Photo: Top Speed
Rashid Al Dhaheri extended his Formula Regional Middle East points lead in round two at Yas Marina Circuit last week.
Pre-event testing took place on Friday, and R-ace GP’s Al Dhaheri set a 1m39.957s to be quickest by 0.258 seconds over Mumbai Falcons’ Kean Nakamura-Berta. Alex Powell (Pinnacle Motorsport) was a further 0.048s behind, with Andrea Dupe (G4 Racing) and Sebastian Wheldon (Mumbai Falcons) also lapping sub-1m40.3s. A second covered the top 22.
Practice ended the day, and it was the same top two. This time a 1m39.560s put Al Dhaheri ahead by just 0.028s, with Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic trailing by 0.184s in third. Powell was fourth, and 25 drivers were within a second of Al Dhaheri’s benchmark.
Absent from the action was CL Motorsport’s Michael Belov, as team and driver parted ways ahead of the event following Belov’s horror shunt in round one the week before. While Belov posted on social media that there was “not much to say” about the split, he actually provided some key details about it and his future plans:
“We had a very difficult first round last week, we were on the car developing, but faced mechanical issue. Car has same balance, doesn’t matter what set-up change we did, which is very wierd and compromised a lot. And then in race two had a big accident on the start, crashed into stalled car, wasn’t my fault.
Anyway, Thanks to CL Motorsport for the work. I’m open for offers [to rejoin the grid] and ready to fight.”
Qualifying took place on Saturday morning, and was split into two sessions. In Q1 it was a similar story to the previous day, but this time Nakamura-Berta was ahead. He pipped Al Dhaheri by 0.168s with a 1m39.822s lap, and there was a gap of over 0.33s to Wheldon and Powell in third and fourth. Yuki Sano (R-ace) was 0.531s off pole in fifth, but then the same gap split him from 22nd place.
MP Motorsport’s Christian Ho entered the event as Al Dhaheri’s closest rival in the points table, but faced a steep challenge to maintain that status in race one as he qualified a lowly 18th for it. His team-mate Alexander Abkhazava, third in the standings after round one, was 0.16s faster but that equated to being 11th on the timesheet.
In Q2, Wheldon earned race three pole by a tiny margin. A 1m39.787s that was laid down mid-session got close to being beaten, but Al Dhaheri came 0.024s short on his final lap and Nakamura-Berta was 0.048s shy with his fourth lap of eight.
ART Grand Prix’s Kabir Anurag was 0.373s off pole in fourth, with Powell and Abkhazava within half a second of Wheldon in fifth and sixth. Sano was seventh, and being 0.711s off the pace put Ho in 13th. The top 21 were split by a second.
Race one concluded Saturday in a mostly undramatic fashion. Nakamura-Berta challenged Al Dhaheri at the start, and Powell passed Wheldon before the hotel section on lap one, but the most notable thing about the first seven laps was track limits warnings.
The first overtaking attempt in the top 10 after the opening lap was on lap 12. Wheldon nosed ahead of Powell around the outside of the opening corner, but Powell had the better exit to be third into the hotel section where he ran off-track trying to keep Wheldon at bay. By the time the pair rejoined the circuit, the race had been red flagged due to MP’s Alceu Feldmann Neto being upside down at the final chicane following contact with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Yuhao Fu.
After a 22-minute stoppage, the race restarted with two laps behind the safety car and enough time for four laps of racing following that. Al Dhaheri nailed the return to racing speeds and went unchallenged for his second successive win, and Nakamura-Berta gapped Powell.
A five-second penalty for track limits abuse demoted Wheldon from fourth to seventh, behind Sano, Artem Severiukhin (G4) and Anurag.
Abkhazava scored a point in 10th after Trident’s Andrija Kostic was disqualified from eighth on-the-road, Ho finished 17th, and the race ended with Rodin’s Reza Seewooruthun ploughing into the barriers.
Finishing 12th put Ninovic on reversed-grid pole for race two on Sunday, which took place on a wet track. There was a mix of slicks and wet tyres chosen by drivers for their route to the grid, albeit Kato in 14th and Race Performance Motorsport’s Giovanni Maschio in 19th were the highest-placed starters on slicks after Ninovic made a late change to wets while waiting.
