Victories for Slater and Nakamura-Berta on Opening Day in Abu Dhabi

• Freddie Slater back on form to defeat Ugo Ugochukwu in Formula Regional Middle East Championship

• Kean Nakamura-Berta takes F4 Middle East victory after Emanuele Olivieri penalty

• Evan Giltaire and Olivieri top championship standings heading into Sunday double-header

UAE, February 15, 2025: A pair of Mumbai Falcons Racing talents starred on the opening day of racing for the fourth and penultimate round of Formula Middle East on its return to Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Formula 1 circuit, scene of the opening two events. Briton Freddie Slater led all the way in the Formula Regional Middle East Championship (FRME), before Japanese-Slovakian Kean Nakamura-Berta claimed the spoils in the Formula 4 Middle East Championship (F4ME) once Emanuele Olivieri had been given a penalty for a false start.

The 16-year-old Slater mastered two safety car restarts on the way to his fourth FRME victory with the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons team. And it was following the second of these restarts that American McLaren Formula 1 protégé Ugo Ugochukwu, going great guns again with R-ace GP, was able to dive past championship leader Evan Giltaire to take second place. Frenchman Giltaire still leads the standings, but the ART Grand Prix driver’s advantage over Slater has been pegged back to 27 points heading into Sunday’s two races. Italian Brando Badoer (PHM Racing) remains third, but his sixth place on Saturday leaves him 61 points adrift. Slater’s performance also allowed him to leapfrog back ahead of Mumbai Falcons team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri into the Rookie championship lead.

Three hours later, in the heat of the midday Emirates sun, Olivieri appeared to have put on a masterclass in F4ME after forcing his way past Tomass Štolcermanis. The 16-year-old raced away as Nakamura-Berta, Alex Powell and Štolcermanis fought out second place before settling in this order. Nakamura-Berta did a good job of matching Oliveri’s pace, however, and the 17-year-old London-born racer’s victory means that he has stood on the podium after all but one of the 10 races held to date. Also moving ahead of Olivieri, who dropped to third in the results, was the R-ace GP car of Jamaican-American Mercedes F1 junior Powell.

Olivieri is now 45 points clear of Nakamura-Berta in the championship standings, with Powell 92 points back in third. Another Mumbai Falcons racer, Colombian Salim Hanna, claimed Rookie glory again and has now begun to stretch out an advantage in the championship table.

Formula Regional Middle East

Race 1

1st Freddie Slater/Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited

2nd Ugo Ugochukwu/R-ace GP

3rd Evan Giltaire/ART Grand Prix

Formula 4 Middle East
Race 1

1st Kean Nakamura-Berta/Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited

2nd Alex Powell/R-ace GP

3rd Emanuele Olivieri/R-race GP

Formula Regional Middle East

Race 1

Evan Giltaire needed just a single push lap to gain pole position for this race. He carried on going quickly after this, but never matched his initial time. Neither did anyone else. Freddie Slater, bouncing back after a tricky spell in recent races, lined up alongside the Frenchman on the front row, and the Briton got the best of the start. Slater’s momentum carried him into the lead as they headed to the first corner, with Giltaire and Ugo Ugochukwu slotting in behind him.

The safety car emerged during the second lap. Not that it was required, because Finley Green was already extricating himself from his precarious position on the outside of Turn 12 in order to motor back to the pits. So the race went green again very quickly, Slater once again consolidating his lead. Once again, during the second lap after the restart the safety car was called, this time because Kai Daryanani was stranded on the track at Turn 7. When the race resumed, there was time for eight laps of racing.

Slater again scorched away and, as the field sprinted down the back straight towards Turn 6, Giltaire appeared safe in second. But from a very long-range lunge, Ugochukwu somehow speared down the inside to grab the runner-up position. The gap to Slater at this point was 1.715 seconds, and Ugochukwu began to chisel away at this, getting it down to below a second with two laps remaining. But Slater held firm and took his third victory of the Formula Regional Middle East season by 0.900s.

