Home Featured FRME title fight closes up as Giltaire wins and Slater fades to fifth

FRME title fight closes up as Giltaire wins and Slater fades to fifth

by Steve Whitfield

Photo: FRME

ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire won race one of Formula Regional Middle East’s second round on Yas Marina Circuit’s Corkscrew layout.

Lining up from second on the grid, Giltaire made a good start and challenged Mumbai Falcons’ poleman Freddie Slater into turn one but was unable to find a way by.

The safety car was deployed early on as Akcel GP’s Aditya Kulkararni and Everett Stack of sister team PHM Racing had tangled at the end of the opening lap after being caught out by the field bunching up in front of them. Stack retired on the spot while Kulkarni headed for the pitlane for a new front wing.

Giltaire again challenged Slater into turn one at the restart, with the latter using the inside line to remain in front once more.

Slater resisted pressure from Giltaire for the next few laps, but an error with 10 minutes remaining allowed his pursuer to pounce. Locking up and running wide into the final chicane, Slater tried to defend the lead on the pit straight, but Giltaire squeezed up the inside to snatch the lead while Slater also lost out to his team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri and slipped to third.

Giltaire was untroubled for the remainder of the contest and took the chequered flag two seconds clear of Al Dhaheri. ART GP’s Taito Kato completed the podium a further 2.5 seconds adrift, with Pinnacle Motorsport’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr fourth. Slater faded dramatically in the closing laps and tumbled to a distant fifth, just ahead of R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura.

Nakamura’s team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu was seventh ahead of Mumbai Falcons’ Jack Beeton, who just edged Sainteloc Racing’s Theopile Nael and PHM’s Brando Badoer. By finishing 10th, Badoer provisionally took reversed-grid pole for race two.

Mumbai Falcons’ Reza Seewooruthun prevailed in a frenetic scrap with R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny to finish 11th, the latter having to hand the place back after running off track while completing an overtake.

Race results (17 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Evan Giltaire ART Grand Prix 30m31.824s
2 Rashid Al Dhaheri Mumbai Falcons +2.100s
3 Taito Kato ART Grand Prix +4.628s
4 Jesse Carrasquedo Jr Pinnacle Motorsport +11.001s
5 Freddie Slater Mumbai Falcons +14.426s
6 Jin Nakamura R-ace GP +15.396s
7 Ugo Ugochukwu R-ace GP +16.941s
8 Jack Beeton Mumbai Falcons +17.966s
9 Theophile Nael Sainteloc Racing +18.234s
10 Brando Badoer PHM Racing +18.752s
11 Reza Seewooruthun Mumbai Falcons +19.452s
12 Enzo Deligny R-ace GP +20.218s
13 Ernesto Rivera Pinnacle Motorsport +20.569s
14 Ruiqi Liu Origine Motorsport +28.811s
15 Kanato Le ART Grand Prix +23.576s
16 Kai Daryanani Evans GP +27.479s
17 Akshay Bohra R-ace GP +27.578s
18 Aaron Cameron Evans GP +30.686s
19 Jaden Pariat Akcel GP +32.496s
20 Lorenzo Castillo Sainteloc Racing +34.241s
21 Giovanni Maschio Pinnacle Motorsport +34.588s
22 Finley Green Pinnacle Motorsport +41.508s
23 Yaroslav Veselaho Sainteloc Racing +41.598s
24 Aditya Kulkarni Akcel GP +45.534s
25 Zhongwei Wang
Origine Motorsport
+47.270s
Ret Everett Stack PHM Racing
Fastest lap: Giltaire, 1m42.684s

Championship standings
1 Slater 88   2 Giltaire 80   3 Al Dhaheri 50   4 Nael 47   5 Badoer 40   6 Carrasquedo38   7 Kato 36   8 Le 34   9 Deligny 30   10 Ugochukwu 26