Photo: F4 UAE

PHM Racing’s Nikita Bedrin was the fastest driver in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates’ pre-season test for the Yas Marina Circuit season finale, as the Prema drivers continued to shine.

Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema’s Aiden Neate topped the first session, going 0.061 seconds faster than Charlie Wurz (Prema), 0.188s faster than Rafael Camara (Prema) and a larger 0.356s faster than James Wharton (Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema).

Bedrin was best of the rest in fifth place, but he came to the fore in session two on Thursday as he headed Camara by 0.084s and beat Neate’s moning benchmark.

On Friday there was then a warm-up session in place of free practice, and this time the battling Prema pair Wurz and Camara were pipped to top spot by Martinius Stenshorne (3Y Technology by R-ace GP).

The two days of action included two new drivers who will be racing this weekend, with Spanish F4 racer Max Arkhangelskiy being added to R-ace’s line-up while Kyle Kumaran debuts with the Mumbai Falcons by Xcel Motorsport team.

Test results

Warm-up results

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Photo: FRAC

Hadrien David signed off his time in Formula Regional Asian Championship with a second win of the weekend at Dubai Autodrome, once again fending off Pepe Marti.

Pinnacle Motorsport’s Marti made a strong start to pass poleman David for the lead, but he came back past around the outside of turn one. The pair battled while also under pressure from Gabriele Mini, Isack Hadjar and Jak Crawford in the opening laps.

Crawford and Hadjar passed Mini, forcing the Hitech GP driver wide off the track but he was able to hold on in the next corners to reclaim his position. It was not long however until Mini was once again defending from the two behind.

Crawford stayed on Mini’s tail in the following laps but was unable to get past before the retirement of David Morales led to the safety car being summoned.

A perfect restart from David meant he had a comfortable gap to Marti after, while Mini and Crawford battled. Crawford attempted to pass around the outside of turn one, but Mini sent him wide and Crawford lost out to Dino Beganovic.

Mumbai Falcons’ Sebastian Montoya and Arthur Leclerc tangled in the following corners, with Montoya going into the run-off then sending Leclerc wide as he rejoined the track. Leclerc and Paul Aron went wheel-to-wheel next, until Montoya made contact with Aron’s rear-end and earned a black-and-white flag.

At the front David eventually came under pressure from Marti again, locking up and giving Marti – who he beat to race one victory – a chance. In the last two laps, the faster Marti placed himself ready to overtake but ran out of time to make a move.

Hadjar was third, Mini resisted late pressure from Beganovic and Crawford for fourth, while Montoya struggled with his tyres and dropped to 14th at the end.

Dilano van’t Hoff battled with Gabriel Bortoleto for points before retiring after contact with Aron.

Race results (19 laps)

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Photo: FRAC

Hadrien David has taken his maiden Formula Regional Asian Championship win, earned by passing around the outside of Sebastian Montoya for the lead.

Mumbai Falcons driver Montoya started strong off the line from pole, but David also made a strong start from the other side of the front row and was able to put pressure on, staying in Montoya’s slipstream and passing him around the outside after two laps of battling.

Montoya’s team-mate Dino Beganovic made an electric start into the first corner along with Jak Crawford who put the front two under pressure before the first corner but the pair were unable to get involved further.

Crawford lost positions in the following laps – under pressure from Pepe Marti and Beganovic – and the Red Bull junior dropped to fifth before the safety car appeared for the first time.

The first interruption came when Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema’s Amna Al Qubaisi made contact with the wall out of the penultimate corner.

On the safety car restart, David launched early and was able to stretch a gap of 2.9 seconds to the battling pack behind made up of Crawford, Marti, Montoya, Beganovic and Gabriel Bortoleto. Marti clearly had pace compared to Montoya, and the Pinnacle Motorsport driver was able to pass the defensive Montoya.

The battles gave chance to Crawford to regain places lost from the opening laps as he passed both Beganovic and Bortoleto to move into fourth before the safety car neutralised the race once more.

