Roman Bilinski was in the best form of his career over the winter in FROC. Driving for M2 Competition, he impressed week in, week out on the way to winning the first championship of his junior series career. Feeder Series spoke to the Polish driver to analyse his title-winning campaign and find out how he feels going into this third FRECA season.

By Juan Arroyo

Six wins. 12 podiums. Championship winner. Over five weeks, Roman Bilinski put together one of the best Formula Regional Oceanic Championship campaigns in recent years. This form could not come at a better time.

Bilinski is coming up on his third year of racing Formula Regional cars. This is a wealth of experience in the category few drivers ever get the luxury, or misfortune, of carrying. Three seasons in the same category is the unspoken limit for junior drivers. That said, the Polish driver has spent the last two years in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, achieving a best finish of 18th in the standings.

All things considered, 2024 is an important year for Bilinski. It could be his last in FRECA, but it is also the first that he’s raced in a winter series, which many drivers take part in to further their development or get used to new machinery while their regular championships are on hold.

“Of course I wanted to win. I didn’t think it was going to go as well as it did,” Bilinski told Feeder Series on his expectations before the FROC season. “I think I put in so much hard work and so did the team. To get the result, and as early and quickly, was a huge bonus.”

From the first round, Bilinski simply looked ahead of the rest. He claimed two victories and a second-place podium – 91 out of 95 possible points – in the opening weekend of the championship. He was coy about his edge over the rest of the field in post-race interviews, telling broadcast presenter Stephen McIvor he didn’t want to give too much away to his opponents.

At the following round in Manfeild, Bilinski won the first and third races of the weekend, cementing an early points lead over early rivals Christian Mansell and Liam Sceats. However, Mansell, who will race in FIA Formula 3 this year, would only take part in these two rounds.

Even as overtaking proved difficult throughout the season, Bilinski showed he could come back from a low starting position, as demonstrated in the first race at Hampton Downs, in which he climbed 13 places on his way to victory in changing conditions. After three out of five rounds, Bilinski held a 50-point lead over teammate Liam Sceats.

The decision to run in a winter series for the first time in his career was motivated by new management in the form of Gianpaolo Matteucci. 

“He thought it was the best thing for me. I think it was a really good decision, as the cars run on the same tyres as we run in Europe, so that’s a huge bonus. That’s a big thing over the UAE [referring to Formula Regional Middle East, the other ‘main’ Regional winter championship], whereas they run the Giti tyres, here they run the Pirelli,” Bilinski said.

Beyond the technical reasons, the move was influenced by Bilinski’s upcoming FRECA campaign with Trident and the timing of his signing with Matteucci’s management company.

Matteucci started working with Bilinski in late 2023, by which time he says the “more competitive” seats in FRMEC were already assigned. The Middle East is often the main option for drivers on break from European championships. Of the 2024 FRECA grid, 16 drivers took part in at least one FRMEC round.

Instead, Matteucci turned to Oceania, where Nicola Lacorte, another of his signed drivers, was due to race. 

“I didn’t want a low competitive opportunity for my ace,” Matteuci wrote. “I consequently called Jonathan Moury again (co-owner of M2 Competition), asking him whether [the team] had a car for Roman, over the one we had agreed before for Lacorte. Jon brilliantly managed to adjust and organise, as we saw a winning campaign for Bilinski.”

An added benefit of this move was that Bilinski’s 2024 FRECA engineer, Matteo Prosperi, would be sent over from Europe to work together over the winter, although Victor Cortés Abad was formally his race engineer in FROC.

Such an opportunity would not have been possible in FRMEC. Trident does not take part in any winter championships, while several other FRECA teams, including MP Motorsport, Saintéloc Racing and R-ace GP, already compete with their own personnel, including race engineers. 

“To send a Trident engineer [to the] UAE with Roman in a FRECA competitor team was not an option,” Matteucci wrote.

One key aspect to Bilinski’s success was changing his mental approach to the season. Feeder Series asked if there was any point where he thought he could dominate the championship, to which Bilinski replied, “Dominate, I don’t know, because there [were] some pretty fast drivers like Mansell at the start, then [Jacob] Abel coming in, [Callum] Hedge. So I was never really thinking about dominating.

“I was just more trying to not think about the championship at all and just take it round by round and do the best job I can do, which is more of a new approach I’m starting to learn and I think is working for me.

“As soon as I think about the championship, I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. I think from the first round, obviously, we showed there was quite a lot of potential, so I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t in the back of my mind.”

Bilinski entered the final round of the season at the top of the standings, with a 58-point lead over Liam Sceats. Considering a victory in the first and third races of the weekend was worth 35 points, it was going to take a monumental effort by Sceats to overthrow Bilinski’s lead. Not only that, but Bilinski was in strong qualifying form, claiming pole position at five of the last six opportunities.

However, in this round’s Formula 1-style qualifying format exclusive to the New Zealand GP, Bilinski had an uncanny crash in Q1 while leading the session. Despite technically taking pole position, he received a three-place grid drop for the first race of the weekend for causing a red flag. Bilinski, unable to set a lap in Q2, was 12th on the grid for the grand prix.

“To be honest, I wasn’t extremely worried,” Bilinski said, citing the points gap. “I was more just disappointed for the New Zealand Grand Prix, obviously not going to be starting higher up. Liam, he’s a fast driver, so he made it difficult. But as long as I did my job and got some solid points, it was enough.”

Sceats won the first race in comfortable fashion from pole position, while Bilinski claimed third place. Bilinski only needed to finish above Sceats in the reverse grid race to clinch the title, and did just that by finishing third while Sceats took ninth at the chequered flag.

This is Bilinski’s first championship win of his career. It has given him the most confidence he’s felt going into a season in the last three years. However, he is understandably cautious facing a tough FRECA grid this year.

“I think definitely it helps, it’s nice to win a championship like this, which has so much history. I think I definitely learned so much. Not so much about driving a car faster but more how to approach the season, which I think was a very big thing.

“I feel more confident going into this season, but I can’t start feeling overconfident or anything because FRECA is probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest [championship] you can go in. It’s not going to be easy,” Bilinski said.

This year’s FRECA grid is shaping up to be a strong one at the front. Ferrari, Williams, Alpine, Red Bull, McLaren, and Sauber will all field at least one driver from their junior stable. Meanwhile, 2023 race winners Rafael Câmara and Alessandro Giusti are returning for their sophomore year in the series.

“Obviously I’d love to win the title,” Bilinski said. “I think it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be tough. There’s some very big teams, some very big drivers that we’re going to have to go up against, and we’re going to need to improve, to be honest.

“I think Trident and I can do a great job. As long as we keep working, keep pushing all the way until the end of the season, I think there can be a good result to come out of it.”

Header photo credit: Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