Photo: ACI Sport
Mercedes junior driver Alex Powell will spearhead a four-car line-up from R-ace GP in the upcoming Formula 4 Middle East championship.
Supported by Mercedes since karting, Jamaican-American driver Powell made the step up to single-seaters with Prema for the final two rounds of the 2023 Italian F4 championship, then contested the F4 United Arab Emirates series at the start of 2024 with the team, taking his first car racing win and finishing sixth in the standings.
He went on to finish fifth in his first full season of Italian F4 with Prema, and then switched to R-ace GP for post-season testing ahead of 2025 and will make his competitive debut with the French squad in the rebranded Middle East championship.
Powell is joined in the R-ace GP roster by two drivers who raced in the same field for the full 2024 Italian F4 season, both with the AKM Motorsport team of Marco Antonelli.
Emanuele Olivieri finished the year as the highest-placed Italian driver in 17th in the championship with a best finish of sixth, while Ukrainian driver Oleksandr Savinkov didn’t register a points finish with 17th being his best race result.
The line-up is completed by Emily Cotty, who took part in two British F4 rounds with Argenti Motorsport at Silverstone last September, then in December went on to compete in the two Yas Marina rounds of the Formula Trophy – a precursor to the F4 Middle East season – with the AGI Sport team. She has also tested with PHM Racing’s F4 squad in Europe.