Photo: F4 ME
The Formula 4 Middle East field was in action at Dubai Autodrome on Friday, conducting pre-event testing then participating in a free practice session.
Testing took place in the morning and was split into two one-hour sessions. Emanuele Olivieri led an R-ace GP lockout of the top three in the first session, setting a 2m01.271s on his final lap to go a huge 0.47 seconds clear of team-mate Alex Powell and 1.498s ahead of Alexander Savinkov.
Xcel Motorsport’s Yuhao Fu was best of the rest in a very distant fourth, 1.675s off the pace, but less than 0.3s split him and Akcel GP by PHM Racing’s Reno Francot in ninth place.
Mumbai Falcons’ Tomass Stolcermanis and Salim Hanna Hernandez were fifth and sixth fastest, 0.099s apart, and Yas Heat Academy’s Adam Al Azhari was sandwiched 0.036s behind Hanna and 0.039s ahead of his team-mate Kean Nakamura Berta.
Farah Al Yousef, the slowest driver down in 28th place, was 9.359s off Olivieri’s pace.
Oliveri improved by 0.143s in session two and again led Powell at the top. His team-mate set a new personal best of 2m01.354s on his penultimate lap, and Al Azhari was 0.756s back in third.
Most drivers reached their best pace in the session halfway through their runs, with Nakamura a second slower than Olivieri in fourth and not improving after his sixth lap of 20.
Stolceramis was fifth, and Evans GP’s Tiago Rodrigues pipped Hanna and Prema’s Newman Chi to sixth. Francot and Fu completed a top 10 covered by 1.372s, and non-improver Savinkov was shuffled down to 12th in the test’s overall classification behind Evans GP’s Martin Molnar.
The next-best non-improver was Evans GP’s Seth Gilmore, who slid down from 10th to 16th.
There was a change in Akcel GP’s third car alongside Francot and David Cosma Cristofor, with Yuta Suzuki at the wheel of the machine driven by Aqil Alibhai in the previous round. Suzuki contested the first two rounds with Pinnacle Motorsport, and has been replaced in that team’s line-up by Georgi Zhuravskiy.
He was 22nd in the Formula Regional-based Eurocup-3 series in 2024, and is currently 20th in the F4-spec Formula Winter Series.
Laptimes were slower in the hotter conditions of free practice, which ran for half an hour. Nakamura only completed six laps but was able to set a 2m01.871s that nobody was able to beat, although Stolcermanis got within 0.089s of him.
Al Azhari was 0.133s behind in third, Francot and Fu were 0.3s off in fourth and fifth, and Hanna was the last driver within half a second of Nakamura.
Points leader Olivieri was only 10th fastest, behind Chi, Molnar (who had been fastest at one point) and Zhuravskiy.
Results round-up
Pre-event testing
1 Emanuele Olivieri R-ace GP 2m01.128s
2 Alex Powell R-ace GP +0.226s
3 Adam Al Azhari Yas Heat Academy +0.756s
4 Kean Nakamura Berta Mumbai Falcons +1.021s
5 Tomass Stolcermanis Mumbai Falcons +1.032s
6 Tiago Rodrigues Evans GP +1.216s
7 Salim Hanna Hernandez Mumbai Falcons +1.263s
8 Newman Chi Prema +1.296s
9 Reno Francot Akcel GP +1.339s
10 Yuhao Fu Xcel Motorsport +1.372s
Free practice
1 Nakamura 2m01.871s
2 Stolcermanis +0.089s
3 Al Azhari +0.133s
4 Francot +0.331s
5 Fu +0.395s
6 Hanna +0.428s
7 Chi +0.552s
8 Martin Molnar Evans GP +0.696s
9 Georgi Zhuravskiy Pinnacle Motorsport +0.768s
10 Olivieri +0.905s