Giltaire and Olivieri Crowned 2025 Formula Middle East Champions

• Evan Giltaire is Formula Regional Middle East king after thrilling pair of races

• Nikita Bedrin and Enzo Deligny take Qatar race glory in dramatic style

• Emanuele Olivieri shares wins with Alex Powell to claim F4 Middle East title

Qatar, February 28, 2025: Formula Middle East crowned its two 2025 champions on the opening day of racing at its final round in support of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Qatar’s Formula 1 Grand Prix venue, the Lusail International Circuit. Frenchman Evan Giltaire became Formula Regional Middle East (FRMEC) champion under the floodlights after a dramatic day and evening of racing, just an hour after Italian Emanuele Olivieri wrapped things up in the Formula 4 Middle East Championship (F4ME).

For 18-year-old Giltaire and the ART Grand Prix team, it was an anxious day. He took pole position for the opening race, but on the Lusail track surface, which is famously hard on tyres, he was one of many to find himself lacking grip as the race wore on. Giltaire did a solid job to finish third, but a time penalty for an early-race collision with main title rival Freddie Slater relegated him to sixth. Up front, Saintéloc Racing and 19-year-old Nikita Bedrin did a fantastic job on set-up and nursing their equipment respectively, and Bedrin was able to snatch the race lead and victory from R-ace GP’s American McLaren Formula 1 junior Ugo Ugochukwu with just over a lap to go.

With Slater claiming 12th for the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons Racing team, effectively all Giltaire had to do was finish ahead of the 16-year-old Briton in the second race. He did that and more, with fourth place to Slater’s 11th giving Giltaire the crown. Up front, Red Bull Junior Ernesto Rivera seemed to have claimed his first FRMEC race win with Pinnacle Motorsport after another thrilling race. But a time penalty for a collision demoted the Mexican to second, and R-ace GP’s 16-year-old French talent Enzo Deligny was awarded victory ahead of Rivera and Bedrin, who again carved through the field. Giltaire’s points buffer of 39 over Slater cannot be overhauled going into Friday’s finale, while Ugochukwu is 30 adrift of Slater in third. In the Rookie class, Japanese Taito Kato and Rivera claimed the two wins, and in the Rookie championship Slater still has to fend off Rashid Al Dhaheri.

Olivieri was declared the victor of the opening F4ME race, his sixth victory of the season, when the first-past-the-chequered-flag Yas Heat Racing Academy car of Adam Al Azhari was later excluded for a technical issue. R-ace GP star Olivieri’s main title rival Kean Nakamura-Berta was promoted to second in the results, but Mumbai Falcons’ London-born Japanese-Slovakian needed to win race two with Olivieri outside the top nine. In the end, third place for Olivieri, with Nakamura-Berta classified fourth, was more than sufficient for the Italian. Honours in this race went to Jamaican-American Alex Powell, the 17-year-old Mercedes F1 protégé completing a perfect day in F4 for R-ace GP, ahead of Reno Francot.

Olivieri is therefore an unassailable 59 points clear of Nakamura-Berta, who now faces a stiff challenge from Powell. With pole position for Friday’s finale under his belt, Powell is now only seven points off the runner-up spot. In the Rookie class, a double win for Prema Racing’s Chinese youngster Chi Zhenrui means he is looming close to Mumbai Falcons’ points leader, Colombian Salim Hanna, whose day ended with a spectacular exit from race two and a grid penalty to carry into Friday’s race.

