Formula Middle East

 

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Jack Beeton bounces back to score his first victory in Formula Regional Middle East

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Alex Powell snatches F4 Middle East runner-up title with hard-earned win

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Freddie Slater and Chi Zhenrui claim Rookie crowns at season finale

 

A hugely successful season of Formula Middle East action drew to a close with the final races, which took place on the morning of the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Qatar’s Grand Prix venue, the Lusail International Circuit. Both races were close and clean, neither featuring the safety car, as 49 global young talents fought it out in one last bid for glory.

 

A popular breakthrough win in the Formula Regional Middle East Championship (FRMEC) was earned by 17-year-old Jack Beeton with the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons Racing team. The Australian forced his way to the front of the field in the opening few laps, and then fended off a stern challenge from McLaren F1’s American protégé Ugo Ugochukwu, who finished the season on a high with R-ace GP before he graduates to FIA Formula 3 after claiming third in the FRME championship. Nikita Bedrin completed a hat-trick of podium finishes at this round with third place in his Saintéloc Racing car.

 

Newly-crowned champion Evan Giltaire came home sixth in his ART Grand Prix machine, while fourth position for title runner-up Freddie Slater narrowed his final deficit to 34 points. Consolation for Slater came with his clinching of the Rookie title over Mumbai Falcons team-mate Rashid AL Dhaheri. 

 

There was everything to play for in the fight for second place in the Formula 4 Middle East Championship (F4 ME) behind Emanuele Olivieri. The Italian engaged in an exciting duel with his R-ace GP team-mate Alex Powell, but could not find a way past the 17-year-old Jamaican-American Mercedes F1 junior. A fifth victory of the season for Powell enabled him to overhaul Mumbai Falcons racer Kean Nakamura-Berta – fourth in this race – for the runner-up position in the championship by eight points, albeit 58 adrift of Olivieri.

 

An exciting battle also played out for the F4 ME Rookie crown. Chi Zhenrui enjoyed a fantastic event in Qatar, the Chinese driver taking all three wins with Prema Racing. But it wasn’t enough to deny Colombian Salim Hanna of the sister Mumbai Falcons squad, whose second place in class in the final race enabled him to squeeze home by six points. Honours in the FME Teams championships were shared, with Mumbai Falcons coming out atop a tight three-way battle in FRMEC, and R-ace GP claiming the F4 ME crown.

 

 

Formula Regional Middle East

 

 

Race 3

When Freddie Slater went second quickest in Thursday morning’s qualifying session for this race, behind only Ugo Ugochukwu, it seemed as though the title race was very much still on, especially with Evan Giltaire down in sixth. But as events transpired in the Thursday races, all Slater had to fight for in the Friday finale was the Rookie title – plus, naturally, the race win.

The latter of those targets began to veer off course at the start, with Nikita Bedrin, winner of race one on Thursday, getting ahead of Slater into second place. Ugochukwu built up a healthy lead on that opening lap and, sure enough, it was a Mumbai Falcons car that moved into the runner-up position the next time around. But it wasn’t Slater; it was Jack Beeton. The Australian got ahead of Slater at Turn 1, then went past Bedrin, and immediately started slashing the gap to Ugochukwu.

 

Beeton, the 2023 F4 South East Asia champion and 2024 Italian F4 runner-up, had endured a challenging transition to Formula Regional, but now he was really showing what he can do. Into lap five he was right on Ugochukwu’s tail, then made the move to grab the lead, and was almost 1.4 seconds clear by the time they got back to the start-finish line. The gap stayed around this mark for a few laps, before Ugochukwu began to come back at Beeton. The challenge was on again, but then Beeton re-extended the margin and came home 1.782 seconds in front to finally earn himself a top result, as well as glory in the Rookie class.

Bedrin, a star of the Thursday races, again seemed to have a car that coped well with a track surface that is tough on tyres, and his inroads on Ugochukwu towards the end left him just over a second behind at the chequered flag in third place.

In fourth position, Slater found himself under stern pressure from Kanato Le for much of the race, but he eventually beat the Japanese ART Grand Prix driver, while second place in the Rookie class at least gave him glory in that championship. Overall champion Giltaire was next home in sixth.

