Francot wins chaotic FREC final race for CL Motorsport at Red Bull Ring

Photo: ACI Sport

Reno Francot took victory in Formula Regional Europe’s final race of the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, where four separate safety car periods limited green flag running.

The Dutchman kept calm through all the interruptions to take his and his CL Motorsport team’s maiden victories in the championship.

Polesitter Kean Nakamura-Berta endured a disastrous race, a mistake costing him the lead before the first safety car, and then getting involved in several incidents before ultimately retiring with damage to his rear wing.

FREC was holding its first triple-header since 2020, with four of the eight weekends adding a third race to maintain the 20-race schedule. Having seen two largely incident-free races on Saturday, the last race was chaotic, with little opportunity for on-track racing.

The stewards had been kept busy after the morning qualifying session, with Rashid Al Dhaheri incurring a five-place penalty for a yellow flag infringement, while R-ace GP team-mate Yuki Sano was disqualified after his rear diffuser was found to be higher than the regulations permit. He was allowed to start from the rear of the grid although barely made it over the line before a collision avoiding the slow-moving car of Jan Przyrowski.

Nakamura-Berta moved to the inside to defend from Reno Francot into Turn 1, defending his line under braking for the tight right-hander at Turn 3. However, the safety car was out immediately after an incident at the start.

Wheldon was straight onto the tail of Ninovic at the restart, but the race was soon under caution again as R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri pulled off on the pit straight. As the field lined up behind the safety car, it was headed by Francot as Nakamura-Berta made mistake, dropping him to 10th in the queue.

Francot led away at the third time of asking, with Ninovic and Wheldon still fighting for second, and Premas’s Salim Hanna in fourth. Nakamura-Berta’s race went from bad to worse as he made contact with Reza Seewooruthun at Turn 6, dropping back to 14th.

No sooner had they restarted then contact between Jan Przyrowski and Rahim Alibhai on the pit straight brought the safety car out again.

Racing resumed with just under 12 minutes remaining, Francot pulling out an immediate 0.7s gap to his pursuers before the safety car made another appearance with Saqer Almaosherji running into the back of Andrea Dupe at Turn 1, to complete a miserable weekend for the Kuwaiti.

Francot led away again with five minutes on the clock, this time without incident. Francot was able to pull out a gap of a second over Ninovic and Wheldon, as Alexandre Munoz made a lunge to the inside of Gabriel Gomez at Turn 3, allowing Rashid Al Dhaheri to pick off both cars. Nakamura-Berta was in the wars again, pushing Newman Chi onto the grass as he fought to hold position.

The Williams junior’s wild race continued as he ran off at the last corner after contact with team-mate Tomass Stolcermanis, bouncing over the gravel and dislodging his rear wing.

Francot was never challenged, taking the flag from Ninovic, Wheldon and Hanna, with Al Dhaheri again showing that overtaking is possible, as he kept clear of the incidents, to battle his way through to fifth from the eighth row of the grid.

Race results (17 laps)