Kato tops FRME testing in new car as grid grows before round one

Photo: FRME

ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato topped Formula Regional Middle East pre-season testing at Yas Marina Circuit this week as the grid grew ahead of this weekend’s opening round.

Kean Nakamura-Berta led Mumbai Falcons team-mate Sebastian Wheldon in session one on Tuesday, with Pinnacle Motorsport’s Alex Powell beating Wheldon by 0.053 seconds to top the slower session two.

Wheldon pipped Van Amersfoort Racing’s Dion Gowda by 0.016s in session three, but did not improve on his previous best laptime.

Kato concluded Tuesday by lowering the pace to 1m48.053s in session four, leading MP Motorsport’s Christian Ho by 0.11s and Powell by 0.137s.

Powell set a 1m48.519s to top session five by 0.105s over Trident’s Maximilian Popov, with a 0.285s gap to MP’s third-placed Alexander Abkhazava.

ART GP’s Kabir Anurag was 22nd, but jumped to first in session six with a 1m48.857s, topping the timesheet by 0.184s over Kato while Race Performance Motorsport’s Jan Przyrowski trailed by 0.485s in third.

Anurag improved to 1m48.829s in session seven, denying Wheldon top spot by 0.01s and Ho by 0.027s. Kato was fourth, 0.137s behind.

VAR’s Francisco Macedo set a 1m48.358s to top session eight by 0.212s over Powell and 0.229s to Ho, with a second splitting the top 22.

During testing, nine drivers were announced as joining FRME’s grid. R-ace GP’s line-up now exceeds its car count, as Gerrard Xie will race in rounds one and two then Emanuele Olivieri will contest rounds three and four.

Euroformula and GB3 race-winner Xie spent 2025 in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, and last year R-ace ran Olivieri to the Formula 4 Middle East title and second in the FIA F4 World Cup.

The Prema-run Mumbai Falcons team has promoted Salim Hanna, new Williams Formula 1 junior Nakamura-Berta and Wheldon from its F4 squad. Wheldon came third in Italian F4 and fourth in E4 last year, while Hanna was fourth and seventh.

Macedo, who was 14th in Eurocup-3 last year, has joined VAR for FRME and the FRegional European Championship while Trident has told Formula Scout that Luka Sammalisto has left its 2026 FREC line-up but not shared why.

CL Motorsport will run Michael Belov, Newman Chi and Enea Frey in FRME after fielding them part-time in FREC last year.

The ultra-experienced Belov came seventh in FREC’s 2022 season, 11th in FRME predecessor the FRegional Asian Championship and 13th in the FRegional-spec Formula Renault Eurocup back in 2020, and last year was 15th in both FREC and the FRegional-based Eurocup-3.

His 2026 team-mates primarily spent 2025 in F4. Chi came fifth in Italian F4 and ninth in F4 Middle East, while Frey was ninth in Formula Winter Series and 14th in E4.

Test results