Formula Regional Middle East

Race 1

1st Nikita Bedrin/Sainteloc Racing

2nd Ugo Ugochukwu/R-ace GP

3rd Jin Nakamura/R-ace GP

Race 2

1st Enzo Deligny/R-ace GP

2nd Ernesto Rivera/Pinnacle Motorsport

3rd Nikita Bedrin/Sainteloc Racing

Formula 4 Middle East
Race 1

1st Emanuele Olivieri/R-ace GP

2nd Kean Nakamura-Berta/Mumbai Falcons Racing Limited

3rd August Raber/Yas Heat Racing Academy

Race 2

1st Alex Powell/R-ace GP

2nd Reno Francot/AKCEL GP/PHM Racing

3rd Emanuele Olivieri/R-ace GP

Formula Regional Middle East

Race 1

A red flag in qualifying, due to Akshay Bohra ending up in the gravel at Turn 5, meant that most of the competitors had completed just one push lap before the session was ended. Evan Giltaire mastered his to take pole position, with Ugo Ugochukwu alongside him on the front row, but it was the New Yorker who made the better start to take the lead. By the time the field emerged from Turn 1, Giltaire was down to third, after Mumbai Falcons’ Abu Dhabi racer Rashid Al Dhaheri swept around his outside to take the runner-up spot.

On the third lap, Ugochukwu’s progress was checked by a safety car, caused by a collision at Turn 7 that left Everett Stack stranded in the gravel and Matteo de Palo nursing his damaged car back to the pits. De Palo was given a grid penalty for race two for his part in the incident. At the restart, Ugochukwu once again took off in front and nothing, it seemed, could stop him.

Giltaire, meanwhile, tried to repass Al Dhaheri around the outside of Turn 1 at the restart. He stayed on the outside line, giving him the inside for Turn 2, but was forced to check up to avoid a collision with Al Dhaheri. That gave title rival Freddie Slater the opportunity to pass around the outside of Turn 2, but Giltaire drifted wide, and his right-front wheel made contact with Slater’s left-rear. That pitched Slater briefly into the air and through the gravel trap and, by the time he was back on track, he was down to 12th.

Kanato Le took advantage to pass ART team-mate Giltaire for third and the Japanese driver then began his quest for Al Dhaheri’s second place. With six laps remaining Al Dhaheri was clearly struggling for grip, with a large queue of cars building up behind him. A frustrated Le ran wide during his efforts, and Giltaire was back up to third.

With five laps to go, Giltaire swooped around the outside of Al Dhaheri at Turn 1 and, now that the Emirati’s defences had been breached, he began to drop down the order. At this point Giltaire was 4.5 seconds behind leader Ugochukwu, but within two laps he had carved over two seconds from this gap. The chase was on, but showing even better pace was Nikita Bedrin, who had scythed through from eighth on the grid up to third. The Saintéloc Racing machine seemed immune from the grip dramas that affected the others and, with two laps to go, Bedrin breezed ahead of Giltaire on the start-finish straight to take second place. Further round the penultimate lap, Bedrin drove around the outside of Ugochukwu at Turn 12 to grab the lead.

In little over a lap to the chequered flag, Bedrin extraordinarily pulled out 5.535 seconds over Ugochukwu to take victory, with Giltaire tucked into Ugochukwu’s slipstream as they crossed the finish line. But Giltaire was denied his podium finish when he was found to be at fault for the incident with Slater, and the resulting 10-second penalty dropped him to sixth in the final results.Jin Nakamura was another to make great progress, the Japanese Toyota protégé rising from the lower reaches of the top 10 to take fourth place on the road – and third in the final results – ahead of R-ace GP team-mate Enzo Deligny. Behind the Frenchman, Le headed home compatriot and ART Grand Prix stablemate Taito Kato for fifth. Honda youngster Kato finished just outside Giltaire’s 10-second penalty window so did not move up from his seventh on the road, but he did take the Rookie win ahead of Al Dhaheri, who fell to eighth by the finish ahead of third rookie Ernesto Rivera.

Slater recovered to 10th and onto Rivera’s tail, but he was another to begin struggling for grip. Slater could not hold onto the position that would have given him pole on the reversed grid for race two, and instead that went to Japan’s Hiyu Yamakoshi, who had pitted at the end of the first lap with a damaged front wing on his Pinnacle Motorsport car, caught the field behind the safety car, and then scorched his way up to 10th ahead of Australian Jack Beeton (Mumbai Falcons) and Slater.

Race 2

Hiyu Yamakoshi’s spectacular performance in race one also gifted him pole position on the reversed grid for race two, with Ernesto Rivera completing an all-Pinnacle Motorsport front row. The young Japanese talent, still new to Formula Regional, made a good start, while Rashid Al Dhaheri forced his way down the inside of Rivera at Turn 10 to move into second place.