There was late drama as championship leader Gabriele Mini retired, and in a separate incident Thomas Luedi made contact with the wall. That meant the race finished behind the safety car, with David leading Marti and Montoya home.

BlackArts Racing’s Pierre-Louis Chovet, the 2021 FRAC runner-up, finished 10th on his racing return.

Race results (17 laps)

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Photo: FRAC

Hadrien David will start from second and first for races one and three of what is scheduled to be his last Formula Regional Asian Championship appearance at Dubai Autodrome.

In Q1 it was Evans GP’s Frederick Lubin who was first to lead the way, but with seven-and-a-half minutes remaining the first true flying lap came in from Mumbai Falcons’ Dino Beganovic who set a 1m34.711s to head a close top three with team-mate Sebastian Montoya and Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema’s Jak Crawford 0.045 seconds and 0.077s back respectively.

On his next lap Montoya improved to a 1m34.335s, and from there the battle for pole was settled.

He stayed out to do several more laps but couldn’t go faster, and neither could any of his rivals. 3Y Technology by R-ace GP’s David got close a few times, eventually coming short by 0.063s while Crawford also got within a tenth of pole.

Pinnacle Motorsport’s Pepe Marti got faster as the session went on to beat Beganovic to fourth, while the title contenders lacked frontrunning pace.

Hitech GP’s points leader Gabriele Mini was over half a second back in eighth, sandwiched between team-mate Isack Hadjar and Mumbai Falcons rival Arthur Leclerc, R-ace’s Gabriel Bortoleto was just ahead in sixth and his team-mate Lorenzo Fluxa was only 23rd fastest of the 26 drivers and over two seconds slower than Montoya.

Q2 ran for a few minutes before the red flags were waved, while Beganovic was at the top with a unrepresentative laptime, and there was quite a delay of before it restarted with 11 minutes to run.

When drivers started setting flying laps there was rapid improvements, with Leclerc, Lubin, Mini and then Hadjar all going fastest within a period of 30 seconds.

Next time around Mini put himself ahead again, setting a 1m34.481 to sit 0.024s ahead of Bortoleto.

Marti was next to find a few tenths and went to the top with a 1m34.410s. With 3m40s to run David then got close, going 0.027s slower, while Mini and Crawford were within a tenth of him.

Mini returned to the top with three minutes remaining, going 0.121s faster than Marti. Bortoleto and Hadjar almost instantly slotted themselves into second and third, with Bortoleto just 0.006s slower than Mini.

With 35s to go the order changed again, as David and Marti went first and second and split by 0.041s. Mini was now a tenth off pole again, and failing to improve on his final lap consigned him to third while Leclerc and Montoya were seventh and eighth.

BlackArts Racing’s Pierre-Louis Chovet, the 2021 FRAC runner-up, qualified 13th and 14th for his single-seater return.

Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Sebastian Montoya Mumbai Falcons 1m34.335s
2 Hadrien David 3Y by R-ace GP +0.063s
3 Jak Crawford Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema +0.087s
4 Pepe Marti Pinnacle Motorsport +0.269s
5 Dino Beganovic Mumbai Falcons +0.371s
6 Gabriel Bortoleto 3Y by R-ace GP +0.440s
7 Isack Hadjar Hitech GP +0.470s
8 Gabriele Mini Hitech GP +0.545s
9 Arthur Leclerc Mumbai Falcons +0.631s
10 Paul Aron Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema +0.772s

Race 3 grid
1 David 1m34.184s
2 Marti +0.041s
3 Mini +0.105s
4 Bortoleto +0.111s
5 Hadjar +0.181s
6 Crawford +0.313s
7 Leclerc +0.364s
8 Montoya +0.439s
9 Beganovic +0.526s
10 Aron +0.535s

The post Montoya and David share FRAC poles in dicey Dubai qualifying appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: FRAC

Damage from a crash in the Formula Regional Asian Championship opener has ruled Evans GP’s Cem Bolukbasi out of the second round of the season at Dubai Autodrome.

