Photo: Spanish F4
Kirill Smal has found the budget to contest a part-time Formula Regional European Championship campaign with Monolite Racing, starting with round two at Barcelona later this month.
The 17-year-old Russian joined Monolite for pre-season testing at Paul Ricard and Monza, immediately impressing with some excellent times. He told Formula Scout at Monza that he was aiming to secure a budget to enable him to join from Barcelona onwards, and now he has done just that.
Monolite will be fielding a third car for Smal, as he races alongside Giovanni Maschio and Enzo Scionti who contested last month’s Imola season opener.
“Kirill will complete our line-up starting with the second round of the season in Barcelona,” said Monolite’s team manager Rudi Mariotto.
“I am sure that he will prove to be a key piece for the team. With his experience, he can help the whole team grow up in the shortest possible time.”
Smal started his single-seater racing career in 2020, competing in the ADAC Formula 4 championship with R-ace GP. He came ninth in the standings with three podiums. After that he joined Xcel Motorsport in F4 United Arab Emirates at the start of 2021, and won four times en route to third in the standings.
The rest of that year was spent with Prema, competing jointly in ADAC and Italian F4. He came 10th in the former, with one win and a third place from six races, and was third in the latter with one win and four other podium finishes.
Smal remained in F4 for 2022, joining MP Motorsport in the Spanish championship. He made the podium eight times to come fourth in the points table, and stayed with MP for the opening round of the 2023 F4 UAE season.
Following that weekend he stepped up to FRegional Middle East with the Prema-supported Mumbai Falcons team and made the podium. It was a delayed progression to the next category on the single-seater ladder as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had prevented him from embarking on a planned FREC campaign in 2022.