Ugochukwu Masterful as Olivieri Wins Again in Formula Middle East Dubai Thriller

• McLaren protégé Ugo Ugochukwu takes consummate FRMEC victory

• Emanuele Olivieri leaves it late to grab the honours in F4ME

• Evan Giltaire and Olivieri are points leaders heading into Sunday

UAE, February 8, 2025: The action came think and fast on the opening day of racing for Formula Middle East at Dubai Autodrome. Both races were ultimately brought to a finish under red flags, but nothing could stop Ugo Ugochukwu, who finally claimed his first victory of the Formula Regional Middle East Championship (FRMEC), or Emanuele Oliveri, a winner for the fifth time in the Formula 4 Middle East Championship (F4ME).

New Yorker Ugochukwu stole a march from third on the grid to jump into the lead, and not even a mid-race safety car that eradicated his advantage could derail the 17-year-old R-ace GP driver, who is a protégé of the McLaren Formula 1 team. However hard he tried, ART Grand Prix star Evan Giltaire could not find a way past the PHM Racing machine of Italian Brando Badoer for second, although the Frenchman extended his championship lead by finishing third. He is now 18 points ahead of Badoer, who has jumped ahead of Freddie Slater – seventh in the race – into the runner-up position.

Olivieri’s earlier success with R-ace GP made this a fantastic day for the French team, but the 16-year-old Italian’s honours were hard-earned in comparison to Ugochukwu’s. His attacks on Tomass Štolcermanis for the F4ME race lead finally paid off shortly before the race-ending red flag. The Latvian only just fended off the ever-consistent Kean Nakamura-Berta, his team-mate in the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons Racing team, to take second. Olivieri has now extended his championship advantage over Nakamura-Berta to 55 points.

Rookie honours in FRMEC were claimed by Abu Dhabi racer Rashid Al Dhaheri who, with his two class poles bolstering his points tally, has now moved level with Slater at the top of the standings. In F4ME, Colombian Salim Hanna claimed Rookie victory from China’s Chi Zhenrui, who still leads the way in the championship.

Formula Regional Middle East

Race 1

After his superb double win in round two at Yas Marina to move to the top of the Formula Regional Middle East standings, Evan Giltaire continued that form into Dubai Autodrome by claiming a pair of pole positions in the two morning qualifying sessions. Brando Badoer lined up alongside the Frenchman, but it was Ugo Ugochukwu, bursting through from third on the grid, who grabbed the lead from the early skirmishes and had built up an advantage of over a second by the end of the first lap.

Ugochukwu was seeking redemption for his heartbreak at Yas Marina, where a suspension issue forced him off the track in the closing stages and cost him victory. While Giltaire swarmed around Badoer, who used a forceful defence to keep his second place, Ugochukwu was more than three seconds to the good when the safety car emerged on the eighth lap. Everett Stack and Aaron Cameron had been battling just outside the points when an incident between the pair sent Cameron to the pits – and a five-place grid penalty for race two for being found responsible – and left Stack stranded on the outside of the track beyond Turns 1 and 2.

Now was Giltaire’s chance. If he could leapfrog Badoer at the restart, then potentially he could challenge Ugochukwu. But he was to be foiled. While Badoer clung resolutely to second position, Ugochukwu set about once again building a margin at the front. Then, two laps after the restart, there was a further incident. Hiyu Yamakoshi had been running well on his Formula Regional race debut, and had just passed Ernesto Rivera for 11th place when they made contact coming out of the final corner. The Pinnacle Motorsport team-mates interlocked wheels and came to rest parked up against the pit wall. While the safety car was called, the race was eventually red-flagged when it became apparent that time would run out before it could be restarted. Neither Yamakoshi nor Rivera was at fault for the unfortunate end to the race, according to the stewards.

Behind the leading trio, Saintéloc Racing’s French talent Théophile Naël starred by pulling off a spectacular dive on Jin Nakamura at Turn 12 to wrest fourth position just after the mid-race restart. Rashid Al Dhaheri (Mumbai Falcons Racing) followed him past the Japanese driver and was able to claim Rookie class honours in fifth. The R-ace GP car of Nakamura then dropped back further, elevating a fight in which Japan’s Kanato Le (ART Grand Prix) narrowly fended off Briton Freddie Slater for sixth. Slater, the winner of two races with Mumbai Falcons at the opening round, had qualified a disappointed sixth, and this was compounded by a grid penalty for an incident at the previous event, dropping him to ninth in the starting line-up.

Frenchman Enzo Deligny (R-ace GP) and Japanese Taito Kato (ART Grand Prix) also moved ahead of Nakamura’s R-ace car in the late stages for eighth and ninth respectively, with Kato completing the Rookie podium behind Al Dhaheri and Slater. For his 10th position, Nakamura earned reversed-grid pole for race two. In 11th place was R-ace GP’s Akshay Bohra, while the final point was claimed by Mumbai Falcons Racing’s Australian racer Jack Beeton, who charged through the field from 27th and last following an incident on the opening lap.

Formula 4 Middle East

Race 1

Competitors were greeted with a very sandy circuit as qualifying started at 0800 local time, and making the most of track evolution would be key. R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri stamped in the best time ahead of team mate Alex Powell.

However, it was third starter Tomass Štolcermanis making progress at the start amid swirling wind and sand. The Latvian swept around the outside of Jamaican-American Mercedes F1-backed racer Powell for second place at the start, and then dived down the inside of Olivieri into Turn 6 to grab the lead. Olivieri was not beaten, and immediately fought back. Into lap two, he jinked to the outside of Štolcermanis at Turn 1, only to tuck back in behind. Further back in the field, a tangle between Sebastian Wheldon and Abdullah Ayman Kamel at Turn 10, for which the Saudi driver was given a grid penalty for race two, left both cars stranded, and the safety car was called out.

Once again Olivieri was on the march at the restart, and he was just in the midst of attempting a move on Štolcermanis into Turn 14 when the safety car was called once again. This time, August Raber had attempted to pass Arjun Chheda for ninth position around the outside at Turn 1, only for the two to collide with Raber ending up nestled against the barrier. Chheda was given a time penalty after being adjudged to be to blame.

There appeared to be time for three laps of racing when the green flags flew, and Olivieri went to work again. He forced Štolcermanis to defend into Turn 1, but that meant the Mumbai Falcons car ran wide and Olivieri executed a beautiful manoeuvre to finally slip down the inside at Turn 3 and into the lead. Instantly, Štolcermanis came under attack from Kean Nakamura-Berta. But, on what should have been the penultimate lap, the race was red-flagged due to an incident for Wang Yuzhe after a collision on the long back straight, the Chinese driver emerging unhurt.

Olivieri was therefore the winner from Štolcermanis and Nakamura-Berta, with Salim Hanna completing a Mumbai Falcons 2-3-4 and claiming the Rookie class honours from Chi Zhenrui, who was just behind him in fifth overall in his Prema Racing machine. Local Dubai racer Adam Al Azhari claimed sixth with Yas Heat Racing Academy, with the duelling Ukrainians Oleksandr Savinkov (R-ace GP) and Oleksandr Bondarev (Prema, and third in the Rookie division) just behind.

Powell appeared to be suffering an issue and fell back down the order. He was finally classified ninth, with Xcel Motorsport’s Chinese Fu Yuhao storming from 24th on the grid to 10th, and reversed-grid pole position for the second race. A pair of Evans GP cars – Hungarian Martin Molnár and Macanese Tiago Rodrigues – completed the points scorers.