De Palo starts pre-season testing on top as FREC announces Alpine split

Photo: FRECA

Trident’s Matteo De Palo topped the first day of Formula Regional European Championship pre-season testing at Barcelona.

Before testing began, FREC announced its partnership with Alpine would conclude at the end of this year. The two parties started working together in 2021, with Alpine branding the championship itself and its Renault engines.

For 2026, a new second-generation FRegional chassis from Tatuus will be used in FREC but an engine supplier is yet to be named.

Tuesday’s track action at Barcelona was split into two sessions, and in the morning Zachary David – driving for the Italy-based and Chinese-owned CL Motorsport team – set the pace. A 1m37.104s put him 0.108 seconds up on De Palo, with Prema’s Freddie Slater 0.299s behind in third.

Nikita Bedrin (Sainteloc Racing), Pedro Clerot (Van Amersfoort Racing) and Maceo Capietto (CL) were also within half a second of the pace, with a second covering the top 11. There were three red flag stoppages, the last of which was caused by Sainteloc’s Tim Gerhards beaching his car in the gravel at turn 13.

There were further red flag periods in the afternoon session, one of which ran deep into the second hour and was caused once again by Gerhards. Prema’s Doriane Pin also had an incident which left her stranded on track.

R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny was fastest at that point, having just beaten the morning benchmark. De Palo was 0.182s behind him, and Bedrin was third.

There were few drivers on track then, and it remained that way all the way through to the final half-hour. Those setting laps did improve, and VAR’s Hiyu Yamakoshi set a 1m36.914s to move ahead of Deligny by 0.043s. Clerot was third, and Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri was sixth.

Race Performance Motorsport’s Enzo Peugeot then snuck ahead of Al Dhaheri, as a second covered the top 18 with 20 minutes to go. R-ace’s Jin Nakamura leapt from 12th to third not long after, 0.071s off the top, and ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire set a personal best in fourth.

He improved further to 1m36.847s, but that only gained him one spot as Deligny lowered the pace to 1m36.736s and Nakamura was just 0.049s slower than him.

Towards the very end they were both bettered by De Palo, who posted a 1m36.475s to claim top spot by 0.261s. Nine drivers ended up beating David’s session one time, and David was one of six drivers out of 25 who did improve in session two.

Capietto also failed to record a personal best in the afternoon, and the CL pair dropped to 10th and 19th in the day’s combined classification. The other non-improvers were Edouard Borgna (G4 Racing), Gerhards and Yaroslav Veselaho (Sainteloc). Absent from the track action after lunch was R-P-M’s Giovanni Maschio, who propped up the day’s timesheet.

Day one results