Photo: ACI Sport
Matteo De Palo reclaimed the Formula Regional European Championship lead from Freddie Slater by beating him to race one victory at Barcelona.
Slater started from pole and immediately came under attack from De Palo on the inside. Enzo Deligny then went to his outside, taking to the grass as he made it three-wide, and Jin Nakamura also put wheels off going four-wide on the inside.
Nakamura tucked back in at turn one, De Palo took the lead and Deligny lost his front wing as he went over the kerbs and cut the first two corners.
It was then five-wide behind them approaching turn four, and Pedro Clerot emerged in fourth ahead of Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi, Taito Kato, Evan Giltaire, Rashid Al Dhaheri and Jack Beeton.
Clerot managed to go around the outside of Nakamura at turn one on lap four, the pair almost making contact, and after doing so he began closing in on Slater while De Palo pulled away up front.
Slater ran wide exiting the final corner on lap 17 and it put Clerot on his tail while allowing De Palo to grow his lead to 2.3 seconds. Clerot attempted a switchback move through the first two corners of lap 18 to get alongside but Slater held him off with some light contact, and he kept the pressure up thereon while De Palo won by 3.859s.
Giltaire attacked Kato through lap seven, but after that was dropped by his ART Grand Prix team-mate who was able to stay with Bhirombhakdi.
Michael Belov initially held 10th, ahead of Kanato Le and Nikita Bedrin. Le was frequently on the attack and eventually got ahead mid-race into the final points position, leaving Belov to then fend off his fellow Russian. On lap 16 their fight led to Belov running slightly off exiting turn 16 and dropping to 14th behind Bedrin, Akshay Bohra and Dion Gowda.
That also split up a battle that had been ongoing between Gowda and Santiago Ramos. Bohra was soon attacking Bedrin, and Ramos was able to clear Belov so he could continue fighting Gowda. Also in the train of cars was Hiyu Yamakoshi, but he had an incident in which he lost his front wing and joined Deligny in retirement.
Race results (20 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | 32m51.419s |
| 2 | Freddie Slater | Prema | +3.859s |
| 3 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | +4.290s |
| 4 | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | +9.059s |
| 5 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Trident | +14.700s |
| 6 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | +15.179s |
| 7 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | +18.793s |
| 8 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | +19.254s |
| 9 | Jack Beeton | Prema | +20.639s |
| 10 | Kanato Le | ART Grand Prix | +23.549s |
| 11 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | +32.192s |
| 12 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | +32.628s |
| 13 | Dion Gowda | Van Amersfoort Racing | +34.404s |
| 14 | Santiago Ramos | R-P-M | +34.953s |
| 15 | Michael Belov | CL Motorsport | +37.687s |
| 16 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | +38.367s |
| 17 | Edu Robinson | G4 Racing | +38.408s |
| 18 | Yuanpu Cui | Prema | +38.886s |
| 19 | Maceo Capietto | R-P-M | +42.279s |
| 20 | Tim Gerhards | Sainteloc Racing | +43.699s |
| 21 | Giovanni Maschio | R-P-M | +44.970s |
| 22 | Edouard Borgna | G4 Racing | +46.451s |
| 23 | Yaroslav Veselaho | Sainteloc Racing | +47.664s |
| 24 | Saqer Al Maosherji | G4 Racing | +2 laps |
| Ret | Hiyu Yamakoshi | Van Amersfoort Racing | |
| Ret | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | |
| Fastest lap: De Palo, 1m37.417s
Championship standings |
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