In third place, Giltaire had to turn his attentions to fending off his Japanese ART Grand Prix team-mate Kanato Le for third, with fifth-placed Abu Dhabi local Rashid Al Dhaheri in turn just behind this duo. Brando Badoer jumped two places on the opening lap and spent the rest of the race in sixth position, with R-ace GP-run Frenchman Enzo Deligny pulling off a great move around the outside of Taito Kato at Turn 12 after the first restart for seventh position. Pinnacle Motorsport’s Mexican Red Bull Junior Ernesto Rivera was eighth, and completed the Rookie podium behind Slater and Al Dhaheri.

Nikita Bedrin, returning to a series in which he was a two-time race winner in 2023, climbed the field in his Saintéloc Racing car to finish ninth, a position he grabbed from the R-ace GP machine of Indo-American Akshay Bohra on the penultimate lap. Tenth place gave Bohra the consolation of pole position on the reversed grid for race two. Completing the points scorers were ART’s Japanese Honda protégé Kato in 11th and Australian Aaron Cameron (Evans GP) in 12th. Aditya Kulkarni had finished ahead of Cameron, but was penalised for only giving back two of the three positions he gained by missing Turn 7 early in the race.

Formula 4 Middle East

Race 1

Emanuele Olivieri aced the opening qualifying session to line up on pole position, with Tomass Štolcermanis alongside him. But the Italian could not retain his supremacy at the start, and it was the Latvian who burst through into the lead.

Olivieri sat behind for most of the first lap, but as they raced down the long straight towards Turn 6, he drew abreast of Štolcermanis, on the outside line for the approaching corner. Štolcermanis was pinched on the inside line and, as he braked, the Mumbai Falcons car wriggled uncomfortably, allowing Olivieri through into the lead and Kean Nakamura-Berta to sweep around the outside of the Turn 7 right-hander for second place. Nakamura-Berta then locked up and ran wide at Turn 9 and, in the jostling that resulted from this, Alex Powell was able to run around the outside of Štolcermanis to grab third place at Turn 13.

Now Štolcermanis came under pressure from Dubai’s Adam Al Azhari, who dived down his inside at Turn 5, but the Mumbai Falcons Racing man was able to get the cutback on the run to Turn 6 and reassert himself in fourth. From here, Štolcermanis was able to compose himself, and drew away in a comfortable fourth place.

Up front, Olivieri began extending an advantage. Soon came news that he was under investigation for a possible false start, so he had to keep pushing to eradicate a possible 10-second penalty. He was, indeed, found post-race to have moved while the red lights were on. But luckily for Olivieri, this was a rare safety car-free F4 race with no bunching of the field, and such was his pace that, by the final few laps, all bar Nakamura-Berta and Powell were outside that 10-second window.

Nakamura-Berta was able to trim the gap marginally during the final two laps to cross the line 2.836 seconds behind Olivieri, with Powell a lonely third on the road. But with Olivieri’s penalty, Nakamura-Berta moved up to claim the honours from Powell and Olivieri. Štolcermanis, in fourth, was chased home by his Mumbai Falcons team-mate, Rookie class winner Salim Hanna.

A terrific battle for sixth place, and second in the Rookie class, raged between the Prema Racing pair of Ukrainian Oleksandr Bondarev and Chinese driver Chi Zhenrui, with Williams F1 junior Bondarev narrowly getting the verdict from Chi, and Al Azhari’s Yas Heat Racing Academy car right with them at the finish after losing out to the duo earlier in the race. Dutchman Reno Francot (AKCEL GP/PHM Racing) was also mixed in with this trio for much of the race before claiming ninth, while China’s Fu Yuhao crossed the line in 10th to take pole position for Sunday’s reversed-grid race two – the second consecutive event at which the Xcel Motorsport racer has done this. Rounding out the points scorers were Swedish-Emirati August Raber (Yas Heat) and Sebastian Wheldon, Prema Racing’s American talent on a recovery after appearing to stall at the start. Wheldon was sufficiently far enough ahead of the next competitor to keep his position, despite a time penalty for his part in an incident with Tiago Rodrigues.