Kai Daryanani clinched the inaugural Formula Trophy UAE title Saturday evening at the Yas Marina Circuit after finishing second in the seventh and final race of the 2024 season. Daryanani, Evans GP team owner Josh Evans and Daryanani’s manager Dan Wells reflected on the achievement in conversation with Feeder Series after the race.

By Michael McClure

The title, Daryanani’s first in single-seaters, came about in unusual circumstances. He merely had to exceed the 96 points scored by original championship leader Rashid Al Dhaheri, who missed the final round of the three-weekend Formula 4–level series to focus on preparing for his forthcoming FRegional European Championship campaign.

Evans GP driver Daryanani entered the round second in the standings on 69 points but overhauled his primary rival by finishing third and second in the two races this weekend. He ended the season with 102 points and podiums in each of the last four races.

“It feels amazing,” he told Feeder Series in pit lane after securing the title. “Coming across the line, seeing the whole team on the wall cheering, it was a feeling like no other.”

The Hong Kong–based Indian driver was one of four competitors still eligible to take the title entering the final round. He had finished fourth, fourth and ninth in the three races in the first round at the Dubai Autodrome before inheriting victory in the first of the F1 support races last weekend and finishing second in the other.

But after the first race, the championship fight became a two-way showdown between Daryanani and Al Dhaheri after Gustav Jonsson on 66 points retired from the race and outside contender Kabir Anurag on 49 points failed to win.

Daryanani remained in contention by finishing third, though how he did so generated some controversy in the paddock.

With two laps to go, Daryanani trailed Anurag for third but made a move down the inside of Turn 5 to take the position, which he held as the pair drove down the back straight. At the braking zone in Turn 6, Anurag went to the outside and cut across the run-off area, emerging in front as the pair rounded the sweeping Turn 8.

The Singaporean kept the position entering the final lap. Daryanani tried to overtake him again around the outside of Turn 6 as Anurag locked up. The Evans driver had little room on track and went wide but emerged ahead at Turn 8 and crossed the finish line third a few seconds later. 

Both drivers were investigated by the stewards, but only Anurag received a five-second penalty, meaning Daryanani kept third. He entered the final race 12 points behind Al Dhaheri and needing to finish on the podium to clinch the title.

The Evans GP driver started the contest fourth but got a superb start and passed Sebastian Wheldon, race one winner and Al Dhaheri’s replacement, off the line. He then overtook polesitter Chi Zhenrui for second on the inside of the first corner, formally Turn 9.

Daryanani remained there until the end of the race, finishing 3.2 seconds behind Anurag but 5.3 seconds ahead of third-placed August Raber.

“In the first race, I made a few mistakes [and] didn’t quite optimise certain things, but in the second race, it was definitely a lot more in the right direction,” he said. “I think we did a solid job.”

The Formula Trophy UAE series that Daryanani won is an expanded version of the F4 UAE Trophy, a one-weekend non-championship event held on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend that preceded the main F4 UAE series in January and February.

With the renaming of F4 UAE to F4 Middle East for 2025, the preceding trophy event also changed shape, becoming a separate three-round contest spread across three consecutive weekends and awarding points for the first time. The grid size also expanded to an average of 21 cars per round, up from 14 in the event last year.

Daryanani suggested that the championship’s compact nature played to his advantage. So too, he said, did his wealth of experience in F4, which amounts to participation in nine series and 140 race starts, including this weekend’s, in the entry-level single-seater category.

The seven-race Formula Trophy UAE championship was the first series in which Daryanani emerged as a serious title contender. He said that his extensive F4 race mileage gave him “a certain understanding about how to run at the front and how to race against top drivers” from F4 series on several continents.

Though Daryanani’s best result on paper was his first-place finish in first race of the second round, labelled the F4 UAE Trophy, he crossed the line third and only later inherited the victory after Al Dhaheri and teammate Reno Francot were each penalised.

He instead ranked his second-place finish in the following day’s race – which took place on the morning of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – as his best performance of the season.

“I had my teammate [Francot] breathing down my neck a little bit on those last few laps,” he said. “I made some mistakes but more or less kept it together and finished ahead.”

Daryanani’s three single-seater wins across GB4, Australian F4 and Formula Trophy UAE all came in cars run by Evans GP, who secured their first single-seater drivers’ championship thanks to Daryanani’s win. The 19-year-old said the team’s support had been “unbelievable” and that team owner Evans “walked [him] through so many things and was really, really patient” in his early single-seater days.

“[He] didn’t have a lot of experience in karting or cars,” Evans added. “It’s been great to see the progress he’s made. Every time I work with him, he’s at another level, so it’s great to cap that off with a reward.”

Evans has also secured titles in GT racing through his DW Evans GT venture with Wells, Daryanani’s manager and the 2015 Formula Renault Asia champion. The Hong Kong–based Briton became aware of Daryanani after watching him competing on iRacing and has directed his career since he began competitive karting in 2022.

“It wasn’t me finding him so much as … his mother finding me on the internet,” Wells explained. “The first time of seeing him drive the sim – which was at Spa for iRacing F3 and he did quite remarkably well – I was like, ‘What have you done before?’ ‘Nothing.’

“So to take him from the first race in January 2023 and then to be a champion in his second year with Evans Grand Prix … it’s a real testament to Kai’s hard work and [the] large team of people that we surround Kai with – Enzo Mucci, John Pratt, a lot of guys who are there supporting him in the background and really building Kai in the right way to be a driver.”

Daryanani will step up to FR Middle East with Evans GP next month after having sampled FR machinery in the Macau Grand Prix last month. He said he was also looking at a GB3 campaign in 2025, though nothing has yet been announced.

Header photo credit: Michael McClure