Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
FIA Formula 3 Championship race-winner Nikita Bedrin and Matteo De Palo have joined the Formula Regional Middle East grid at Yas Marina Circuit this weekend.
Bedrin [pictured top winning in F3] has signed with Sainteloc Racing for the last two rounds of the season and will looking to follow up on his past success in the Middle East.
Across three years in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates, but only one complete campaign, Bedrin picked up five wins and came fourth in the 2022 standings with PHM Racing. The next year he drove for the team in FRME and won twice en route to seventh in the standings.
Last year he combined F4 UAE with PHM, FIA F3 with the linked AIX Racing team and FRegional Europe with MP Motorsport, and it did not quite go to plan.
Although he won races in F4, he never finished higher than sixth in FRegional and his F3 win was one of just five points scores in his sophomore season. He came 19th in the standings, one position lower than in 2023 when he picked up two podiums with Jenzer Motorsport.
De Palo is driving for Evans GP this weekend, and will race for Trident in FRegional Europe later this year. He came 17th in that championship last year – with a best finish of fourth – and was fifth in Spanish F4 the year before that.
The pair were on track in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, as two pre-event test sessions took place. Bedrin topped the first, setting a 1m52.309s to lead Mumbai Falcons’ Freddie Slater by 0.392 seconds.
ART Grand Prix duo Kanato Le and Evan Giltaire were just 0.004s and 0.013s slower than Slater, and R-ace GP’s Akshay Bohra was 0.547s off the pace in fifth. His team-mates Enzo Deligny and Ugo Ugochukwu were the only other drivers within a second of Bedrin.
Every driver improved in session two, and Ugochukwu lowered the pace to 1m50.081s. Bedrin was second fastest, 0.38s behind, and Deligny was 0.704s back in third. Evans GP’s Aaron Cameron and Giltaire were 0.89s and 0.919s off the pace respectively in fourth and fifth, and De Palo was sixth.
Free practice followed on Friday morning, and points leader Giltaire returned to being the benchmark man. He set a 1m49.538s on his fifth lap of eight, putting him 0.124s ahead of Mumbai Falcons’ Rashid Al Dhaheri. Slater was a further 0.031s behind, then Le and Kato completed a top covered by 0.434s and consisting of drivers whose pace peaked on their fifth lap of the day.
Bohra was also within half a second of Giltaire, with just a quarter of a second between himself and Deligny in 15th. De Palo and Bedrin were seventh and 14th, both racking up 13 laps and setting their personal bests very late on.
Results round-up
Pre-event testing
1 Ugo Ugochukwu R-ace GP 1m50.081s
2 Nikita Bedrin Sainteloc Racing +0.380s
3 Enzo Deligny R-ace GP +0.704s
4 Aaron Cameron Evans GP +0.890s
5 Evan Giltaire ART Grand Prix +0.919s
6 Matteo De Palo Evans GP +1.034s
7 Kanato Le ART Grand Prix +1.111s
8 Akshay Bohra R-ace GP +1.386s
9 Taito Kato ART Grand Prix +1.487s
10 Ruiqi Liu Origine Motorsport +1.536s
Free practice
1 Giltaire 1m49.538s
2 Rashid Al Dhaheri Mumbai Falcons +0.124s
3 Freddie Slater Mumbai Falcons +0.165s
4 Le +0.298s
5 Kato +0.434s
6 Bohra +0.488s
7 De Palo +0.520s
8 Brando Badoer PHM Racing +0.525s
9 Hiyu Yamakoshi Pinnacle Motorsport +0.528s
10 Liu +0.569s