The 2026 FIA Formula Regional European Championship title will be decided in the final race of the season. The first of the two races at Hockenheim did not settle the Drivers’ Championship battle, but instead produced the 11th different winner of the year and mathematically sealed the Teams’ Championship for R-ace GP.
At the German venue, Jan Przyrowski took victory to cap off an outstanding start to the weekend. The RPM Polish driver, who had topped the overall timesheets at the end of yesterday’s two Free Practice sessions, set the second-fastest time in his group in Qualifying 1 this morning. Starting from the second row, he moved into the lead and remained out front for all 18 laps.
An incident at the first corner with polesitter Sebastian Wheldon forced championship leader Emanuele Olivieri (R-ace GP), who had started from the front row, into an immediate retirement. Wheldon dropped to the back of the field and eventually finished 22nd after receiving a 10-second penalty for the opening-lap collision and a further five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage over Yuki Sano.
With the top two drivers in the standings failing to score, PREMA Racing’s Kean Nakamura-Berta and Olivieri’s R-ace GP team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri took full advantage, finishing second and third respectively. Olivieri retained the championship lead, but Nakamura-Berta closed to within seven points. Wheldon dropped to third in the standings, 11 points behind Nakamura-Berta, while Al Dhaheri is now 20 points adrift of Olivieri. With a maximum of 28 points still available across Qualifying 2 and Sunday’s race, the title battle remains between the same four drivers.
RACE ACTION
With the top two drivers in the Championship lining up on the front row in reverse standings order, polesitter Wheldon retained the lead at the start of Race 1. Olivieri moved to the outside and drew alongside him into Turn 1, but contact between the pair sent the Italian off the track. The American was able to continue, although he dropped to the back of the field.
PREMA Racing’s Tomass Stolcermanis initially took the lead before slipping to fourth, as Przyrowski, Nakamura-Berta and Alexandre Munoz of ART Grand Prix moved past him in that order. Al Dhaheri ran fifth.
The Safety Car was deployed and, after three laps of neutralisation, racing resumed with Przyrowski retaining the lead. Al Dhaheri immediately launched an attack on Stolcermanis, while the other ART Grand Prix driver Kabir Anurag spun following contact with Oleksandr Bondarev.
At the end of lap 5, Munoz dropped back, allowing Stolcermanis and Al Dhaheri to move up to third and fourth respectively. With around two minutes remaining, however, Stolcermanis suffered a problem and pulled over at the side of the track, promoting Al Dhaheri to third.
Przyrowski continued to lead the field, setting the fastest lap and extending his advantage over Nakamura-Berta to more than two seconds.
The final incident of the race involved Andrija Kostic, who crashed his Trident Motorsport car into the barriers.
At the chequered flag, Przyrowski took victory ahead of Nakamura-Berta and Al Dhaheri. MP Motorsport’s Zhenrui Chi and Trident Motorsport’s Maksimilian Popov finished fourth and fifth respectively. Oleksandr Bondarev crossed the line eighth as the highest-placed Rookie, behind RPM’s Miguel Costa and PREMA Racing’s Salim Hanna. Rodin Motorsport duo Reza Seewooruthun and Alex Ninovic completed the top 10.
Jan Przyrowski (RPM, winner): "The team and I have shown really strong pace throughout the weekend. We have been at the sharp end since the start of the weekend, so I think we found something that worked particularly well here. I didn’t manage to put everything together in qualifying as I would have liked, but fighting for pole position for Race 2 is definitely possible. There are still a few things we need to work out, but our race pace was amazing.”
Kean Nakamura-Berta (PREMA Racing, 2nd): "It was a pretty chaotic race. There was an incident ahead of me at the start, which helped me move through, and that put me in a good position. I was then able to use the slipstream to pass a few cars. Securing second place puts us in a strong position for tomorrow’s championship decider. The possibility of rain later in the day could make things even more interesting. We maximised our result today and will try to do the same tomorrow. We’ll give it everything and see what happens."
Rashid Al Dhaheri (R-ace GP, 3rd): "I’m very happy because luck was on our side today. Considering the position we were in after free practice and qualifying, finishing on the podium is a great result. We were fortunate to come away from Race 1 with another opportunity to fight for the championship tomorrow. It will still be very difficult, but the possibility is now greater than it was before today’s race. I’m extremely proud of the team. They have done an excellent job and helped me continue to perform despite a few difficult races. Congratulations to everyone at R-ace GP on winning the Teams’ Championship; they worked incredibly hard and thoroughly deserved it. It is difficult to set expectations for tomorrow because nobody expected us to still have this opportunity, particularly considering where we started today and the deficit we faced after Imola. My priority is to focus on myself and on the areas I want to improve for my development as a driver. The final outcome of the Championship is not entirely under my control, so I will concentrate on doing the best job possible.”
Oleksandr Bondarev (Van Amersfoort Racing, Rookie winner): "To be honest, qualifying did not go particularly well this morning. We struggled slightly with the balance and I also made a mistake on my lap. With the field so closely matched, it proved very costly and left us around 10 positions further back on the grid. However, the pace was there and I think I managed the race slightly better than some of the drivers ahead of me. I recovered from 19th to eighth, so it was a very strong comeback and a really good race. We managed everything well and the car felt very competitive. It gives us a solid starting point to build on, and hopefully we can have an even better day tomorrow."
Track action will resume tomorrow at 09:40 CEST with Qualifying 2, ahead of the final 30-minute-plus-one-lap race of the season at 16:15. Both sessions will be streamed live on the championship’s official YouTube channel, @fiaformularegionaleu.