Kanato Le also got past Rivera and during the opening stages it was a very tight leading quintet, with Yamakoshi leading Al Dhaheri, Le, Rivera and Jack Beeton as they swarmed around each other. On the third lap, Le tried to pass Al Dhaheri but ran wide at Turn 2, dropping to sixth. That seemed to free up Al Dhaheri, and the next time around he made his move on Yamakoshi to wrest the lead at Turn 10. Beeton, meanwhile, had dropped out of contention when he tried to pass Rivera around the outside of Turn 1, only for contact between the pair to pitch the Australian into a time-consuming spin. After the race, Rivera was hit with a five-second penalty for the collision.

By now Evan Giltaire had worked his way up to fourth behind Rivera, but it was not the championship leader who would make the most progress; instead, it was the Mexican Red Bull Junior. On the seventh lap of an uninterrupted 16-lap race, Rivera made it through to second ahead of Giltaire and Le as Yamakoshi slipped to fifth. Now Rivera carved into the small advantage opened up by Al Dhaheri. For lap after lap he jinked left and right in his bids to pass the Abu Dhabi racer, and finally he made it through on the 13th lap with a spectacular move that ended up with Al Dhaheri running wide.

Al Dhaheri now fell prey to Giltaire, Enzo Deligny and Nikita Bedrin to drop to fifth. As he had in the opening race, Bedrin was soaring into contention as the field moved into the closing stages. With just under three laps to go, Deligny passed Giltaire at Turn 1 to grab second place, and Bedrin followed suit to annex third at Turn 6. No one could catch Rivera, however, and he crossed the finish line 1.851 seconds ahead of Deligny, who moved up to take his first Formula Regional win when Rivera’s penalty was applied. Luckily for Rivera, the non-appearance of the safety car spread out the field and, even with the penalty, he narrowly took second from Bedrin, as well as Rookie class honours. In fourth place, Giltaire had done enough to be crowned Formula Regional Middle East champion of 2025.

Al Dhaheri finished fifth, while Taito Kato emerged from a monumental all-Japanese mid-race battle with Yamakoshi and Le to take sixth. Kato was also the third Rookie home behind Rivera and Al Dhaheri. Sadly for Yamakoshi, he then retired with a technical issue. Ugo Ugochukwu grabbed seventh place from Le on the final lap, while Evans GP-run Italian Matteo de Palo in ninth led home the Mumbai Falcons pair of Reza Seewooruthun and fellow Briton Freddie Slater. It was another frustrating race for Slater. A difficult first lap dropped him from 12th on the grid to 16th, he had contact with Kai Daryanani, and he could only recover to 11th. A little piece of championship history was made in 12th, with Evans GP’s Vietnamese driver Alex Sawer putting his country into the points-scoring positions.

Formula 4 Middle East

Race 1

A new venue for F4ME meant a new face on pole position, with Adam Al Azhari outpacing championship leader Emanuele Olivieri to line up at the front. The pressure was on the Dubai youngster, especially as light rain on the grid made the track slippery, but it did not faze him at all. Al Azhari got away in the lead ahead of Olivieri, while Kean Nakamura-Berta shrugged off a challenge from Alex Powell to establish himself in third.

Al Azhari continued his serene progress, and had built an advantage of over a second by the third lap, while Olivieri had his hands full trying to fend off title rival Nakamura-Berta, with second to eighth positions all circulating in a big train of cars. Then, unfortunately, the safety car appeared at the end of the fifth lap, after Arjun Chheda sustained a puncture but was unable to get his car back to the pits and instead had to park just beside the track.

Al Azhari mastered the restart and again did not seem to be under threat, but as the field streamed through Turn 16 there was a midfield tangle between Emily Cotty, Fu Yuhao and Bader Al Sulaiti that left all three with damaged cars stranded in the gravel trap. Fu was adjudged to be at fault, and given a grid penalty for race two. Once again the safety car emerged, and the clean-up operation meant there was not enough time for the race to go green again.

