Finlay McSporran
Published: 16:01, 8th September 2025

His title rival Matteo De Palo closes closes the gap to just three points at the top of the standings.

Meanwhile, a good weekend for Enzo Deligny and Pedro Clerot sees them enter the title fight, with the top four separated by just 33 points.

Round seven of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine took us to the Redbull ring in Austria.

Race 1

A disastrous Saturday for Slater began with him qualifying ninth in group A, as his rival De Palo topped group B to snatch pole position for race one.

This was a great opportunity for the Italian to eat into Slater’s lead in the standings, as the Briton had a 16 point advantage heading into the weekend.

A tidy start in race one saw him maintain the lead ahead of Akshay Bohra, as Nikita Bedrin made a quick start to get passed Deligny and Clerot on the first lap

The safety car was out on lap one after Giovanni Maschio clipped the rear of Enea Freya at turn three, causing the CL Motorsport machine to spin at the top of the hill. That resulted in a bit of a pile-up, which took Frey and his teammate Zhenrui CHI out of the race.

Racing resumed a few laps later, with Bedrin all over the back of Bohra as they approached turn three. An epic lunge down the inside got Bedrin ahead, leaving Bohra vulnerable to his teammate Deligny as they charged down the hill towards turn four, where Deligny made the move on his teammate to get up into third.

After that the race settled down for a while, with some great battles going on in the midfield but nothing major at the front, as De Palo slowly began to increase his lead.

Towards the end of the race however, the battle for second intensified as Deligny closed in on Bedrin during the closing laps. The French driver was trying everything to get passed, throwing his car down the inside at turn three, then round the outside of turn four, but just couldn’t find a way by.

Deligny had to settle for third in the end, as a great defensive drive from Bedrin saw him take second place. But the big story on Saturday was the man in first, Matteo De Palo. The Trident driver took his third win of the year, re-taking the lead of the drivers standings after Slater failed to score.

Race 2

Unfortunately for De Palo, his weekend proved to be one of two halves.

During qualifying for race two he suffered the same fate that his rival Slater did the day before, qualifying outside the top ten in p11. Salter meanwhile had a slightly better session, qualifying p6.

In their absence, the drivers third and fourth in the standings, Deligny and Pedro Clerot locked out the front row, with the Brazilian starting from pole position.

A much cleaner start from all the drivers meant race 2 got underway without much fuss, as Clerot lead Deligny and Jin Nakamura who was now in third.

There was some great racing on display once again in race 2, with the Prema pair of Slater and Rashid Al Dhaheri going side by side as they battled for fifth place.

Meanwhile, De Palo’s day was going from bad to worse, after he picked up damage due to contact with another car. That dropped him right to the back of the grid which completely destroyed any chance he had of scoring points.

What made it even worse was that Slater, who crossed the line in fifth, was promoted to fourth after Evan Giltaire received a five second time penalty for a jump start.

That allowed Slater to make up for some of the damage done on Saturday, re-taking the championship lead albeit by only three points.

Title race Heating up

Clerot went on to take the win in race 2 and the 25 points that come with it. That moves him onto 165 points, just 33 behind championship leader Slater.

Another good weekend for Enzo Deligny saw him finish on the podium in both races, taking his total to seven this year.

Despite a disappointing second race for De Palo, his win in race 1 moves him closer to Slater at the top of the standings. And with Deligny and Clerot picking up the pieces this weekend, this championship fight looks like it’s going to be a four horse race as we get to the business end of the season.

Just three rounds remain of this years FR European season, with the next round getting underway in Barcelona in just under two weeks time.

Standings:

1 – Freddie Slater (198)

2 – Matteo De Palo (195)

3 – Enzo Deligny (173)

4 – Pedro Clerot (165)

5 – Akshay Bohra (118)

Tags:

Formula Regional

Road to F1