FREC’s Spa practice led by Slater as CL Motorsport resets line-up

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Freddie Slater was fastest in Formula Regional European Championship free practice at Spa-Francorchamps, which CL Motorsport attended with an all-new line-up.

The Italy-based and Chinese-owned team had signed Zachary David for the season, but turned up with Eurocup-3 winter series race-winner Valerio Rinicella for the opening round and is fielding Michael Belov and Maceo Capietto at Spa.

Belov, 23, made it up to FIA Formula 3 in the first half of his single-seater career, then stepped back down to FRegional in 2021 and has done part-time campaigns in the category every since. In that time the Russian has claimed two FREC wins.

Capietto came third in French Formula 4 as a car racing rookie in 2021 then spent two seasons in FREC with less established teams. He came an impressive eighth in the 2023 standings with Race Performance Motorsport, although only made the podium once.

Last year the 19-year-old switched to LMP2 sportscars, and came eighth in the European Le Mans Series. He is currently 13th in the 2025 standings after two rounds.

In the pair’s official return to single-seater action for free practice on Friday, they were 15th and 20th fastest.

G4 Racing’s Edouard Borgna started FP1 on top, then Sainteloc Racing’s Tim Gerhards led the way. His team-mate Nikita Bedrin was the first to set a sub-2m14s lap, and a few seconds later ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire went 0.392 seconds faster than him.

Giltaire was on top for three-and-a-half minutes before Trident’s Matteo De Palo set a 2m12.596s. That was later beaten by Prema’s drivers, with Rashid Al Dhaheri the first to do it with a 2m12.378s. Slater then snuck ahead by 0.029s before improving further to 2m11.83s.

He sat in first place for 14 minutes, with his run broken by De Palo setting a 2m11.574s. Slater swiftly responded, going fastest by 0.19s on his next lap then improving by a further 0.353s on the lap after that.

He only had a 0.093s gap by the end, as R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny got close to his pace on his penultimate lap and team-mate Jin Nakamura was only a further 0.091s behind. De Palo improved to 2m11.249s in fourth, ahead of Giltaire, Bedrin and R-ace’s Akshay Bohra. A second covered the top 19.

Only seven of the 27 drivers set personal bests in FP2, including Bedrin who topped the timesheet with a 2m11.125s lap that put him third overall.

Belov was fastest at first, then Bedrin had his first turn at the top. ART GP’s Taito Kato brought the pace down into the 2m12s, before Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot and Dion Gowda moved ahead. Giltaire interrupted a longer spell at the top for Gowda, who led with a 2m11.423s until De Palo beat him by 0.064s.

After the chequered flag waved 20 minutes later, Bedrin reclaimed top spot by 0.234s. Gowda’s time put him ninth in the combined classification.

Free practice results