Saqer Almaosherji and Emanuele Olivieri shared the honours on Friday as the FIA Formula Regional European Championship kicked off its Hungaroring weekend, with the top 26 drivers covered by less than one second in both Free Practice sessions.
G4 Racing’s Almaosherji finished the day fastest after posting a 1:38.466 in the FP2, edging championship leader Sebastian Wheldon by just 0.021s, although the MP Motorsport driver saw his quickest lap of 1:38.172 deleted for exceeding track limits.
Fellow G4 Racing driver Marcus Saeter completed the top three and emerged as the fastest Rookie ahead of MP Motorsport's Alexander Abkhazava and PREMA Racing's Kean Nakamura-Berta, who both recorded an identical best effort of 1:38.634.
Matteo Giaccardi had spent much of the session at the top of the timesheets after the ART Grand Prix driver posted a 1:39.067 early on, before Francisco Macedo moved to the top of the order with a 1:38.984 with just under 20 minutes remaining. However, the Van Amersfoort Racing driver also lost his quickest lap to track limits.
With 12 minutes left on the clock, Abkhazava jumped to the top with a 1:38.634, before Wheldon lowered the benchmark by a further 0.147s moments later. Nakamura-Berta subsequently climbed to third, matching Abkhazava's lap time, while Macedo and Giaccardi dropped back.
The final word, however, belonged to Almaosherji, whose late improvement secured the fastest time of the afternoon before Wheldon responded with a lap that was later deleted.
Further down the order was Emanuele Olivieri, who had dominated the opening Free Practice session earlier in the day with a 1:38.146, a lap that ultimately stood as the fastest time recorded across both sessions. The R-ace GP driver, arriving in Hungary fresh from his maiden victory at Monza two weeks ago, headed MP Motorsport pair Abkhazava and Wheldon in the morning running. Team-mates Yuki Sano and Rashid Al Dhaheri completed the top five, with the latter having topped both Collective Test sessions on Thursday.
Action resumes tomorrow with Qualifying 1 at 11:35 local time, with the field split into Groups A and B to determine the grid for Race 1, which is scheduled to get underway at 18:20 and will run over 30 minutes plus one lap. Sunday's schedule begins with Qualifying 2 at 08:30, before the second and final race of the weekend starts at 15:55.
The two races from the Hungaroring will be broadcast across more than 200 territories worldwide, including on ACI Sport TV. In addition, both qualifying sessions and races will be available via live streaming on the championship's official YouTube channel, @fiaformularegionaleu.
Full broadcast details are available here.
