Home Featured Slater builds early FRME lead with victory in Abu Dhabi night race

Slater builds early FRME lead with victory in Abu Dhabi night race

by Ida Wood

Photo: FRME

Freddie Slater made it two victories out of three from the opening Formula Regional Middle East round at Yas Marina Circuit by winning the weekend’s concluding night race.

The Mumbai Falcons driver started from pole and went unchallenged throughout, winning the 16-lap race by 3.437 seconds.

R-ace GP’s Ugo Ugochukwu made the best start from sixth on the grid, but broke his front wing on the car of Mumbai Falcons’ Rashid Al Dhaheri. He made it up to fourth, while Al Dhaheri went wide at turn one with his damage.

Ugochukwu and PHM Racing’s Everett Stack then went off in the hotel section, with Ugochukwu starting to lose places as his wing detached itself. The safety car was called out due to Stack stopping, helping Al Dhaheri and Ugochukwu slightly as they pitted.

Racing resumed on lap three, and Slater immediately pulled away from ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire. Pinnacle Motorsport’s Ernesto Rivera and Jesse Carrasquedo Jr were third and fourth, with Mumbai Falcons’ Reza Seewooruthun, ART GP’s Jin Nakamura and Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael filling the next positions.

Carrasquedo tried passing Rivera at the inside of turn one on lap eight, and cleared him later in the lap, while Nael went around the outside of Nakamura at the last chicane on lap nine. He did the same to Seewooruthun on lap 10, then got ahead of Rivera before even reaching the braking zone there on lap 12 while still taking the outside line.

He did not have enough time to chase down Carrasquedo, but put 10s between himself and Rivera in the remaining four laps.

Rivera held off PHM’s Brando Badoer and ART GP’s Taito Kato in a photo finish, the pair’s progress held up by Evans GP’s Aaron Cameron. On lap eight, Cameron went off in the hotel section then spent the rest of the lap holding off Kato. Badoer tried a double move at the chicane but failed.

A lap later the same error was made by Cameron, but had less pressure when Badoer was pressuring Kato on lap 12. They then came up to Nakamura, who Badoer quickly passed while Cameron dropped back and found himself defending from ART GP’s Kanato Le.

Kato dived down Nakamura’s inside at the hairpin on lap 13, then they banged wheels en route to the last chicane where Nakamura went off and passed two cars. He let Badoer back past, and although he lost out to Kato at the chicane on lap 14 there was not a net loss of position as both passed Seewooruthun.

Le had spent many laps attacking Pinnacle’s Giovanni Maschio, then got stuck behind Cameron who kept on locling up and going off before he spun Le at the final chicane on lap 14.

Ugochukwu’s recovery ended when he joined team-mate Akshay Bohra in retirement.

Race results (16 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Freddie Slater Mumbai Falcons 31m33.458s
2 Evan Giltaire ART Grand Prix +3.437s
3 Jesse Carrasquedo Jr Pinnacle Motorsport +7.613s
4 Theophile Nael Sainteloc Racing +12.181s
5 Ernesto Rivera Pinnacle Motorsport +22.799s
6 Brando Badoer PHM Racing +22.995s
7 Taito Kato ART Grand Prix +23.011s
8 Jin Nakamura R-ace GP +25.851s
9 Reza Seewooruthun Mumbai Falcons +32.010s
10 Jack Beeton Mumbai Falcons +36.128s
11 Enzo Deligny R-ace GP +36.849s
12 Aditya Kulkarni Akcel GP +39.979s
13 Aaron Cameron Evans GP +40.332s
14 Kanato Le ART Grand Prix +40.622s
15 Giovanni Maschio Pinnacle Motorsport +41.902s
16 Kai Daryanani Evans GP +43.308s
17 Rashid Al Dhaheri Mumbai Falcons +43.398s
18 Yaroslav Veselaho Sainteloc Racing +44.113s
19 Ruiqi Liu Origine Motorsport +50.381s
20 Finley Green Pinnacle Motorsport +51.509s
21 Lorenzo Castillo Sainteloc Racing +51.616s
22 Jaden Pariat Akcel GP +55.851s
23 Zhongwei Wang Origine Motorsport +56.763s
Ret Ugo Ugochukwu R-ace GP
Ret Akshay Bohra R-ace GP
Ret Everett Stack PHM Racing
Fastest lap: Slater, 1m50.416s

Championship standings
1 Slater 74   2 Giltaire 48   3 Nael 41   4 Badoer 37   5 Le 33   6 Rivera 30   7 Al Dhaheri 26   8 Deligny 26   9 Ugochukwu 25   10 Carrasquedo 22