Bolukbasi failed to finish all three races in round one at Yas Marina Circuit last weekend due to clashes, with his race three retirement caused by stalling on the grid and then being hit from behind by two cars.

That race was red flagged, and there was a lengthy delay before it restarted due to the debris and the state of the cars involved. Bolukbasi’s tub was transported to Dubai, but will need further work to be race-ready.

“Hello everyone, unfortunately after the crash last weekend, the car was totalled and couldn’t get ready for this weekend’s races,” he posted on Twitter. “We tried our best until last minute but unfortunately I won’t be racing in FRAC this weekend. The preparation for Formula 2 season will continue.”

FRAC will be racing at Dubai for three consecutive weekends, meaning if the car is repairable then Bolukbasi should be back on track by February 4.

The championship held a pre-event test on Friday (January 28), and Mumbai Falcons’ Dino Beganovic was fastest in the morning by edging Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema’s Jak Crawford by 0.060 seconds.

The top 14 were spread by less than a second, and 2021 FRAC runner-up Pierre-Louis Chovet was 10th fastest on his single-seater return with BlackArts Racing. He was called up as the team’s reserve driver and tyre engineer Alister Yoong didn’t have the money to take up the seat.

Beganovic’s benchmark stood for much of the afternoon, with Hitech GP’s Isack Hadjar getting close with a 1m34.663s.

Almost the whole grid went out with 12 minutes to go of running, and 3Y Technology by R-ace GP’s Hadrien David set a 1m34.403s to head Pinnacle Motorsport’s Pepe Marti’s, who posted a last-minute flyer, and Hitech’s Gabriele Mini.

Test results

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Photo: FRAC

Gabriel Bortoleto led from start to finish to score his maiden category victory in an incident-filled second Formula Regional Asian Championship race at Yas Marina Circuit.

A late safety car period set up a final lap shootout with under one minute on the clock, but Bortoleto controlled the restart without drama, taking the flag 0.974 seconds ahead of his 3Y Technology by R-ace GP team-mate Lorenzo Fluxa.

Isack Hadjar was the only driver who looked capable of attempting to pass Bortoleto, having rapidly got to second from seventh on the grid. However, the Red Bull junior retired in the pits during the second safety car period with two laps remaining, promoting Fluxa.

Mumbai Falcons’ Arthur Leclerc and Sebastian Montoya finished third and fourth after strong drives. Leclerc had a look at Fluxa into turn nine on the last lap but could not find a way past and had to settle for third.

Leonardo Fornaroli started third but dropped back, then several retirements helped him climb back to fifth, one place ahead of R-ace’s Oliver Goethe who started 24th after an early retirement in race one but took advantage of Joshua Dufek and Jak Crawford running wide to jump the pair on the final lap. Goethe was penalised 10s post-race, dropping him to 14th.

One third of the race ran behind the safety car, the first interruption from an incident involving Gabriele Mini (Hitech GP), Dino Beganovic (Mumbai Falcons) and Montoya at turn nine and resulted in Mini and Beganovic retiring.

R-ace’s Hadrien David had been making rapid progress up from 22nd. An attempted pass on Paul Aron at turn six enabled Cem Bolukbasi and Pepe Marti to close onto him, David ran wide on the exit of turn nine and as he rejoined into turn 10 the three made contact.

The resulting damage put Bolukbasi and Marti out immediately, with David retiring in the pits.

Race results (15 laps)

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Photos: F4 UAE

F4 UAE has a new car, new teams and more eyes on it than usual this year as it heralds the introduction of a new era for Formula 4 racing with Tatuus’s halo-shod Gen2 machinery

Last month’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix wasn’t just a momentous moment in Formula 1 history, but the Sunday was also important in junior single-seaters because it marked the first race for a second-generation Formula 4 chassis design.

