Photo: F4 ME
Enzo Deligny topped Formula Regional European Championship’s pre-event test session at the Red Bull Ring, ahead of a round in which four drivers will debut.
Akcel GP will be absent from the grid, with the team concluding its time in FREC this year after doing half of the rounds.
Its regular driver Saqer Al Maosherji will remain in the paddock though by switching to G4 Racing for the rest of the season.
The Kuwaiti driver is currently 30th in the championship, with two 19th places his best race results.
CL Motorsport is expanding to three cars this weekend, after initially looking like it would only have one entry. Zachary David has a clashing racing commitment Super Formula Lights, so Newman Chi has been signed to substitute for him in the #9 car, while fellow Formula 4 graduate Enea Frey completes CL’s line-up.
Chi and Frey sit seventh and 19th in the Italian F4 standings at present with Prema and Jenzer Motorsport respectively, and in E4 Frey is 10th and Chi is 11th after round one.
Frey started 2025 by coming ninth in Formula Winter Series, while Chi was ninth in F4 Middle East. His team-mate Alex Powell was championship runner-up, and is currently fourth in Italian F4.
Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Powell will be sticking with Prema as he also makes his FREC debut in Austria in the car previously raced by Doriane Pin.
The final change is at Race Performance Motorsport, where Reno Francot is replacing Enzo Yeh. No explanation has been given for Yeh’s absence.
Francot is currently third in E4, sixth in Spanish F4 and 12th in Italian F4, and earlier this year came fifth in F4 Middle East and 12th in the Spanish F4 Winter Championship.
FREC’s Thursday afternoon test session at the Red Bull Ring ran for three hours, and Chi initially set the pace. He traded top spot with Frey too before R-ace GP’s Deligny posted a 1m28.451s to go fastest.
Frey beat that by 0.245 seconds, then Trident’s Nandhavud Bhirmobhakdi and Matteo De Palo were next to lower the pace.
Deligny responded by breaking into the 1m27s, which Prema’s Freddie Slater and De Palo then also managed to do. Top spot returned to Deligny by 0.027s a few laps later, then Francot beat him by just 0.006s.
His 1m27.616s lap stood as the benchmark for 22 minutes, eventually being beaten by Slater. He improved on his next two laps after that to lower the pace to 1m26.755s, then made another gain of 0.129s three laps later.
Slater headed back out at the end of the second hour for some flying laps and improved by further 0.033s. He continued to be the fastest driver for another 25 minutes, and it took a 1m26.446s from Deligny to usurp him.
With less than 14 minutes to go, Slater got within 0.024s of Deligny, and a few minutes after that Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot lapped 0.103s shy of Deligny’s pace. A second covered the top 19.
Test results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | 1m26.446s | 61 |
| 2 | Freddie Slater | Prema | +0.024s | 45 |
| 3 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.103s | 48 |
| 4 | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | +0.184s | 64 |
| 5 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | +0.225s | 52 |
| 6 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | +0.328s | 48 |
| 7 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | +0.419s | 57 |
| 8 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | +0.426s | 56 |
| 9 | Jack Beeton | Prema | +0.557s | 48 |
| 10 | Giovanni Maschio | R-P-M | +0.565s | 50 |
| 11 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | +0.611s | 55 |
| 12 | Hiyu Yamakoshi | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.640s | 45 |
| 13 | Dion Gowda | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.652s | 48 |
| 14 | Alex Powell | Prema | +0.686s | 50 |
| 15 | Ean Eyckmans | R-P-M | +0.884s | 57 |
| 16 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Trident | +0.897s | 45 |
| 17 | Kanato Le | ART Grand Prix | +0.932s | 51 |
| 18 | Reno Francot | R-P-M | +0.937s | 52 |
| 19 | Edu Robinson | G4 Racing | +0.947s | 52 |
| 20 | Michael Belov | CL Motorsport | +1.034s | 33 |
| 21 | Saqer Al Maosherji | Akcel GP | +1.104s | 54 |
| 22 | Tim Gerhards | Sainteloc Racing | +1.288s | 50 |
| 23 | Enea Frey | CL Motorsport | +1.463s | 53 |
| 24 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | +1.463s | 41 |
| 25 | Newman Chi | CL Motorsport | +1.608s | 52 |
| 26 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | +1.620s | 32 |
| 27 | Edouard Borgna | G4 Racing | +1.769s | 49 |
| 28 | Yaroslav Veselaho | Sainteloc Racing | +2.227s | 47 |