Federico Rifai was a surprise standout from the F4 UAE field twelve months ago. After making his single-seater debut in the 2022 Trophy Round, he finished a full F4 UAE campaign as the fourth most successful rookie, trailing only champion James Wharton, overall runner-up Tuukka Taponen and Yas Heat’s Keanu Al Azhari. Now, after an underwhelming Spanish F4 season, Rifai has returned to racing in the Middle East – but not in F4 UAE.

By George Brabner

With four top-six finishes evidenced in his 2023 F4 UAE campaign, Rifai, who is Italian but races with an Emirati license, performed well against a multitude of Europe-based drivers who have since basked in title glory elsewhere following the end of the season.

However, he did not have the consistency to match his raw pace after graduating from karts within Xcel Motorsport’s ranks, leaving him unable to mount a challenge for the top eight championship positions. 

“I think the UAE season was definitely the most up-and-down championship I probably ever had, and I think it’s the case for most people because it’s a winter championship which is where you practise,” Rifai told Feeder Series. 

“I had a lot of good results, and I had a lot of bad ones, as well, and every time it was different things, different experiences, so every time you learn.”

Qualifying was often his Achilles heel, and he describes it as “the most stressful part” of a weekend in his earliest races. He suffered especially during round one, in which he didn’t reach the top 30, but the opportunity he had to build a foundation of experience in the UAE has helped him stamp out such weaknesses. 

“I was always really fast in practice and then qualifying would always not be ideal. I’d always end up in, let’s say, the ‘bad’ position behind a car in traffic – it just wasn’t always there. But as time went on, and I went into Spanish F4, I started managing everything a lot better,” Rifai explained.

Early in his F4 career at the time and short on testing, such missed opportunities hurt his confidence significantly. Breaking into the top five at the end of round two showed him that he was capable of fighting more experienced series victors.

“Let’s say, if you start at the back of the grid, you know, for any driver, being at the back is always demoralising, and it’s never good, so when then when you start to actually see the progress that you’re going forwards, and then you get like a P4, for example, and you’re fighting with the guys at the front, you’re like ‘Okay, I can really do this’ and you go into it again,” he said.

Hitting a roadblock in Europe

Despite showing huge potential in F4 UAE, Rifai’s momentum stalled once with Rodin Carlin, now Rodin Motorsport, in Spanish F4.

Having only tested within the Middle East on F4 UAE’s Giti Tire compound, a simple lack of on-track experience put him at a disadvantage compared to his rivals. He scored only three points across the 21-race season and was convincingly beaten by friend and F4 UAE rookie rival Al Azhari.

“When I did the first test in Europe, it was a lot different. The tyres, the tracks are a lot different, and a lot of them I hadn’t driven yet, so it took a bit to get used to, if I’m going to be honest,” Rifai explained.

“It’s a little bit different driving-wise, the car with the different tires in the UAE, and I just hadn’t really gotten used to it as fast as I would have wanted.” 

Considering the foundation he built in F4 UAE, he expected an upward trend in his performances to follow the initial adjustment period. 

“After the good results in the UAE, especially knowing I hadn’t had that much experience, [I thought that] going into the new season if I just kept developing, the results would come,” Rifai said.

Internal consistency, a product of Xcel Motorsport’s strong bonds with Rodin Motorsport, played to his advantage, as did starting a relationship with the driver development organisation School of Send over the summer.

“Towards the end of the season, after the summer break, that’s when I was really learning how to adapt to that tire and stuff, but by then it’s a bit late, and everyone else had also improved,” Rifai explained.

“School of Send, I started working with them after the summer break, and that’s also when I improved quite a lot. It was quite good at telling me the things I wasn’t doing right and how to change them, so I was improving really fast. 

“Now, I can see my own mistakes a lot better, so now if I look at an onboard, now I’m like ‘Oh, I’m doing this wrong,’ whilst before, I look at an onboard, and I would be like ‘Where could I go faster?’. But now, it’s just so much easier to identify, even where you’re on track just feeling it.”

Only the Spanish F4 season opener yielded top-ten finishes for Rifai, but upon his return to the Middle East for the 2023 F4 UAE Trophy Race, the progress he couldn’t necessarily show in Europe became obvious.

