Rashid Al Dhaheri secured his third victory of the season at the Hungaroring – and his first in a full-points race – to strengthen his lead in the FIA Formula Regional European Championship standings. The R-ace GP driver, who had claimed his maiden pole position of the year in Qualifying 2, controlled the second and final race of the fifth round of the season from start to finish.
Behind Al Dhaheri, MP Motorsport's Alexander Abkhazava crossed the line in second but was later handed a post-race penalty for a Race Mode infringement. As a result, Al Dhaheri's R-ace GP team-mate Emanuele Olivieri was promoted to second place and retained his status as the leading Rookie, continuing his strong run of form after winning at Monza two weeks ago and finishing fourth in Race 1.
It was a point-less weekend for Sebastian Wheldon. The MP Motorsport driver, who had arrived in Hungary as the Championship leader, was forced to retire from both races and slipped to third in the standings. Kean Nakamura-Berta, who finished second in Race 2 for PREMA Racing, now moves up to second in the championship, trailing Al Dhaheri by 21 points.
Race Report
Starting from pole position for the first time this season, Al Dhaheri held onto the lead at the start ahead of Abkhazava, while R-ace GP driver Yuki Sano stalled on the second row. Olivieri gained one position to move up to third, closely followed by Nakamura-Berta and Rodin Motorsport's Alex Ninovic.
In the opening stages, Al Dhaheri opened up a gap of almost one and a half seconds over Abkhazava, while the MP Motorsport driver soon came under pressure from Olivieri.
At the start of lap 5, MP Motorsport's Zhenrui Chi pulled off an impressive move on RPM’s Jan Przyrowski at the end of the main straight to move into 13th position. Further back, the battle for ninth place between G4 Racing team-mates Marcus Saeter and Saqer Almaosherji intensified.
With 14 minutes remaining, Wheldon was forced to retire from eighth position after pulling his car to the side of the track. Moments later, an incident involving PREMA Racing’s Tomass Stolcermanis and Dion Gowda saw the former eliminated from the race, while Van Amersfoort Racing driver was handed a five-second penalty for the contact, prompting the deployment of the first Safety Car period of the weekend.
Racing resumed with just over eight minutes remaining, with Al Dhaheri once again leading the field away ahead of Abkhazava, while Nakamura-Berta looked for a way past Olivieri.
Then, with five minutes left on the clock, a second Safety Car was required following an incident involving PREMA Racing’s Salim Hanna, which forced the Colombian driver into retirement and ultimately saw the race finish under neutralised conditions.
Rashid Al Dhaheri (R-ace GP, Race 1 winner): "I'm very happy to finally win what I would call a proper race. In the previous wins we still had to work incredibly hard for it, coming through from P8 on one occasion and around P11 on another. This weekend, the team did a fantastic job to put me in a position to start from pole and that made a huge difference. We had really strong pace throughout the race and were able to build a comfortable gap, even though the safety car restarts always brought an extra challenge. In the end, the most important thing was to execute the race properly, bring the car home and make the most of the opportunity the team gave me."
Emanuele Olivieri (R-ace GP, 2nd and Rookie winner): "It was a very important podium for me. After the opening rounds, which weren't really ideal, I focused on staying consistent and scoring strong points. As you can see, the championship is incredibly close and every single point counts. I'm very happy with the consistency we've shown so far, and I feel that I'm improving with every round, both together with the team and personally as a driver. Hopefully we can keep this momentum going."
Attention will now turn to the next round of the season, with the championship set to resume in just two weeks' time at France's Circuit Paul Ricard as the fight for the title enters its next chapter.