A month on from the opening round at the Red Bull Ring, FIA Formula Regional European Championship heads to Zandvoort in the Netherlands for the second of the season’s eight events scheduled this weekend (22-24 May), ahead of the following round at Spa seven days later.
On home soil, current points leader Reno Francot arrives with strong momentum after claiming his maiden victory in the final race in Austria, while also securing a third-place finish for CL Motorsport.
The Styrian weekend produced three different winners as the championship — now running under full FIA control — kicked off a new era. Kean Nakamura-Berta made history by delivering the first victory and claiming two pole positions with Prema Racing. Rashid Al Dhaheri won the reverse-grid race for R-ace GP and also secured a second-place finish to sit second in the standings, five points behind Francot and four clear of Nakamura-Berta.
Rodin Motorsport’s Gabriel Gomez leads the Rookie standings, with Emanuele Olivieri (R-ace GP) and Alexandre Munoz (ART Grand Prix) tied just two points behind.
Also making a strong impression was Van Amersfoort Racing’s Dion Gowda, who completed the highest number of laps in the lead (17) and crossed the line first in Race 2 before being handed a penalty for a jump start. R-ace GP’s Yuki Sano also stood out by gaining more positions than any other across the weekend with a total of 26 places recovered.
Six different drivers stepped onto the podium during the opening round at the Red Bull Ring, including MP Motorsport’s Sebastian Wheldon and Rodin Motorsport’s pair Alex Ninovic and Reza Seewooruthun.
With a total of 2,655 laps completed in Austria, covering nearly 11,500 kilometres, and 25 drivers separated by less than one second in the first qualifying session of the year, another thrilling weekend is expected on the 4.259-kilometre Dutch circuit set among the sand dunes of the North Sea coast, with all 10 teams and 30 drivers confirmed on the grid.
WEEKEND SCHEDULE
Track action at Zandvoort begins on Thursday with collective testing. The two 50-minute free practice sessions take place on Friday. Qualifying 1 gets under way on Saturday at 08:55 CEST, split into two 15-minute sessions for Groups A and B, ahead of the first 30-minute race at 16:45 CEST. On Sunday, the action resumes at 08:50 CEST with Qualifying 2, before the second and final race of the weekend goes green at 16:45 CEST.
WHERE TO WATCH
The two races of the FIA Formula Regional European Championship from Zandvoort will be aired by 78 different broadcasters across more than 200 territories. Among them is ACI Sport TV, which will air both qualifying sessions and the races. In addition, all races will be available via live streaming on the championship’s official YouTube channel, @fiaformularegionaleu.