The Tatuus T-421, after three months of testing in Italy, debuted at Yas Marina Circuit and bar a few undocumented technical issues it was a mostly trouble-free event for the car. Some of the inexperienced racers had spins and clashes so there were only eight finishers, but there were only 10 starters because there was a tumultuous path to the event for the car.

A combination of factors led to manufacturing delays of certain parts, particularly the ECU, that would go into the T-421, and then when it came to delivering orders the priority was going to be sending chassis out to those competing in F4 United Arab Emirates first. That did happen, with Prema, Global Racing Service, Hitech GP, MP Motorsport and Xcel Motorsport all getting their cars in time. Because the car would race in the UAE before anywhere else, drivers and teams wanted to compete in the F1 support race and the winter series to get a head-start on learning the intricacies of the new design.

Xcel’s cars went straight to the UAE because that’s where the team is based. The other teams entering the non-championship round all hailed from Europe, and therefore needed to ship out their cars to the Middle East after receiving them but only once it had been confirmed F4 would be on F1’s support bill. But that came at the start of December, with the Abu Dhabi GP on the 12th day of the month, and so teams had already had to gamble on loading the cars onto boats (for a journey of a few weeks) so they would at least be present for the start of the 2022 F4 UAE season.

Prema diverged though by sending its four vehicles out on air freight, and it meant it avoided the fracas that occurred next.

While the plane carrying its cars could land safely in the UAE and the cars could then be taken by road to Yas Marina, the ships travelling through the Persian Gulf were encountering issues. Some were stopped and unable to send their cargo on, others were simply delayed. MP managed to get its four cars to the track, while GRS and Hitech were stuck in limbo.

At first there was a single race on the schedule, but F1 expanded it to two with a few days to go despite F4 UAE issuing a statement it would in fact be changing from an initially planned two races to one.

Before shakedown on Thursday evening of the race weekend it then reverted back to one race on Sunday and with qualifying moving from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning in the slot race one did occupy. The track time that had been given to qualifying on Friday then became a second free practice session instead.

An agreement was made for GRS’s driver Vladislav Ryabov to race in one of MP’s cars so not to waste his trip, and a few days later pre-season testing took place at Dubai Autodrome and Hitech appeared with its two chassis, both shaken down in their plain carbon liveries by British F4 champion Luke Browning. Cram, racing in F4 UAE in partnership with Hitech, turned up with two of its own cars, new German team PHM Racing arrived with three and Pinnacle Motorsport had its sole car running too.

The teams that didn’t get to race pushed for more test days and the organiser behind the series did present possible dates at Dubai and Yas Marina. However those talks proved fruitless, and the planned running at Dubai on January 6 and 8 then got called off as a testing blackout window was applied until today (Wednesday), with a pre-event test occurring at Yas Marina this week the day before the season – consisting of five rounds over five weeks – begins.

With some teams still only able to arrive in the UAE with one car, or with drivers seeking to retain rookie status for European championships by contesting only some rounds, there will be several rotating line-ups. In the second Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema car, single-seater debutant and Ferrari junior James Wharton will do the first two rounds before handing over to Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 protege Andrea Kimi Antonelli. He will do the second of the three consecutive Dubai rounds, with 2020 Danish F4 champion Conrad Laursen doing the last of those and the Yas Marina season finale.

Mumbai Falcons is entering one car with technical support from Xcel, with Sohil Shah starting the season and his fellow Indian Yash Aradhya ending it. At MP, Giancarlo Fisichella’s racing student Valerio Rinicella will miss the first round due to not yet being 15 years old, and it has just made two late additions to its five-car line-up in British F4 race-winner Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Spanish F4 frontrunner Rik Koen who is only confirmed for round one.

AKM Motorsport, a team that is a combination of Antonelli’s father’s sportscar squad and Dino Chiesa’s Kart Republic manufacturer, left it late to announce its drivers, and its second signing Brando Badoer is set to miss the season finale.

Xcel announced three drivers on the week of the first race two Uzbekistan’s Ismoilkhuja Akhmedkhodjaev has done the CIK-FIA European Karting Championship on OK karts for the past two years, Portugal’s Ivan Domingues was a rookie in the same machinery in 2021 and was 34th in the European championship, and Jamie Day did F4 UAE last year.