The safety car led the field through lap one, with Pinnacle’s August Raber pitting from 20th for slicks at the end of the formation lap and Kostic doing the same from the rear of the grid.
There was lots of spray once the field got up to racing speeds on lap two, and Ninovic slid through the first corner so lost the lead to fellow front row starter Jan Przyrowski (R-P-M). Severiukhin lost his front wing by driving into the back of Francisco Macedo (VAR) and had to pit, and Przyrowski initially pulled away.
He was 1.8s clear by lap four, as Trident’s Maximilian Popov occupied fourth place behind Abkhazava and fifth place was disputed by Nakamura-Berta and Wheldon. Soon Abkhazava was dropping back, and ended lap five in seventh.
Ninovic took the lead from Przyrowski into turn one of the grand prix layout that lap, Wheldon made a bold pass on Abkhazava into the hotel section and was soon followed through by Anurag. Next to overtake Abkhazava was Sano, and he then began trading places with Anurag for several laps.
Abkhazava got involved in a crash on lap eight then pulled off to retire on lap nine, while Ho pitted to change tyres, weakening their title challenges.
Feldmann had another dramatic crash on lap 10, which led to the safety car coming out and Ninovic’s 2.33s lead being eradicated. However with Enea Frey (CL) also stopping on track it meant there was no restart and it ensured Ninovic won. Powell finished 28th, copping a penalty for causing a collision, and down in 15th Al Dhaheri had his points lead reduced by Nakamura-Berta who came home fifth.
Race three was fully dry, and despite two safety car interruptions ran for 15 laps and was a relatively easy win for Al Dhaheri. He made a better start than Wheldon and passed him on the inside into the opening corner, and when Wheldon went off entering the next turn he lost another position to Nakamura-Berta.
Popov crashing out on lap one caused the first safety car period, and Dion Gowda (VAR) crashing out mid-race triggered the next.
Al Dhaheri’s winning margin was 0.927s, with Nakamura-Berta usually able to match his pace while Wheldon was left behind until late on when he pressured his team-mate. Abkhazava took fourth by overtaking Anurag off track on lap one, and Powell held off attacks from Sano early on for sixth.
Ho went points-free again in 11th, dropping to seventh in the standings, finishing just ahead of Salim Hanna (Mumbai Falcons) and Ninovic.
Results round-up
Race 1 (17 laps)
1 Rashid Al Dhaheri R-ace GP 31m19.022s
2 Kean Nakamura-Berta Mumbai Falcons +1.609s
3 Alex Powell Pinnacle Motorsport +4.009s
4 Yuki Sano R-ace GP +5.054s
5 Artem Severiukhin G4 Racing +6.129s
6 Kabir Anurag ART Grand Prix +7.044s
7 Sebastian Wheldon Mumbai Falcons +9.536s
8 Maximilian Popov Trident +9.593s
9 Francisco Macedo Van Amersfoort Racing +10.994s
10 Alexander Abhazava MP Motorsport +11.321s
Pole: Nakamura-Berta, 1m39.822s
Fastest lap: Al Dhaheri, 1m40.480s
Race 2 (14 laps)
1 Alex Ninovic Rodin Motorsport 32m17.205s
2 Jan Przyrowski R-P-M +0.217s
3 Popov +0.654s
4 Wheldon +1.0797s
5 Nakamura-Berta +1.607s
6 Anurag +1.932s
7 Miguel Costa R-P-M +2.807s
8 Sano +4.080s
9 Reza Seewooruthun Rodin Motorsport +4.338s
10 Jules Roussel G4 Racing +5.910s
FL: Powell, 1m50.711s
Race 3 (15 laps)
1 Al Dhaheri 30m59.602s
2 Nakamura-Berta +0.927s
3 Wheldon +1.582s
4 Abkhazava +2.785s
5 Anurag +4.274s
6 Powell +5.999s
7 Sano +6.070s
8 Taito Kato ART Grand Prix +6.886s
9 Severiukhin +7.416s
10 Costa +7.885s
P: Wheldon, 1m39.787s
FL: Al Dhaheri, 1m41.698s
Championship standings
1 Al Dhaheri 103 2 Nakamura-Berta 68 3 Powell 49 4 Abkhazava 46 5 Popov 46 6 Ninovic 46 7 Christian Ho 44 8 Anurag 38 9 Wheldon 33 10 Costa 26