The others made some mistakes, and we managed to secure a good weekend by this.”

After that was Spa-Francorchamps, where he has a practice off, and a tricky Zandvoort round in which he stalled on the grid.

“I lost confidence while crashing in Spa and Zandvoort,” he admitted, although added that he and his ART Grand Prix team also took a wrong turn on set-up.

“I was frustrated for half of the season. The package overall was not that good for [Paul Ricard], Imola [and the Hungaroring].”

However, the latter end of the season featured a marked upturn in speed and fortune, with two fourth places then three successive podiums to end the year.

“I believed in my mind that I could improve myself and improve the car along with my engineer, so we worked a lot to find some solutions and it started to pay. We got faster and faster, with confidence that the car is getting better, and I also got a bit more the mentality that I had in the Middle East.”

ART GP’s points from the final round moved it back ahead of Trident to take fourth in the teams’ standings.

Despite scoring almost 60% of his team’s FREC points, it was team-mates Kanato Le and Taito Kato who did FIA F3’s three post-season tests with ART GP.

While frustrated “that we could have done better”, Giltaire is “still happy about what I’ve maximised during the season.”

The post Giltaire aiming for SF Lights after “frustrating” sophomore FREC season appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Kean Nakamura-Berta completed a clean sweep of victories at the final round at Monza to add the E4 championship title to his Italian Formula 4 crown.

Nakamura-Berta made a good start from pole position but in the run down to the Rettifilo chicane was passed by team-mates Newman Chi and Salim Hanna, with PHM Racing’s Reno Francot taking fourth from the Prema car of Sebastian Wheldon.

US Racing’s Gabriel Gomez, who needed to win with Nakamura-Berta not scoring to snatch the title, was up to seventh from 13th on the grid, having straightlined the chicane in the opening lap confusion.

Nakamura-Berta was back in front within five laps and was able to hold position to the flag, although never escaping the clutches of his pursuers.

Gomez was giving everything as he tried to get on terms with Nakamura-Berta, but had to fight lap-after-lap with Wheldon. One optimistic move at the first lap saw Wheldon edge him onto the gravel but Gomez was able to continue after losing just one place.

Chi’s challenge came to an end after taking to the first chicane escape road, and then damaging his front wing in a collision, requiring him to pit at the end of lap 6.

Wheldon and Gomez continued to battle, with both cutting the second chicane, although Wheldon gave back the position he had gained in the process.

US Racing’s Kabir Anurag had slowly been moving through the field, taking fourth on lap 12, and demoting Gomez for fourth on the following lap.

However, Nakamura-Berta was ultimately out of reach, Hanna following him him, 1.4s adrift.

Gomez, whose freeform interpretation of the track layout attracted the attention of the stewards, took the flag in fourth from Wheldon and Francot.

R-ace GP’s Alex Powell put in a stunning drive to come home seventh from 25th on the grid, with Ferrari junior Niccolo Maccagnani following him over the line after a very mature and impressive drive for BVM Racing.

Race results (14 laps)

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Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Freddie Slater rounded off his 2025 Formula Regional Europe season in style with a lights-to-flag triumph in the final race at Monza.

Slater resisted race-long pressure from championship runner-up, Trident’s Matteo De Palo, to clinch his eighth win of the campaign, equalling Gregoire Saucy’s 2021 tally.

Sadly, the hundredth and final race of the five-year cooperation between the Italian Automobile Federation (ACI) and Alpine was denied a race-to-the-flag after a late incident meant the race finished under safety car conditions.

Slater made a strong getaway from pole and although De Palo could draw alongside under braking for the first chicane, the Trident driver had to drop in behind Slater as the field funnelled its way through.

Prema’s bid to snatch the teams’ title was dealt a major blow as Rashid Al Dhaheri was turned around at the Roggia chicane on the first lap, dropping to the tail of the field.

With the third car of Jack Beeton not starting, having incurred a five-place grid penalty after qualifying for two offences, the team’s chances of taking the title for a fourth consecutive season were gone.

The front five of Slater, De Palo, ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire, Sainteloc Racing’s Nikita Bedrin and R-P-M’s series debutant Jan Przyrowski began to pull out a gap on their pursuers.

ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato had jumped to the top of that group, despite a wild trip through the first chicane, depositing gravel across the exit.

Behind him, R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura was fighting off a three-pronged attack from the Van Amersfoort Racing team, headed by Dion Gowda.

The leaders gradually extended the gaps, with the top three gradually dropping those behind.

Kato had joined the group comprising Bedrin and Przyrowski, but on lap 11 Bedrin was forced into the gravel at the Roggia chicane as he fought for position with Kato, bringing out the safety car.

As the field attacked the first chicane on lap 14, Gowda launched across the kerbs, hitting team-mate Hiyu Yamakoshi and leaving R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny with nowhere to go.

Deligny could continue at the back of the field but pulled off two laps later, with the safety car already circulating.

With three cars stranded, the rescue operation could not be completed in time to allow a final lap shoot-out, allowing Slater to take the chequered flag at reduced speed.

Kato held on for fourth with Przyrowski taking a promising fifth, and enabling the R-P-M team to finish the year on a high after a difficult year.

With only Slater scoring points for Prema, R-ace GP held on to clinch their second FREC teams’ title, neatly bookending the championship’s Alpine era with wins in the first and last seasons.

The team had been struggling all weekend to find pace in the cold morning qualifying conditions but were able to show more of their underlying pace in the races.

Deligny had put on a strong charge from 21st on the grid, and both Nakamura and Akshay Bohra scored points to secure the title for the French team, which recently celebrated 15 years in motor-racing.

Race results (17 laps)

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