Finlay McSporran
Published: 11:03 11 February 2026

The reigning Italian F4 champ secured his latest title during a disrupted final round at Lusail.

A weekend of disruption

Kean Nakamura-Berta came into this final round 24 points behind leader Rashid Al Dhaheri in the drivers standings, with a possible 75 points on offer across the three races.

At least it should have been…

Qualifying one and two was supposed to take place on Thursday along with race one. Race two and three would take place on the Friday.

However, issues with the cars on Thursday delayed Friday’s action, as the engine supplier Autotechnica had to make changes to the cars engines.

This got in the way of Thursday practice, with an extra session being put on Friday. To make room for the extra practice session, the decision was made to cut one of the races.

Qualifying

That meant there was less points on offer for Nakamura-Berta to eat into Al Dhaheri’s title lead. A big performance was needed.

And a big performance was delivered. Pole position for both races put him in prime position to take maximum points when it counted most.

Furthermore, Al Dhaheri, who had only qualified outside the top 5 once all season, could only manage P5 for race one and P9 for race two.

Race 1

Onto Friday’s action, where Nakamura-Berta continued his good form as he held the lead into turn one, as his teammate Sebastian Wheldon swooped past Alex Powell for second.

An early safety car was required after Maxim Rehm made contact with another car on lap one, which threw his car airborne briefly before coming to a halt at the side of the track. Thankfully he was uninjured.

It was a fairly quiet race from then on, with Nakamura-Berta leading home Wheldon for a Mumbai Falcons 1-2 with Jan Przyrowski taking third having passed Powell on lap one.

Al Dhaheri finished sixth to limit the damage, however his lead in the standings had been cut from 24 points to just seven with one round left.

Race 2

The second race started just as the first one had finished, with Nakamura-Berta once again leading Wheldon.

Al Dhaheri, who needed to finish at least second, was down in seventh by the end of lap one.

Multiple incidents on lap one resulted in a red flag, with racing resuming just over an hour later.

The rest of the race was fairly straight forward, as it had been in race one, with very little action on track.

Not that Nakamura-Berta cared, with his rival still down in seventh, the Williams junior danced his car across the finish line to crown himself the winner of the Formula Regional Middle-East Trophy 2026.

Debrief

Another title to add to the collection for Kean Nakamura-Berta.

It may have taken him a while to start getting wins on the board, but he was always near the front. Excluding DNF’s, the Williams F1 junior finished in the top 5 in every single race this season!

He will be hoping to replicate that form in the Formula Regional European championship later this year.