Belgian karting graduates Jules Castro and Jef Machiels will share driving duties at Pinnacle, with Machiels taking over from Castro after round two. Carlin meanwhile is yet to announce any of its drivers. But of the full-season entries elsewhere on the grid, there’s certainly a few to keep your eyes on:

Four from F4 to watch…

Charlie Wurz, son of ex-Formula 1 driver and Le Mans 24 Hours winner Alex, heads Prema’s two-car main team. He won the non-championship race at the Abu Dhabi GP and in 2021 also raced in Italian F4 part-time, scoring a best result of fourth. Given how quickly he adapted to the car last month on a track that appears twice in F4 UAE, he will surely start as a title favourite.

Nikita Bedrin has joined PHM for his second go at F4 UAE after debuting in the series last year. He made the podium once in three rounds, then went to enjoy a successful year with Van Amersfoort Racing in Europe. He took the rookie classification titles in ADAC and Italian F4, and a win in each series. PHM, which markets itself as not-for-profit (which many loss-operating teams are) and is made up of ex-Mucke Motorsport personnel, will make its racing debut with three cars.

Wurz’s Abu Dhabi GP

Hitech is boosting its own F4 experience, having only previously done the Motorsport Games F4 Cup and with no opposition, by teaming up with experienced Italian squad Cram. The team has two F4 sophomores in Alex Dunne and Oliver Gray. Dunne took pole on his car racing debut in Spanish F4 before he split with his team mid-season then impressed on three outings with US Racing in ADAC F4, taking two pole positions and eighth in the final standings.

Gray made his car racing debut in British F4 with Fortec Motorsports, having graduated from senior karting. Two wins and two poles at Thruxton helped him to seventh in the standings, and he appeared in Italian F4 twice at the end of the season. He has been used as a reference driver for McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu in testing during the off-season.

…and three coming from karts

Ferrari junior Rafael Camara will be team-mate to Wurz for his single-seater debut. The Brazilian 16-year-old was one of the standout performers on the international scene in senior OK karts in 2021, winning the Champions of the Future and Super Masters Series titles and WSK Champions Cup, although he was pipped by Antonelli to the CIK-FIA European crown. The two karting rivals were Kart Republic team-mates, they will be at Prema in the UAE and then Italian F4, and Antonelli will take Camara’s place for this weekend’s races due to “health reasons” impacting the Brazilian.

Nicolas Todt’s 15-year-old Norwegian karting protege Martinius Stenshorne debuts with R-ace GP, the French team running its cars in conjunction with the local 3Y Technology team. In 2021 he raced for the Charles Leclerc-branded Lennox Racing Team as a rookie in OK karts, and came 10th in CotF. He is yet to announce what he will be doing next.

Infamous F1 driver Luca Badoer’s son Brando (pictured below, centre) was a consistent frontrunner in European karting last year against the above two drivers as a rookie, coming ninth in the Champions Cup and the WSK Euro Series. He dabbled in shifter karting too, and has tested with AKM in first-generation F4 cars since last June. Badoer also did a test with VAR. While his father is best known for his dire two grands prix with Ferrari in 2009, he was 1992 champion of International Formula 3000 (the Formula 2 of its day).

Written by Roger Gascoigne and Ida Wood

Photo: The RaceBox / CotF

Our latest podcast episode previews Formula Regional Asian Championship and F4 UAE, and can be found right here or on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

F4 UAE entry list

The post 2022 F4 UAE season preview: All eyes on the first drivers to do Gen2 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: FRAC

A massive 28-car grid will be present for the first round of a five-week winter series based entirely in the UAE. Drivers will be moving down from F3 and up from F4 and karting, and here’s your guide to them all

Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema

Abu Dhabi Racing will again collaborate with Prema to defend the two titles it won last year with Guangyu Zhou. The team will field five cars, with the United Arab Emirates’ Al Qubaisi racing family piloting three of them. Sportscar racer Khaled Al Qubaisi did two rounds last year and took two 15th places, and his elder daughter Amna had a best finish of 14th. Both return, alongside younger daughter Hamda who was a winner in Formula 4 UAE and made the podium in Italian F4 in 2021.