“I could see immediately when I came into the UAE to do the Trophy Round, the difference from when I last drove at Abu Dhabi in F4 UAE compared to when I came back was huge.”

Podium upon return to the UAE

A reliable top 15 contender in F4 UAE at the beginning of 2023, Rifai set himself lofty targets as he returned to the series for its annual non-championship round ran alongside the Formula One season finale.

“The Trophy Round, the first year I did it, it was really just an experience. As your first race, you can’t really go in thinking because it’s your first race that’s where you learn the most, but like when you’re in the first race you’re like ‘Oh, I’m gonna do this’. 

“When I did it this [time], I was expecting to win because I’d done a season… If you’re new, then you use it as much of an experience as you can use as preparation for that for F4 UAE, and if you do it as a second-year driver, you really aim to just go for the result,” he explained.

“I had quite high expectations for myself because I did it the year before, and I had a really good qualifying, I qualified P2, but it was my first race ever in F4 and in cars. 

“I stalled at the start and I just didn’t really have a good result, but the speed was quite there, so I knew after a whole year of F4 in Spain, I kind of set the expectations high for me, kind of wanting to win.”

Back with Xcel Motorsport, Rifai claimed his first two single-seater podiums one year on from his debut in the same event, sweetening a rollercoaster ride of a 2023 season. 

“I was honestly pretty happy with P2, but both days it was a really close battle for the lead. But I can be content with that result, to be honest. To be my first podium, it felt really good.”

Having caught Al Azhari to fight for the lead in races one and two, Rifai came within touching distance of his first victory but wasn’t able to overhaul the Yas Heat Racing driver.

The right winter series for his needs

The expected next step for Rifai, whose plans for the majority of the year remain unannounced, was going to be to make a return to F4 UAE after his success in the Trophy Round. However, he decided to opt against a sophomore campaign in the UAE and will compete in the newly formed F4 Saudi Arabia championship in the opening months of 2024.

As Meritus.GP Team Principal Peter Thompson revealed in an exclusive interview with Feeder Series last December, F4 Saudi is primarily focused on nurturing talented drivers and team personnel from Saudi Arabia, not “trying to be better” than F4 UAE. 

However, by taking on ten international drivers as part of a capped 20-car grid, the series offered Rifai a metaphorical deal that was more appealing than what F4 UAE could give him. 

“I realised that with F4 UAE, I could go get the results and stuff, but racing-wise, it’d always be under safety cars. You don’t get much track time. So I thought with the F4 Saudi Arabia, with all those more benefits, it develops you faster and more,” he explained.

Rifai has already won in F4 Saudi, taking to the top step of the podium at the Sakhir International Circuit during a non-championship round in late 2023.

So far, his experience has been only positive, reaping the rewards of having four different test sessions on a given weekend.

“In F4 Saudi Arabia, we get a lot more track time, I’d say. And so far in the racing, we haven’t gotten as many safety cars. If you have to say one of the ‘biggest’ flaws of F4 UAE, I’d say the safety cars. You’re just constantly in the safety car, and you don’t get much racing, and for a winter championship, that’s supposed to prepare you.”

Confirming the success of F4 Saudi’s unique approach to keeping entries low, Rifai added, “I’d say it’s because the grid, they [F4 UAE] make the grid so big.”

With the luxury of choice on his side, he stressed the importance of choosing a winter championship that matches the requirements of each stage in his career before returning to Europe.

“[A winter championship] is what sets you up for the rest of the year, so if you’re developing quite a lot in the winter series and you start the European season really good, you’re going to end up doing really good,” Rifai said.

“I think the UAE, it helps develop more in the racing aspect… Because it’s completely different [from] the tracks in Europe, and the tyre, you’re going there for racecraft, learning how to race, learning how to do the qualifying… At first, the pressure for qualifying is very high, so if you can learn to manage that in the UAE, then when you go to Europe it’s a lot easier. 

“You know when to overtake, when to defend. All these things that then you can bring on to Europe.”

Rifai will return to action in February when the F4 Saudi Arabia season begins proper at Kuwait Motor Town, one of the venues dropped from the F4 UAE calendar this season.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency