NEWS

Giltaire and Olivieri Claim First Spoils of Round Two in Abu Dhabi

Jan 23,2025
  • Evan Giltaire slashes gap to Freddie Slater with first FRMEC victory


  • Emanuele Olivieri heads thrilling Mumbai Falcons Racing battle in F4ME


  • Yas Marina’s Corkscrew layout throws a new curveball to contenders




UAE, January 22, 2025: Evan Giltaire and Emanuele Olivieri were victorious in Formula Middle East on the opening day of the second round at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. Giltaire claimed his first victory in the Formula Regional Middle East Championship (FRMEC), while Olivieri took his tally to three wins out of four in the Formula 4 Middle East Championship (F4ME).

 

Unlike the opening round, which took place on the full Grand Prix circuit, the Yas Marina Corkscrew layout is being used for this Wednesday/Thursday event. After Turn 3 on the GP circuit, the cars bear left into a plunging downhill S-bend before rejoining the GP track on the long straight to the Turns 6/7 chicane.

 

While championship leader Freddie Slater mastered the different layout to take a dominant pole position for the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited team, the Briton appeared to be struggling as the Formula Regional race wore on. Eventually, it was Giltaire, the 18-year-old Frenchman leading the attack of ART Grand Prix, who came through for victory ahead of Mumbai Falcons’ local Abu Dhabi racer Rashid Al Dhaheri, with ART’s Japanese Honda protégé Taito Kato in third. With Slater dropping to fifth by the finish, his championship lead over Giltaire has narrowed to just eight points ahead of Thursday’s two races.

 

In F4, R-ace GP’s 16-year-old Italian Olivieri was just as impressive as he was on the GP Circuit last weekend. He pulled away to a comfortable victory over Mumbai Falcons’ battling pair, from which Latvian Tomass Štolcermanis pulled off a scintillating manoeuvre at the very last corner to snatch the runner-up position from London-born Japanese-Slovakian Kean Nakamura-Berta. Olivieri has therefore extended his points advantage over Nakamura-Berta to 30.


Formula Regional Middle East

Race 1

1st Evan Giltaire/ART Grand Prix

2nd Rashid Al Dhaheri/Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited

3rd Taito Kato/ART Grand Prix


Formula 4 Middle East
Race 1

1st Emanuele Olivieri/R-ace GP

2nd Tomass Stolcermanis/Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited

3rd Kean Nakamura-Berta/Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited


Formula Regional Middle East


Race 1


When Freddie Slater beat Evan Giltaire to pole position by the enormous margin – by Formula Regional standards – of almost half a second, it seemed to set up a continuation of form from the opening round, where Slater took two poles and two wins.


Sure enough, Slater converted that into the race lead ahead of Giltaire, although as he neared the end of the second lap the safety car boards were brandished. A chain reaction of braking and avoidances at Turn 6 had led to a collision between Everett Stack and Aditya Kulkarni, with Kulkarni heading to the pits for repairs and Stack stuck in a potentially hazardous position. At the restart, Giltaire tried a move around the outside of Turn 9, but Slater held onto the lead.


After a few laps, it became apparent that Giltaire was very quick from the start-finish line round to the W Hotel area, but Slater would pull out a little over the rest of the lap, maintaining a tight stalemate. But then, on the 10th lap of 17, Slater locked up under braking for Turn 6, went wide into the corner, and allowed Giltaire momentum on acceleration to sweep ahead and into the lead. Compounding Slater’s predicament, Rashid Al Dhaheri went around his outside at Turn 9 to instantly move into second place. One lap later, Taito Kato grabbed third position from Slater at the same point.


Over the remainder of the distance, Giltaire edged away from Al Dhaheri to claim his first victory in Formula Regional Middle East by 2.100s. Kato pursued them both to make it two ART drivers on the podium. Behind them, Slater’s struggles continued. Jesse Carrasquedo had moved up to sixth place when Ugo Ugochukwu, defending the position, short-cut Turn 7 and therefore did the honorable thing by moving aside for the Mexican. Carrasquedo then pulled off a superb manoeuvre on Jin Nakamura to snatch fifth position around the outside of Turn 6. Within one lap he had caught Slater, and his move, again at Turn 6, put the Pinnacle Motorsport car into fourth and consigned Slater to fifth. This also meant that for the first time this season, Slater was not the Rookie winner, trailing third in the sub-category behind victor Al Dhaheri and runner-up Kato.