They are joined by Paul Aron, fresh from coming third in the 2021 Formula Regional European Championship with Prema. Aron has two years’ experience with the Tatuus T-318 used there and in the FRegional Asian Championship having raced in the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2020. Prema endured a trying season in FREC but Aron demonstrated his undoubted speed and teamwork as they rebounded to win twice in the penultimate round at Mugello. Though he joined Prema for the FIA Formula 3 post-season testing, he is expected to remain in FRECA with Prema. His speed and experience should ensure that the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior starts as one of the favourites for the overall title.

Red Bull junior Jak Crawford will however race for the team in F3 this year, and completes Abu Dhabi Racing’s line-up as he seeks to embed himself at Prema ahead of the F3 season. He won eight races in Euroformula in 2021, and showed well in F3.

Mumbai Falcons

There is a familiar flavour to the India’s Mumbai Falcons outfit with all four of its drivers having raced or are set to race with Prema. The team also receives technical support from the famed Italian outfit, immediately making it a serious threat even before the quality of the drivers are accounted for (and it’s certainly not lacking in that department).

Photo: FRECA

Among the more experienced young drivers in the field is FIA F3 race-winner Arthur Leclerc. The 2020 FREC runner-up takes a step down therefore in what will be his first racing outside of Europe. It will be a good opportunity to showcase his team leadership qualities among one of soon-to-be F3 team-mate and fellow Ferrari junior Ollie Bearman, who is reigning ADAC and Italian F4 champion and gets his first taste of FRegional in the final two rounds before leaping up to join the F1 support bill. He will almost certainly be one to watch, as will Italian F4 rival Sebastian Montoya who occupies the car for the first three rounds before heading off to the United States to prepare for racing in the Sebring 12 Hours with his father.

Montoya is expected to race for Prema in FREC this year, and would be team-mate there to Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic, who is Mumbai Falcons’ second full-time driver and aiming to build on his three podium-filled FRAC appearances and strong end to what was an otherwise tricky FREC campaign last year.

Evans GP

Evans GP, run by experienced Australian engineer Josh Evans, will field three cars for Nicola Marinangeli, Frederick Lubin and Cem Bolukbasi. Second in FRAC’s teams’ standings last year, as well as fourth in the driver’s championship with Patrik Pasma, was a strong return for what was Evans GP’s first ever racing series.

Also entering their rookie single-seater campaign in FRAC last year was Bolukbasi, who was ninth in the points and now returns looking to gain more mileage before joining Charouz Racing System in Formula 2. In 2021 he also did a partial season in Euroformula and finiahed fifth in the championship with two wins, a pole and eight podiums.

Marinangeli is another FRAC returnee, having finished a pointless 21st in the 2021 standings. He followed that up with another point-free campaign in FREC with Arden. Lubin is an ex-Arden driver too, but from British F4 and then GB3. His 2021 was disrupted with a diagnosis of heart condition myocarditis, forcing him to miss races, but he’s fighting fit again.

Evans GP’s funky 2021 livery

Evans GP Academy

F4 graduates David Morales and Levente Revesz will run under the Evans GP Academy banner. American 18-year-old Morales made his racing car debut in the 2019 Lucas Oil Formula Car Race Series, took two podiums from two years in NACAM F4 then switched to British F4 with Arden during 2021 and earned two more podiums. Hungary’s Revesz raced in ADAC and Italian F4 last year, with best finishes of a ninth place in each, and is headed to FREC with Van Amersfoort Racing.

