Photo: ACI Sport
Matteo de Palo took his and a jubilant Trident team’s maiden victory in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine with a controlled drive in race one at Misano.
The race was effectively decided at the start as polesitter Freddie Slater got too much wheelspin allowing de Palo to get alongside as they ran down to the first corner. Slater responded by squeezing de Palo to the inside, with the Trident car almost having to take to the grass in reaction, while ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire looked for a way past both.
Slater tried to fight back around the outside of the first corner, but was hit from behind by R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura, spinning the Prema car around, and pitching both cars into the gravel on the outside of the following left-hander.
With both cars stuck in the gravel and out of the race, De Palo held onto the lead from Giltaire as the safety car was called. Nakamura was subsequently handed a four-place grid penalty for the next race for causing the incident.
Racing resumed at the end of lap two, but in truth, there was little action at the front over the remaining 18 laps on the tight Misano track, where overtaking is exceedingly difficult.
In its fourth season in the series, Trident had previously scored a best result of second and the joy on the pitwall was clear as Maurizio Salvadori and Giacomo Ricci joined Luca Zerbini’s FREC crew to celebrate the win.
De Palo had been able to hold the gap at between two and three seconds over Giltaire. While Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri was able to close onto the tail of the Frenchman in the closing stages, without an error there was little chance of him making a move for second.
Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot enjoyed an untroubled run to fourth, ahead of Taito Kato for ART Grand Prix.
Prema’s Jack Beeton found a way past the third ART grand Prix entry of Kanato Le on lap five, and although he was able to close the gap to those ahead to less than a second at the flag, never looked likely to progress further.
Race results (20 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | 31m43.502s |
| 2 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | +2.519s |
| 3 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema Racing | +2.888s |
| 4 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | +3.335s |
| 5 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | +6.458s |
| 6 | Jack Beeton | Prema Racing | +7.255s |
| 7 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | +11.985s |
| 8 | Hiyu Yamakoshi | Van Amersfoort Racing | +12.841s |
| 9 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | +14.013s |
| 10 | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | +14.661s |
| 11 | Kanato Le | ART Grand Prix | +24.947s |
| 12 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Trident | +26.392s |
| 13 | Enzo Peugeot | RPM | +26.570s |
| 14 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | +28.036s |
| 15 | Enzo Yeh | RPM | +28.348s |
| 16 | Giovanni Maschio | RPM | +31.149s |
| 17 | Dion Gowda | Van Amersfoort Racing | +31.672s |
| 18 | Kacper Sztuka | G4 Racing | +33.943s |
| 19 | Edouard Borgna | G4 Racing | +35.602s |
| 20 | Valerio Rinicella | CL Motorsport | +42.146s |
| 21 | Aditya Kulkarni | Akcel GP | +42.907s |
| 22 | Saqer Al Mousherji | Akcel GP | +55.837s |
| 23 | Arthur Aegerter | G4 Racing | +1m25.909s |
| Ret | Tim Gerhards | Sainteloc Racing | |
| Ret | Freddie Slater | Prema Racing | |
| Ret | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | |
| Fastest lap: Clerot, 1m29.951s | |||