Prema Racing’s Kean Nakamura-Berta moved to the top of the provisional FIA Formula Regional European Championship standings with victory in an action-packed Monza opener.

Starting from pole position, Nakamura-Berta headed R-ace GP’s Italian Rookie category winner Emanuele Olivieri with Salim Hanna completing the podium for the Italy-based Prema squad.

The result was Nakamura-Berta’s second win of the season after the British driver finished first in the inaugural FIA FREC race at Austria’s Red Bull Ring in April. UAE’s Rashid Al-Dhaheri, who had led the standings ahead of the Monza event, finished outside the points for the first time this season after contact dropped him back.

Nakamura-Berta’s latest triumph, in the first of three races scheduled during the ACI Racing Weekend, came on the back of a determined drive to fend off Olivieri, who briefly took the lead with a pass around the outside of Nakamura-Berta on the entry of the Variante del Rettifilo on lap 12, only to fall behind at the Variante della Roggia just seconds later.

“It feels incredible, I’ve been working really hard since the start of the season,” said Nakamura-Berta. “We’ve been quick at every round. Occasionally things haven’t went well for us and I’ve really wanted to come back on the top step. It’s really nice to do it here. Statistically it’s my best circuit, I really enjoy driving here. The team did an incredible effort, car has been incredible since the start of the week so we just keep it going. My experience around here is very, very helpful, doing two years of Italian F4 and understanding how to manage race here is vital as well. It’s a combination of a lot things and I did a few good corners as well.”

After sharing the front row of the grid with Nakamura-Berta, Olivieri slipped behind Hanna at the start before overtaking while braking for the Variante del Rettifilo on lap five.

“It’s good to perform in my home race, the race was quite good for me and finally I’m having quite a solid weekend,” Olivieri said. “I tried to pressure on Kean and with fresh tyres we were quite fast. I was trying to save some of my push-to-pass [Race Mode]. I used a lot of it to overtake him and honestly we had a good fight, he did a good job and we brought some solid points home.”

 

More to follow…