As a result, Al Azhari appeared to have emulated older brother Keanu by becoming a race winner in the series, only to be excluded afterwards when it was discovered that his car’s body clutch did not have the eight pieces of stainless steel brushings that would be necessary for it to conform with the component’s homologation. Olivieri therefore was elevated to his sixth victory of the F4 Middle East campaign, extending his points advantage over second-placed Nakamura-Berta.

Powell ran fourth on the road early on, but a bold dive by Dutchman Reno Francot (AKCEL GP/PHM Racing) into Turn 1 on the second lap resulted in the Jamaican-American running wide and skimming the gravel trap, dropping him to sixth behind August Raber. At the end of the third lap, Raber got a run on Francot out of the final corner and Yas Heat’s Swedish-Emirati racer snatched fourth position by the time they got to Turn 1. A quick moment in the gravel did not deter Raber, who held on for fourth on the road. Latvian Tomass Štolcermanis entertained with some terrific outside passes at Turn 1 on Powell and lastly Francot to take fourth in his Mumbai Falcons car in the final results, behind third-placed Raber. Powell also got ahead of Francot for fifth, with Evans GP’s Macau racer Tiago Rodrigues close behind throughout on his way to seventh.

Sebastian Wheldon passed Taha Hassiba early on and the Prema-run American thereafter ran a lonely ninth up to the safety cars, keeping that position for the rest of the race, albeit promoted to eighth with Al Azhari’s exclusion. Qatari Hassiba, on his home ground with the QMMF team, tried to hang onto the Rookie class lead but could not repel Chi Zhenrui, who claimed ninth place and the Rookie honours. Oleksandr Savinkov (R-ace GP) also got past Hassiba to take 10th, with 11th-placed Hassiba taking second in the Rookie class ahead of Ukrainian Williams F1 Junior Oleksandr Bondarev, who recovered into the points in fine style after stalling his Prema machine at the start.

Race 2

Oleksandr Savinkov’s 10th place in the opening race meant that he took pole position on the reversed grid for race two, with Chi Zhenrui alongside. While Savinkov got away from the start well, Chi did not make the best of getaways, and Reno Francot and Sebastian Wheldon both got a run on the Chinese. Francot found himself pincered between Chi and Wheldon, who both snapped sideways from the inevitable contact but somehow kept things pointing in the right direction.

From sixth on the grid, Alex Powell took advantage to move up to third, then went around the outside of Wheldon at Turn 2 to take second position, and at Turn 4 he found a way past team-mate Savinkov to grab the lead. Exceptional progress! Behind him, Wheldon went around the outside of Savinkov to take second place, but ran off the track between Turns 5 and 6, and during the race was hit with a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage from the offence.

Powell built up a comfortable lead as the race settled down, and now the driver to watch was the recovering Francot. He took fifth place from Tiago Rodrigues on the second lap, moved past Savinkov for fourth the next time around at Turn 1, then hunted down Chi and passed him on the sixth lap to move right onto the tail of Wheldon, who he immediately dispatched to sail into the runner-up position behind the runaway Powell.

Down in 12th, a hectic battle ended with Salim Hanna being launched over the rear of Martin Molnár at Turn 7, both ending up with damaged cars in the gravel trap, meaning the safety car was called out.

This incident took some time to clear up but there was still enough left on the clock for three more laps of racing. Now the focus moved to Emanuele Olivieri, who had picked his way from 10th on the grid up to fourth, passing title rival Kean Nakamura-Berta along the way. At the restart he swept around the outside of Wheldon for third on the approach to Turn 1. Just behind, Nakamura-Berta got down the inside of Chi for fifth, but it was not enough. Olivieri finished right behind second-placed Francot, and the F4 Middle East crown for 2025 was his.

Nakamura-Berta was promoted to fourth with Wheldon’s penalty, with Tomass Štolcermanis moving up to fifth, Savinkov to sixth and Rodrigues to seventh. After the restart, Chi lost several places and he fell to ninth, behind Wheldon’s corrected time, although that was still sufficient for Rookie class honours. August Raber was 10th ahead of the hard-battling duo of Oleksandr Bondarev and AKCEL GP/PHM-run Romanian David Cosma, with this duo completing the Rookie podium.