Home Featured Badoer claims first FRegional Middle East win as title fight takes a twist

Badoer claims first FRegional Middle East win as title fight takes a twist

by Ida Wood

Photo: FRME

PHM Racing’s Brando Badoer claimed his maiden Formula Regional Middle East victory in the reversed-grid race on Yas Marina Circuit’s Corkscrew layout.

The result lifted him up to third in the standings, with the two drivers ahead both suffering bad starts to their day.

Mumbai Falcons’ Freddie Slater suffered from a lack of pace in the race’s second half and finished a distant sixth, while ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire failed to even make the start due to a mechanical problem.

Badoer rocketed away from pole and was never challenged in the 16-lap race, winning by four-and-a-half seconds.

R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura also started fast and leapt from fifth to second, with Sainteloc Racing’s Thoephile Nael being demoted to third. He dived down Nakamura’s inside at the final chicane to reclaim second, by which point Badoer was already 1.5s clear.

Nakamura’s team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu then attacked him into turn one on lap two, and they both went off at the hotel section after almost colliding. That gave Nael a gap in second, and Mumbai Falcons’ Jack Beeton got between the R-ace pair with Nakamura now behind.

At that point Rashid Al Dhaheri was having to defend sixth place from team-mate Slater, but the pressure did not continue.

In fact, as lap three began ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato attempted a move on both. Al Dhaheri chose to defend against Kato, and it worked, with the Japanese racer then clearing Slater a few corners later.

The safety car was then called out, as Sainteloc’s Lorenzo Castillo retired in the run-off area. Badoer led the field back to racing speed on lap six, and Slater almost succeeded in passing Kato around the outside at turn one but then drifted wide so did not get it completed.

Kato made a similar error later on in the lap, but he had broken his front wing and soon had to pit. That left Slater under attack from team-mate Reza Seewooruthun and R-ace’s Enzo Deligny next, with the latter attempting to pass at the final chicane but locking up.

Pinnacle Motorsport’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr joined in, and when Deligny switched his attention to him it gave the Mumbai Falcons drivers some breathing room. They then both gained a spot as Nakamura dropped down to eighth, and he was soon fighting with Deligny.

Carrasquedo attempted to go around the outside of the latter at the chicane on lap 10 but ended up passing off-track, and he managed to give back the place without ART GP’s Kanato Le also getting ahead.

Carrasquedo finally broke Deligny’s defences at the end, while was successful in keeping Seewooruthun behind and grew his points lead in Giltaire’s absence.

A provisional race result was not issued until several hours after the finish.

Race results (16 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Brando Badoer PHM Racing 31m21.676s
2 Theophile Nael Sainteloc Racing +4.577s
3 Jack Beeton Mumbai Falcons +9.423s
4 Ugo Ugochukwu R-ace GP +10.515s
5 Rashid Al Dhaheri Mumbai Falcons +11.071s
6 Freddie Slater Mumbai Falcons +19.041s
7 Reza Seewooruthun Mumbai Falcons +19.127s
8 Jin Nakamura R-ace GP +19.422s
9 Kanato Le ART Grand Prix +21.693s
10 Jesse Carrasquedo Jr Pinnacle Motorsport +23.848s
11 Enzo Deligny R-ace GP +25.779s
12 Ernesto Rivera Pinnacle Motorsport +26.385s
13 Kai Daryanani Evans GP +26.492s
14 Akshay Bohra R-ace GP +27.050s
15 Giovanni Maschio Pinnacle Motorsport +27.375s
16 Yaroslav Veselaho Sainteloc Racing +28.764s
17 Ruiqi Liu Origine Motorsport +29.221s
18 Finley Green Pinnacle Motorsport +30.768s
19 Everett Stack PHM Racing +31.457s
20 Jaden Pariat Akcel GP +32.586s
21 Zhongwei Wang Origine Motorsport +39.268s
22 Taito Kato ART Grand Prix +54.649s
23 Aditya Kulkarni Akcel GP +1 lap
Ret Lorenzo Castillo Sainteloc Racing
DNS Evan Giltaire ART Grand Prix
DNS Aaron Cameron Evans GP
Fastest lap: Nael, 1m42.189s

Championship standings
1 Slater 98   2 Giltaire 80   3 Badoer 70   4 Nael 69   5 Al Dhaheri 62   6 Carrasquedo 41   7 Ugochukwu 41   8 Le 38   9 Kato 36   10 Deligny 32