Olivieri wins farcical safety-car filled F4 Middle East race

Photo: F4 ME

The final Formula 4 Middle East race at Yas Marina Circuit featured plenty of the safety car, and resulted in another win for Emanuele Olivieri.

Yas Heat Academy’s August Raber, winner of the previous race, stalled at the start and was collected by two other cars. That led to the safety car’s first appearance on lap one, then red flags waving on lap two. The race was stopped for over 20 minutes, and it was counted as lap two when the safety car led the field back out of the pits.

Green flag action returned on lap four, with Olivieri leading Mumbai Falcons’ Kean Nakamura Berta and Tomass Stolcermanis. At turn one, R-ace GP’s Alex Powell went from fifth to third around the outside but then Akcel GP by PHM Racing’s Reno Francot moved back up to fourth when Stolcermanis went off entering the hotel section and dropped to 21st.

At the corkscrew part of the lap there was a clash between Prema’s Sasha Bondarev and Evans GP’s Martin Molnar, and once the latter parked up his car just off the track the safety car was summoned again on the next lap. Prema’s Sebastian Wheldon was up in fourth when the race was neutralised, ahead of Mumbai Falcons’ Salim Hanna Hernandez.

The next restart was on lap eight, but Evans GP’s Tiago Rodrigues got eliminated so the safety car was back on track before the end of the lap. Another attempt at returning to racing was made on lap 10, and Powell attempted another turn one move.

He could not keep up with the top two thereon, with team-mate Oliveri growing his championship lead by taking victory.

Francot tried overtaking Powell around the outside at the chicane on lap 11 but cut it, and Powell also went off. As he got ahead, this made returning the position tricky but he managed to do so without Wheldon also getting through.

Stolcermanis made it back up to 13th place in his recovery drive, one place shy of the points.

Race results (12 laps)