Photo: FRECA
A 29-car entry list has been unveiled for the opening Formula Regional Middle East round at Yas Marina Circuit this weekend.
Two days of pre-season testing will take place before competitive action gets underway, and there has been lots of drivers announced just a few days before testing begins.
French team R-ace GP had already confirmed Ferrari junior Tuukka Taponen, a race-winner in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates and Italian F4, for the FRME season and now his three team-mates have been revealed.
Nicolas Todt protege Martinius Stenshorne came 18th in a part-time FRME campaign last year, but after becoming the 2023 FRegional European Championship runner-up he will now be a title favourite in the UAE. Stenshorne step up to the FIA Formula 3 Championship later this year with Hitech GP.
Jesse Carrasquedo will be joining R-ace for FRME but also racing for a rival team after that, as he has signed with G4 Racing for FREC. The NACAM and Danish F4 race-winner came 18th in F4 UAE and 19th in Spanish F4 last year.
“Joining G4 Racing for FREC [in] 2024 is a thrilling opportunity,” said Carrasquedo. “It’s a learning year for me, but I can’t wait to get started. I’m eager to contribute to the team and grow as a driver in this competitive environment. I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to my sponsors for their unwavering support.”
Completing R-ace’s FRME line-up is Zachary David. He raced part-time in single-seaters in 2022, then last year committed to multiple series. He started off 2023 by taking victory and eighth in the F4 UAE standings with R-ace, then joined US Racing in Europe. David won both the Formula Winter Series races he contested, then came seventh in Euro 4 and Italian F4.
Local team Xcel Motorsport has signed British F4 race-winner Noah Lisle and Yaroslav Veselaho, who came 21st in French F4 last year, while Chinese outfit R&B Racing has an all-Chinesw line-up consisting of Zhongwei Wang and Yujia Gao. Wang did two rounds of the 2023 season and had a best finish of 13th, and also came 11th in F4 South East Asia. Gao is a winner in China’s Open Formula Challenge series.