Mumbai Falcons’ Al Dhaheri tops day one of FRME pre-season testing

Photo: Prema

Mumbai Falcons’ Rashid Al Dhaheri was fastest on the opening day of Formula Regional Middle East pre-season testing at Yas Marina Circuit.

Al Dhaheri actually failed to set a laptime in the first of Tuesday’s three sessions, which each lasted an hour, as Pinnacle Motorsport’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr set the pace. A 1m50.574s lap put him 0.132 seconds ahead of Mumbai Falcons’ Freddie Slater, with a gap of 0.4s to Evan Giltaire (ART Grand Prix) and Ernesto Rivera (Pinnacle) in third and fourth.

R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura and Enzo Deligny were fifth and sixth, and behind them Kanato Le (ART GP) and Ugo Ugochukwu (R-ace) were the only other drivers within a second of the pace.

Carrasquedo would be unable to beat the laptime he set in that session, and also setting their personal bests in session one were Sainteloc Racing’s Yaroslav Veselaho and Origine Motorsport’s Zhongwei Wang.

Al Dhaheri lowered the pace by just 0.026s in session two, and was quickest in the early afternoon by 0.079s over Giltaire. Sainteloc’s Theophile Nael trailed by 0.144s in third, then once more there was a gap of 0.4s to the next group of drivers made up of Deligny, Evans GP’s Aaron Cameron, Origine’s Ruiqi Liu and Slater.

This time the top 12 were covered by a second, and setting their personal best laps were Nael, Deligny, PHM Racing’s Brando Bador and Everett Stack, and Pinnacle’s Finley Green.

The majority of the 26-car entry list went quicker later in the day, with eight beating Al Dhaheri’s previous benchmark. He was once again fastest, improving to 1m49.941s. Slater and Ugochukwu also broke the 1m50s barrier, and Rivera was 0.216s behind Al Dhaheri in fourth.

Taito Kato ended up being ART GP’s fastest driver in fifth, ahead of Liu, Cameron, Le, Giltaire, Jack Beeton (Mumbai Falcons), R-ace’s Akshay Bohra, Nakamura and Reza Seewooruthun (Mumbai Falcons).

Announced as completing the FRME grid before testing began was Cameron. The 24-year-old Australian raced in Formula Ford before switching to touring cars, then returned to single-seaters in S5000. He won the 2021 Tasman Series and 2023 S5000 title on home soil, as well as coming 15th in the TCR World Tour that year.

In 2024 he was Super2 Series runner-up, and built on his endurance racing experience at Bathurst by stepping up to Australian Supercars for two races that included the Bathurst 1000.

Also racing for Evans in FRME is Kai Daryanani. The 19-year-old ended two years in Formula 4 by winning the United Arab Emirates-based Formula Trophy a month ago, and before that had come eighth in Australian F4, 10th in F4 South East Asia and 12th in British F4.

Day one results