Wheldon resists late pressure from Hanna to take FREC win at Zandvoort

Photo: ACI Sport

MP Motorsport’s Sebastian Wheldon took his first Formula Regional Europe victory by just 0.249 seconds from a charging Salim Hanna at Zandvoort.

Prema driver Hanna had gradually narrowed the gap to the leader after getting past early leader and team-mate Tomass Stolcermanis on lap four. Going onto the last lap he was right on the Anglo-American Wheldon’s tail, but with no more racemode available was unable to make a move.

He had a tentative look into Turn 11, the Hans Ernst Bocht, on the last lap but Wheldon edged right to cover it off and rounded out the lap to take the flag and his first ever win at this level.

R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri came home third, setting fastest lap as he closed on the leading duo, but had lost too much time earlier in the race, bottled up behind the slower Stolcermanis.

The Latvian had taken the lead at the start from the second row, running around the outside of polesitter Wheldon through Tarzan. The safety car was deployed after an incident in the midfield eliminated Miguel Costa and at the restart, Wheldon repaid the favour, drafting past Stolcermanis down the pit straight before pulling off an identical pass around the outside of Tarzan.

Championship leader after round one, CL Motorsport’s Reno Francot, had moved past MP’s Alexander Abkazava for fifth on lap seven, before following Olivieri past Stoclermanis for fourth. The Kazakhstani was handed a 10-second penalty for forcing R-ace GP’s Rashid Al Dhaheri off the track, which dropped him from fifth on the road to eighth.

His penalty promoted the Mercedes-AMG junior to fifth ahead of Rodin’s Alex Ninovic.

Stolcermanis, who had been allowed to start from his third-place grid spot pending an appeal by the Prema team against his disqualification from qualifying after a parc ferme infringement, faded dramatically. He finally took the flag in eighth, which became seventh after Abkhazava’s penalty, although this is subject to Prema winning their appeal.

Prema’s Kean Nakamura-Berta rounded off a miserable day by incurring a 10-second penalty for forcing Yuki Sano off the track, leaving him classified in 23rd position. Like Stolcermanis, the Williams junior was racing under appeal against his disqualification from qualification for the same offence.

With the extra two points for pole position, Wheldon moves into the championship lead ahead of Sunday’s second race.

Race results (20 laps)