Tramnitz tops FREC test at Zandvoort and announces Red Bull backing

Photo: FRECA

R-ace GP’s Tim Tramnitz was fastest in Formula Regional European Championship’s pre-event Zandvoort test on Thursday, and was announced as a Red Bull junior.

Red Bull did not divulge the details of the deal, for example if it extends to 2024 and if it includes Red Bull athlete status, and it was one of several announcements in the FREC paddock.

Van Amersfoort Racing revealed it had promoted Ivan Domingues from its Italian Formula 4 line-up for the rest of the year, meaning the Portuguese driver misses the final round of that season and the opportunity to finish in the top 10 in the standings there, while Javier Sagrera is absent from Eurocup-3’s penultimate round due to joining MP Motorport in FREC.

Sagrera has three podiums to his name in the FRegional-based Eurocup-3 series, where he races for Palou Motorsport.

After making the podiums twice and coming 18th in the standings in FIA Formula 3 this year with Jenzer Motorsport, Nikita Bedrin is stepping down a rung on the single-seater ladder to join Monolite Racing at Zandvoort.

Bedrin, an F4 race-winner in three different series, started 2023 in FRegional Middle East where he claimed two wins, two poles and was seventh in the points table. He ended up ninth on the combined timesheet of FREC’s pre-event test, while Domingues and Sagrera were 15th and 24th respectively.

Both test sessions took place in the afternoon, and were scheduled to last 90 minutes.

Tramnitz topped the first with a 1m43.564s laptime, putting him 0.113 seconds ahead of Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli in second place.

A further 0.545s behind was Race Performance Motorsport’s Maceo Capietto in third, and Prema’s Rafael Camara was 0.74s off the pace in fourth.

R-ace’s Martinius Stenshorne and G4 Racing’s Alessandro Giusti were the only other two drivers within a second of the pace.

R-P-M’s Santiago Ramos failed to put a laptime to his name, and then skipped session two, and red flags instigated a disruptive end to the session.

There were several red flag stoppages in session two, but that did not prevent everyone from improving on the laptimes they had set earlier in the day.

Capietto was atop the times when a lengthy red flag period occurred with half an hour to go, with Antonelli, Tramnitz, Stenshorne and Giusti completing the top five.

Action resumed with 25 minutes left on the clock, and 10 minutes later Stenshorne improved to third place with a 1m43.259 to sit just 0.095s off Capietto’s pace.

Tramnitz bettered Capietto’s benchmark by 0.225s with nine minutes to go, and Antonelli went third fastest by lapping just 0.071s short of Capietto’s best.

Capietto responded by improving his pace, but was 0.166s short of reclaiming first place and then red flags waved that ended the session five minutes early. That denied others the opportunity to improve, and Bedrin jumped up to ninth just before then.

Pre-event test results