Pinnacle Motorsport

A line-up of three drivers going for the rookie classification title and one going for Masters honours doesn’t sound like it has the substance for a title charge against more experienced oppositions, but in the past Pinnacle has repeatedly shown it has what’s required to win when there’s a driver on its books a top performance can be extracted from.

The most likely to fit that mould this time is reigning Spanish F4 champion and 2021 F4 UAE runner-up Dilano van’t Hoff, who claimed five wins at the Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina Circuit on FRAC’s support bill at the start of last year. He’s now got three rounds of FREC experience too, albeit with little in results, but it makes him Pinnacle’s only driver to know the car.

Pepe Marti debuted in single-seaters with van’t Hoff, and was also able to win in the UAE and Spain as a F4 rookie. They were team-mates in the Middle East then and are again now, so combined they could be very potent. Both have eyes on moving up to FIA F3, but need the UAE experience in case they land in FREC instead.

Capable of springing a surprise, just like countryman Bolukbasi did in 2021, is Turkey’s Salih Yoluc. The 36-year-old is an established sportscar racer who usually drives for Aston Martin customer team TF Sport and is moving into ever more competitive spheres and performing well. Going into FRAC with just a single Euroformula test as single-seater experience will be a big risk, but then team-mate Ayato Iwasaki hasn’t even raced a car before as he comes from karts.

Hitech GP

Hitech has a pretty strong line-up, with FREC’s top two rookies and two solid F4 graduates, at least for the first few rounds. The team was winless in FRAC last year, but assuming a repeat of that this time around would be unwise.

ART Grand Prix’s Gabriele Mini will be present for the first two rounds as preparation for his second FREC season, and will likely be a race-winning threat in that short time. Similar expectations can be set of Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar, who beat Mini to last year’s FREC rookie classification title and took two overall wins after starring on his FRegional debut in the UAE. He will do all five rounds in 2022, making him a likely title challenger, as he learns Hitech ahead of racing for the team in FIA F3.

Of the F4 runners in its stable, both Leonardo Fornaroli and Joshua Dufek were winners in Italy and podium finishers in Germany’s ADAC championship. They are set to only do the first three rounds to ensure they retain rookie status for anticipated moves into FREC, while Mini’s seat is taken by Owen Tangavelou, who has two podiums from two years in French F4. All three drivers could be dark horses for podiums if things go their way and they adaptability well to the car.

BlackArts Racing

Ido Cohen is the only BlackArts driver who will be in points contention, but he’s only confirmed for round one so far and holds an option on contesting the rest of the season. He beat the highly-rated Zane Maloney in 2020 as Euroformula team-mates, but otherwise has mostly sat below the radar with his performances. Making the most of his F3-level experience is a must.

Thomas Luedi, a founding member of the Hong Kong-based BlackArts, won FRAC’s Masters Cup in 2019-20 and has a best race result of 10th. He’s got lots of Asian motorsport experience, but no top-five finishes in races, while Luxembourgian team-mate Brice Morabito has raced in open-wheel series of an equivalent level in Europe and appeared on overall podiums. In 2020 he stepped up to the Austrian F3 Cup, so also has experience of high-downforce machinery.

Photo: FRECA

3Y Technology by R-ace GP

Current holders of the teams’ title in FREC, R-ace has teamed up with Dubai-based 3Y Technology (previously partnered with Evans GP) for its first season in FRAC.

Category sophomore Gabriel Bortoleto looks like the team’s best hope for title honours, having finished 15th in FREC and fifth in the rookie points for the MP Motorsport-run FA Racing team last year. He has shown strong pace since joining R-ace in post-season testing, and his full-time team-mates Oliver Goethe and Lorenzo Fluxa also have FREC experience.

Fluxa is a FRAC returnee, with a best result of fourth from his 2021 campaign, and he will start the season with a driver to look up to as FREC runner-up Hadrien David is part of the line-up for the first two rounds. While his partial campaign will inevitably rule out a title challenge, he will start as one of the favourites for race wins before he is replaced by Italian F4 graduate Francesco Braschi. The line-up grows for the final two rounds as Lena Buhler, David’s R-ace team-mate last year, arrives from W Series pre-season testing.

