Kean Nakamura-Berta took pole position at the Red Bull Ring as Formula Regional Europe began its new era with the second-generation Tatuus T-326 car and Toyota engines replacing Alpine powerplants.
The Williams junior topped the times from reigning GB3 champion, Alex Ninovic, in Group A. R-ace GP’s Rashid Al Dhaheri was fastest in Group B but fell short of the Prema driver’s time by 0.186s.
With three races scheduled for the weekend, including a first-ever reversed-grid race on Saturday, the first qualifying session took place on Friday afternoon in glorious sunshine in the Styrian mountains.
Nakamura-Berta and Rodin Motorsport’s Ninovic traded top spot in Group A with the Japanese-Slovakian driver emerging on top by 0.262s with two purple sector times on his penultimate lap.
The MP Motorsport duo of Zhenrui Chi, recently signed up as an Aston Martin F1 junior, and Alexander Abkhazava setting the early pace, before Ninovic moved to the top on his fifth lap.
Emanuele Olivieri moved up to second place for R-ace GP before being demoted by Trident’s Maksimilian Popov, with Nakamura-Berta briefly dropping back to fifth. However, the Prema driver, a champion already in 2026 in the Formula Regional Middle East Trophy, immediately responded with a 1m26.157s lap on his eighth tour, before improving further to dip below 1m26s next time around.
Olivieri improved on his final lap to claim third from Popov while last year’s rookie champion, Dion Gowda lost a lap to track limits but responded to take fifth from Chi.
Andrea Dupe set the early pace for Van Amersfoort Racing before Reno Francot moved to the top of the times for CL Motorsport. However, Al Dhaheri was the quickest man on track, going fastest and then when it looked like he could claim overall pole with tow fastest sectors lost time in the final two corners and failed to improve.
Sebastian Wheldon claimed second for MP Motorsport, returning to the category after a year’s absence with Francot holding onto third.
Tomass Stolcermanis took fourth for Prema ahead of reigning French Formula 4 champion, Alexandre Munoz, while Reza Seewoothurun will start from reversed-grid pole in race two having finished the slower session in sixth.