Photo: FRECA
Trident’s Matteo De Palo was quickest in Formula Regional European Championship practice at Barcelona on Friday.
The reduced 26-car entry list featured one new name, as Yuanpu Cui joined Prema’s line-up in its fourth car which has been driven by Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 juniors through the season.
Cui has been racing in GB3 this year, doing the first half of the season for the Argenti with Prema team and then contesting round five with Hillspeed. His best results from that programme are two sixth places.
Practice was split into two 50-minute sessions, and in FP1 the first driver to set flying laps was Race Performance Motorsport’s Giovanni Maschio. He was on top for almost 10 minutes, his later 1m38.055s eventually being beaten by Prema’s Freddie Slater to the tune of 0.004 seconds.
De Palo was next to occupy first place, bettering Slater by a huge 0.679s. His 1m37.372s benchmark stood for two-and-a-half minutes, then Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot set a 1m37.337s.
Slater returned to the top not long after, by 0.138s, then De Palo broke clear at the top again. His next lap, a 1m36.778s, went unbeaten for over 21 minutes before Slater posted a 1m36.414s with just over eight minutes to go.
There was also more pace in hand for De Palo though, who set a 1m37.164s as he crossed the line and two laps later lowered the pace to 1m36.048s.
Slater improved to 1m36.262s but ended FP1 in third, 0.18s behind CL Motorsport’s Michael Belov. VAR’s Dion Gowda, Clerot and Hiyu Yamakoshi filled the next places, with Sainteloc Racing’s Nikita Bedrin just 0.008s slower than Yamakoshi.
R-ace GP’s title outsider Enzo Deligny was eighth, 0.711s off De Palo and 0.001s ahead of Trident’s Ruiqi Liu. A second covered the top 15.
Only six drivers improved on their FP1 pace in the afternoon session, and De Palo was first to put a flying lap on the board in FP2.
Bedrin was next to the top, setting a 1m37.9s that was the laptime to beat for three minutes. Clerot usurped him by 0.353s, and was on top for five minutes before Bedrin set a 1m37.39s to reclaim first place.
The next change at the top of the timesheet was over 22 minutes later, with Slater setting a 1m37.074s before team-mate Jack Beeton bettered him by 0.15s.
De Palo repeated what he did in FP1, improving twice in the final 10 minutes to a degree nobody else could match. Deligny got within 0.244s of his 1m36.327s benchmark, which put him fifth overall in the combined classification.
Liu was a further 0.048s back, putting him seventh overall in practice, with Bedrin fourth in FP2. Clerot and Slater were also within 0.5s of De Palo.
Free practice results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | 1m36.048s | 31 |
| 2 | Michael Belov | CL Motorsport | +0.034s | 43 |
| 3 | Freddie Slater | Prema | +0.214s | 40 |
| 4 | Dion Gowda | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.483s | 39 |
| 5 | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | +0.523s | 38 |
| 6 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.547s | 39 |
| 7 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | +0.571s | 41 |
| 8 | Hiyu Yamakoshi | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.590s | 43 |
| 9 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | +0.598s | 39 |
| 10 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | +0.776s | 37 |
| 11 | Jack Beeton | Prema | +0.789s | 40 |
| 12 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | +0.790s | 42 |
| 13 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | +0.795s | 37 |
| 14 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Trident | +0.861s | 40 |
| 15 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | +0.954s | 40 |
| 16 | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | +0.965s | 39 |
| 17 | Maceo Capietto | R-P-M | +0.967s | 35 |
| 18 | Edu Robinson | G4 Racing | +1.042s | 42 |
| 19 | Kanato Le | ART Grand Prix | +1.048s | 31 |
| 20 | Saqer Al Maosherji | G4 Racing | +1.085s | 45 |
| 21 | Giovanni Maschio | R-P-M | +1.090s | 36 |
| 22 | Yuanpu Cui | Prema | +1.127s | 42 |
| 23 | Tim Gerhards | Sainteloc Racing | +1.164s | 39 |
| 24 | Santiago Ramos | R-P-M | +1.309s | 39 |
| 25 | Edouard Borgna | G4 Racing | +1.417s | 43 |
| 26 | Yaroslav Veselaho | Sainteloc Racing | +1.686s | 44 |