Japanese Toyota prospect Nakamura held on for sixth, with the pursuing Ugochukwu, the McLaren F1 team’s American protégé, ensuring that the two R-ace GP cars finished in formation. Australian Jack Beeton took a big step forward from his illness-stricken opening weekend with a good run to eighth in his Mumbai Falcons machine. Frenchman Théophile Naël (Saintéloc Racing) was ninth ahead of Italian Brando Badoer (PHM Racing), Reza Seewooruthun (Mumbai Falcons) and Enzo Deligny (R-ace). Seewooruthun was allowed through by Deligny on instruction of the stewards after the Frenchman had run wide at Turn 12 while defending his position from the Briton.


With the top 10 reversed on the grid for race two, that means Badoer will start from pole position. For the final race, under the floodlights, Giltaire has earned pole position, so the title battle against Slater is well and truly on.





Formula 4 Middle East

 

Race 1

 

Emanuele Olivieri has been something of a revelation in F4 Middle East so far, and the Italian continued his scintillating form with R-ace GP by taking pole position for the first race. Kean Nakamura-Berta lined up alongside on the front row, reducing the deficit to 0.134 seconds on his final lap of the opening qualifying session.

 

The early stages of the race were all about this pair. Nakamura-Berta had a sniff at passing Olivieri at the first corner, then tried an ambitious move around the outside of Turn 12, only to run wide and having to tuck in behind once again. Soon the race was under safety car, however, with the damaged machine of Taha Hassiba requiring retrieval.

 

Nakamura-Berta renewed his quest for the lead at the restart. At the end of the first lap of racing, he dived down the inside of Olivieri into the Turns 6/7 chicane, only to overshoot the corner. At this point, Olivieri quickly extended a one-second margin at the front, before the safety car emerged once again. This time, Yuta Suzuki had the hit the barriers at Turn 12 after tripping over the front of Bader Al Sulaiti’s car in the braking zone and briefly going airborne. Al Sulaiti was adjudged to be at fault and was handed a five-place grid penalty for race two.

 

There was no real challenge from Nakamura-Berta on the final restart, which came with enough time for six more laps of racing. Olivieri instantly gapped the Mumbai Falcons car, which soon began to lose pace. Nakamura-Berta had seemed set for his fourth second position in four F4 Middle East races this year, but now he was coming under pressure from team-mate Tomass Štolcermanis. With one lap remaining, Štolcermanis had a speculative look around the outside at Turn 6; on the final lap, he divebombed Nakamura-Berta at the same place, and the Latvian superbly held on, just 0.015s separating the two cars as they flashed across the finish line – albeit 5.915s adrift of the dominant Olivieri.

 

In a reversal of his misfortune from the opening round, Mercedes F1’s Jamaican-American talent Alex Powell made up places at the start on this occasion, the R-ace GP driver moving impressively from seventh to fourth on the opening lap. At the first restart, Powell dropped back behind Salim Hanna, but he soon deposed the Colombian Mumbai Falcons ace once again. Hanna was in trouble at the second restart, when contact with Reno Francot as they sprinted to the first corner caused enough damage to send Hanna into retirement in the pits, and affected the front wing of Dutchman Francot’s AKCEL GP/PHM Racing car. Promising Dubai racer Adam Al Azhari soon moved up to take fifth for Yas Heat Racing Academy behind fourth-placed Powell.

 

Francot did a good job to hang on for sixth position, and Hungarian Martin Molnár (Evans GP) won a great battle with Rookie class winner Oleksandr Bondarev to take seventh from Prema Racing’s Williams F1 junior. Completing an 8-9 finish for Oleksandrs, representing Ukraine was R-ace GP racer Savinkov, with August Raber (Yas Heat) in 10th. Chinese Chi Zhenrui (Prema) and Romanian David Cosma (AKCEL/PHM) took the final points positions, and second and third respectively in the Rookie class. Cosma took that position via an incident with Tiago Rodrigues at Turn 7 on the final lap and, although he was held by the stewards to be at fault, he kept his position, but will take a five-place grid penalty for race two. Of the expected leading contenders, Sebastian Wheldon was wheeled off the grid from his eighth-place starting position, started from the pit lane some time after the field had set off, and then pulled back into the pits with one lap remaining.

 

While Olivieri has earned another pole position for the third race on Thursday evening, the reversed grid for race two – from which the top 10 in the opening race are inverted – will begin with Emirates racer Raber at the front of the field.