Three different drivers took to the top step of the F4 UAE podium in as many races last weekend as junior single-seater racing kicked off for 2024 on the Yas Marina Circuit’s Grand Prix Corkscrew layout. Freddie Slater and Alpine junior Kean Nakamura-Berta claimed the first wins of their Formula 4 careers, but it was Slater who emerged from round one with a 13-point championship lead. Feeder Series spoke to Slater, Nakamura-Berta and double podium finisher Keanu Al Azhari about the season opener.

By George Brabner

Throughout two days of pre-weekend testing at the Yas Marina Circuit, the six Prema-operated cars appeared to be the fastest on both the full grand prix and ‘Corkscrew’ layouts, having taken noticeable steps forward since the non-championship ‘Trophy Round’ in support of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November.

Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri topped each day of running, with Slater, Nakamura-Berta, Alex Powell and Dion Gowda of the sister Mumbai Falcons team all finishing in the top five on one of the two days.

However, with Al Azhari, 2023 F3 driver Nikita Bedrin of PHM Racing and Hitech GP’s Deagen Fairclough hot on their heels, the team was far from unchallenged.

Qualifying: ‘Best performance I’ve ever had’ gives Al Azhari double pole

Al Azhari, who has tested many times at Yas Marina as part of the circuit’s Yas Heat Racing Academy driver programme, had been one step behind fellow Yas Heat–supported driver Al Dhaheri in testing. But he set the fastest time in Friday’s official test, took second in free practice on Saturday and then dominated qualifying, finishing 0.354 seconds ahead of Nakamura-Berta in qualifying one and 0.273 ahead of Slater in qualifying two.

Al Azhari’s double pole position ensured he maintained his perfect record at the circuit this season after his clean sweep in qualifying at the trophy event in November.

“Qualifying was really amazing. I think it was one of the most spectacular qualifyings I’ve ever experienced,” he told Feeder Series. “Was definitely the best performance I’ve ever had in qualifying. But it all came really relaxed. We spent a lot of time testing things throughout all the test days, and it paid off in the end.

“There’s a lot of great drivers in the field so it was extremely satisfying to have that gap behind. I proved that drivers coming out of this region are skilled and sort of raised people’s expectations for myself and maybe caught the eye of a few people.”

Al Azhari’s firmest challenge looked set to come from trophy round podium finisher Slater, who took third in session one and second in session two.

Race 1: Nakamura-Berta takes first car racing win

Whilst Al Azhari had the upper hand in qualifying one, Nakamura-Berta didn’t have to wait long to get his chance to shine at the front of the field. As the first race of the weekend got underway, Al Azhari’s hard work from a few hours ago was quickly undone as he dropped to fourth off the line.

This opened the door for Nakamura-Berta to ease into the lead, with the Mumbai Falcons cars of Slater and Powell flanking him.

“I got a lot of clutch spin without actually moving,” Al Azhari explained. “It wasn’t wheelspin that was the issue; I just held the bite point for too long, which melted the clutch – something that I experienced for the first time.”

As Nakamura-Berta strode away at the front, Al Azhari clawed his way back past Powell and Slater later on the opening lap.

“I made quite an aggressive move into T6 on the first lap on Freddie,” Al Azhari said, “which did pay off and I managed to keep him behind for the whole race. I don’t think he was really expecting it, but I’m sure he’ll be looking out for that now!”

Slater, who made his F4 debut in August 2023 in British F4, said he avoided taking risks during the race. Though he did not manage to re-pass Al Azhari and fell into the clutches of Powell in the closing stages of the race, he was encouraged by his result.

“I thought of the safer options, I’m here to pick up points rather than crashing out. Points make prizes here, so that’s my job,” Slater told Feeder Series.

“Fighting was a long race. It’s hard to stay close in an F4 car. I stayed in the one-second gap for half an hour. I don’t know how I quite managed to do that, but we’re definitely making progress. Myself, two months, three months ago I couldn’t do that, and now I can, so we’re making progress.

“The fight with Al Azhari was hard, don’t get me wrong, but I think we had mega pace. I think if I was in front of him we would have had the pace to challenge Kean and go past him and drive away really.”

From the moment he took the lead, Nakamura-Berta went unchallenged at the front of the field and pulled out a five-second advantage by the end of an interruption-free race. This gave him his first win in cars in just his seventh start after his two-round cameo in F4 South East Asia at the end of 2023.

Aided in part by taking new tyres for race one, which Al Azhari opted against doing, Nakamura-Berta attributed his success to greater consistency over the 28-minute-plus-one-lap contest.

“Knowing that all the drivers around me had a lot more experience, most of them had already done one year of F4 or at least half a year, so I knew it would be hard, but taking the win was amazing,” he explained to Feeder Series.

“I think it was beyond what most of the people around me were thinking was capable, but the team did an amazing job to set up the car perfectly, and through a bit of tyre strategy, we managed to take the win. I think taking the win with over five seconds of a gap was incredible.”

“In qualifying it was just one full push, and I think we just missed a little bit of Keanu in that aspect. But in the race, you just have to control everything. You make over 15 laps, you just have to ensure you can make a consistent lap time every lap.

“At the start of the race, the gap was pretty similar, but in the middle, I managed to slowly get an edge on the field. Keanu was not as fast in race pace, so we just continued to increase the gap.”

Race 2: Bedrin wins as Al Azhari and Nakamura-Berta come to blows

At the front of the field, the second contest of the weekend was punctuated by a back-and-forth battle between polesitter Jack Beeton of newcomers AGI Sport, Fairclough and Bedrin. The PHM driver came out on top to bounce back from a difficult first race in which he finished ninth.

