The Japanese driver Kean Nakamura-Berta has achieved pole position at the Red Bull Ring at the start of the new era of the European Formula Regional Championship, with the new Tatuus T-326 cars and Toyota engines replacing the previous Alpines.
Nakamura-Berta, a member of the Williams team, has surpassed the reigning GB3 champion, Alex Ninovic, in Group A. On the other hand, the R-ace GP driver, Rashid Al Dhaheri, set the fastest time in Group B, although he could not compete with Nakamura-Berta’s time, finishing 0.186 seconds behind.
With a total of three races scheduled for the weekend, including a first race with an inverted grid on Saturday, the first qualifying session took place on Friday afternoon, in a sunny atmosphere in the Styrian mountains.
During the session, Nakamura-Berta and Ninovic exchanged positions at the top of Group A, with the Japanese-Slovak driver taking advantage by 0.262 seconds thanks to two fast laps in his penultimate attempt.
The MP Motorsport drivers, Zhenrui Chi and Alexander Abkhazava, began setting a competitive pace during the first laps, but Ninovic took the lead on the fifth lap. Emanuele Olivieri reached second place before being overtaken by Maksimilian Popov from Trident, while Nakamura-Berta, who had already won the Middle East Formula Regional Trophy this year, immediately responded with a time of 1m26.157s on his eighth lap.
In his final lap, Olivieri improved to secure third place, while Dion Gowda, the rookie champion from last year, had issues with track limits but ultimately achieved fifth position.
From Group B, Andrea Dupe settled at the top of the initial qualifying for Van Amersfoort Racing, but Reno Francot managed to displace him. Al Dhaheri was the fastest in the session, but he couldn’t improve his time in the final corners. Sebastian Wheldon secured second place for MP Motorsport, returning to competition after a year away, while Francot stayed with third place.
Tomass Stolcermanis finished fourth for Prema, followed by Alexandre Munoz, the reigning French Formula 4 champion. Reza Seewoothurun will start from pole in the inverted grid for the second race after qualifying sixth in the slowest session.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
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