 

△ FRMEC Champion Team Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited

Red Bull Junior Ernesto Rivera made great early progress up the order to seventh, before the Pinnacle Motorsport driver was repassed four laps from home by R-ace GP’s Japanese Toyota-backed racer Jin Nakamura and finished eighth. But Nakamura’s move on the Mexican around the outside of Turn 7 resulted in him cutting Turn 8, and the eventual five-second penalty dropped him to 10th. Rivera therefore moved back up to seventh, and was also third in the Rookie class.

Rashid AL Dhaheri, Slater’s only rival for the Rookie title, took eighth ahead of Japanese Hiyu Yamakoshi (Pinnacle Motorsport) and the penalised Nakamura. Italian Brando Badoer was 11th in his PHM Racing car in front of ART Grand Prix Japanese Honda protégé Taito Kato. But Kato was another to take a five second penalty, in his case for forcing race two winner Enzo Deligny off the track at Turn 2, and this meant that Evans GP racer Kai Daryanani claimed the final point for 12th.

 

 

Formula 4 Middle East

 

 

Race 3

Alex Powell had done a superb job in the qualifying session for this race on Thursday morning. He was one of the last to take the chequered flag at the end, and his last-ditch effort netted him pole position ahead of Adam AL Azhari. Now Powell faced a new challenge in the race: to eradicate the seven-point deficit to Kean Nakamura-Berta to take the championship runner-up slot.

△ F4 ME 2025 Champion Team R-ace GP

At the start, newly crowned champion Emanuele Olivieri immediately passed AL Azhari to make it an R-ace GP 1-2 at the front, while Nakamura-Berta also slipped ahead of the Dubai racer in the early corners to move up to third. But he had no answer to the duo up front, who instead engaged in their own duel for the lead.

 

Time after time Olivieri would get into position to make a bid for the top spot, but was consistently repelled by Powell until one such challenge ended with the Italian losing time and dropping over a second adrift on lap six. Now Powell had a small cushion, and maintained this until Olivieri hove onto his rear end again with a couple of laps remaining. But Olivieri’s bid ended with his losing more time and, although he closed up again on the final lap, Powell took the chequered flag with a gap of 1.004 seconds. With this win, the runner-up spot in the championship was his, whatever Nakamura-Berta did.

 

Nakamura-Berta struggled to maintain his usual pace. With AL Azhari dropping down the field, August Raber and Reno Francot came through to challenge the London-born Japanese-Slovakian Mumbai Falcons racer. By half-distance Yas Heat-run Swedish-Emirati Raber was making big efforts to get past, but this in turn gave Dutchman Francot the opportunity to leapfrog Raber, and with five laps remaining the AKCEL GP/PHM Racing ace dispatched Nakamura-Berta at Turn 1 to take the final podium position. Raber followed suit a lap later to claim fourth, while Nakamura-Berta finished fifth. But a five-second penalty applied to Raber for moving while the red lights were on before the start dropped him to fifth, with Nakamura-Berta elevated to fourth.

 

Tomass Štolcermanis had also loomed onto the back of this group, but Mumbai Falcons’ Latvian talent fell back in the closing stages, and just beat Chi Zhenrui to sixth. Chi completed a hat-trick of Rookie victories for the weekend, but was narrowly denied the championship in this division by Salim Hanna. The Colombian had endured a troubled Thursday in Qatar, but worked his way up the order in this race to finish as second Rookie in 10th overall, behind the Evans GP cars of Tiago Rodrigues and Martin Molnár. Macau racer Rodrigues was another to move on the red lights, and his penalty demoted him to 10th, behind Hungarian Molnár and Hanna.

 

Next up was a ferocious battle for 11th, which lost Fu Yuhao just after half-distance and ended with Romanian David Cosma (AKCEL GP/PHM Racing) beating Bader Al Sulaiti to the position – and third in the Rookie class. Al Sulaiti was the third of those found to have moved at the red lights, his penalty lifting up fellow Qatari and QMMF team-mate Taha Hassiba to claim the final point.