Our latest podcast episode previews FRAC and F4 UAE, and can be found right here or on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Written by Roger Gascoigne, Ida Wood & Craig Woollard

The post 2022 Formula Regional Asian Championship preview appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: FRECA

Hadrien David, the 2021 Formula Regional Europe runner-up, will contest the first two rounds of the FRegional Asian Championship season as an anticipated warm-up to a FREC return.

He will drive for 3Y Technology by R-ace GP, a partnership between an Emirati team and the French squad he drove for in FREC last year, and he is expected to stay with the latter for a second campaign in Europe.

While it has not been announced directly that Francesco Braschi will take David’s place in the FRAC line-up after round two, the fact that he will drive the team’s fifth car for rounds three to five, so to retain rookie status, suggests it will be a swap.

• Feature: The close friends and rivals with contrasting prospects for 2022

David won twice with R-ace on the way to second in the FREC standings in 2021, having been dropped by the Alpine Academy at the start of the year, and stayed with the team for the post-season tests at Barcelona and Mugello.

Last month he made a second trip to Barcelona to test one of Prema’s old GP3 cars in a test believed to be linked to a sponsor search to help fund his 2022 racing campaign. That is believed to mean a second season in FREC, as he lacks the budget to step up to FIA Formula 3.

The 17-year-old, whose rookie season in FRegional was in the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2020 and had a return of one podium finish with MP Motorsport, is also understood to have engaged in talks to become a Formula 1 junior again.

He joined the Renault Sport Academy (now belonging to Alpine since the F1 team’s rebrand) two years ago after becoming French Formula 4 champion and winning six of the eight races he entered in F4 South East Asia in 2019 as a newcomer to car racing.

R-ace’s FRAC line-up includes Gabriel Bortoleto, Lena Buhler, Lorenzo Fluxa and Oliver Goethe in addition to David and Braschi. The United Arab Emirates-based series begins at Dubai Autodrome on January 22/23.

The post FREC runner-up Hadrien David to do first two FRAC rounds appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: F3 Asian Championship

Mumbai Falcons will run three Ferrari juniors and Sebastian Montoya in a three-car Formula Regional Asian Championship attack this year.

For the five-round United Arab Emirates-based series the Indian team, which recieves technical support from Prema, will have two full-time drivers and one car shared between Formula 4 graduates Ollie Bearman and Montoya.

Leading the line-up will be Arthur Leclerc, who was 2020 FRegional Europe runner-up with Prema, won twice with the team in his rookie FIA Formula 3 Championship season last year and is set to keep his seat for a second season in 2022.

Fellow Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic will be Mumbai Falcons’ second full-time entry, ahead of his second season in FREC with Prema. After coming third in Italian F4 in 2020, he made his FRegional debut in FRAC last year with a part-time campaign and impressed to come seventh in the standings despite missing two rounds. His rookie FREC season wasn’t as rewarding, with a pole and one podium but a lowly 13th place in the points table.

Like Beganovic last year, Montoya will only do the first three rounds of FRAC so he does not lose rookie classification eligibility for his anticipated FREC campaign with Prema. He came fourth in Italian F4 and ninth in ADAC F4 last year.

Bearman won the title in both of those series in 2021 with Van Amersfoort Racing, and has since been snapped up by the Ferrari Driver Academy. That has resulted in him moving up to FIA F3 with Prema, and he is contesting the final two rounds at Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina Circuit to build up experience of higher downforce machinery before the larger leap to F3.

Another driver joining the FRAC grid with an eye on keeping their FRegional rookie status is Francesco Braschi. He was 16th in Italian F4 in 2021, and has signed to 3Y Technology by R-ace GP to do the last three rounds.

R-ace told Formula Scout it is not yet formalised who will be in Braschi’s car for rounds one and two.

The post Mumbai Falcons gets three Ferrari juniors and Montoya for FRAC appeared first on Formula Scout.