Meanwhile, Nakamura-Berta, Al Azhari and Slater attempted to fight back from the outskirts of the top ten courtesy of F4 UAE’s new-for-2024 race two grid order, which reverses the top 12 finishers of race one but awards points according to the FIA’s standard 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 system.

All three drivers moved through the field together in the opening stages of the contest until Slater put ground between himself and Saturday’s podium finishers by passing Prema’s Doriane Pin for seventh place on lap two, then by masterfully executing an overtake on Al Dhaheri two laps later.

“The manoeuvre on Al Dhaheri, my teammate, it was kind of set up a couple of corners before. It was trying to put him in a position under pressure to get through as quickly as possible to focus on the cars in front,” Slater said.

“I forced him a bit tight, he gave me a bit of a shove, tried to squeeze me, and I just stayed there, made him under pressure and managed to cut back in, which worked quite well. We had a few good moves in the reverse grid.”

Behind Bedrin, Fairclough and Beeton, Slater took fourth after drag-racing Saintéloc’s Matteo Quintarelli to the chequered flag.

“I picked them off one by one. I chose my gaps wisely. I got rid of the people behind because the people behind were battling so much, so what I was doing was trying to basically get rid of people as quickly as possible so then they would fight behind and then I’d have a gap,” he explained.

“I probably could have gone for fourth position one lap early, but I was a bit safe. I took a nice big chunk of points and also being safe at the same time. There was a little bit more on the line, but we took the safe option.”

Whilst Slater moved forward cleanly and efficiently, Al Azhari, Nakamura-Berta and Powell got stuck further down the top ten until, with only three laps to go, Nakamura-Berta and Al Azhari made contact in the hotel section at turn 12.

Nakamura-Berta escaped without damage and went on to take eighth, but Al Azhari was forced to retire with a broken rear suspension.

“It was not easy coming through the field,” Al Azhari said. “I made some very risky overtakes, but they had paid off at the time. I had great pace as well, just trailing behind Freddie for most of the race, and got past Rashid Al Dhaheri.

“I was running in P7 and I had slight contact behind with Kean. I couldn’t really avoid it. He apologised to me and I’m very thankful for that – just took a bit of a risk which was unnecessary and it did not pay off for either of us.

“It was a slight setback, obviously lost a lot of points for the championship and I’ll need to make them back up now, but it all comes as part of experience.”

By later on Sunday, Nakamura-Berta told Feeder Series he believed he and Al Azhari were equally responsible for the collision, although he saw the race as a missed opportunity with an eight-point loss to Slater.

“About the incident with Keanu, the stewards deemed it as a racing incident, and I agree. I think you can’t blame either side for what happened. We both wanted to take as much ground, and things happen,” he said.

“I just tried to approach race two with trying to take as many points with as minimal damage. Knowing that only the top ten would get points, I knew I had to make a few overtakes from P12.

“During the race, there were a few close calls where I ended up going back and forwards, but in the end, finished P8, grabbed a few championship points. I think looking back, we could have been a little bit further up the field if a few things didn’t occur, but I think it was still a good minimal damage recovery race.”

Race 3: Slater wins and takes the lead

After Al Azhari’s disappointing end to race two, starting from pole position presented him with a chance to make up for a lost haul of points. However, Slater alongside him got the best launch of the frontrunners as the lights went out, and the Mumbai Falcons driver claimed the inside line into the sweeping opening turn.

The pair almost came to blows mid-corner, which prompted Al Azhari to take to the run-off area. The Yas Heat driver returned to the circuit marginally ahead of his Mumbai Falcons rival and kept the lead, but having completed the move off track, he gave the position back to Slater on the third lap under the safety car.

Al Azhari set his sights on re-passing Slater once the race returned to green flag conditions. While the Emirati accepted that he had to give back the place and said he “knew [he] had the pace” to overtake his rival again, he never managed to get close enough.

So Slater went unchallenged and took his first official F4 victory almost four months after losing an on-track win at Monza in Euro 4 to a miscommunication from race control. With the win on Sunday, he also established a 13-point championship lead over Nakamura-Berta.

“The first win emotions were incredible,” he said. “It’s not about now I’ve won something [and] this is where I stop. This is where I am beginning. This is only the beginning of what I can accomplish.

“Hearing the message on the radio through my engineer, just the happiness from there and from the team side, that’s what makes it so worthwhile. … It’s a great stepping stone.”

Despite initially keeping up with Slater, Al Azhari said he struggled with a sticking throttle in the latter stages of the race, which stripped away any late opportunity he had to claim his first F4 win. However, he leaves round one sitting third in the championship standings on 36 points, 16 behind Slater, with high hopes for the rest of the season.

“We have a lot of work to do for round two, for the upcoming rounds, but I’m feeling really great,” he said. “I’m really honoured to be in the position that I’m in today. Most of all, I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can – these times will be in my memories forever.”

Long resisting pressure from teammate Powell, Nakamura-Berta took fifth in the final race from sixth on the grid. His eighth-place finish in race two put him three points ahead of Al Azhari in the championship standings after round one, with Fairclough also three behind and Bedrin six behind.

In the rookies’ standings, however, Nakamura-Berta is already 29 points ahead of Powell and Zack Scoular.

“I think there’s not much more I could have wanted in the first racing week of the year,” Nakamura-Berta said. “Knowing that all the other competitors have a bit more mileage in the car, it’s definitely a good way to end the week. Having good teammates as well, it’s a good way to learn often. If I continue in this current shape, I think we can expect good things next week.”

F4 UAE holds its second round this weekend on the Yas Marina Circuit’s grand prix layout, which will host the series’ first night races in four years.

Header photo credit: F4 UAE Championship