Heading into the 2026 Formula Regional European Championship season, reigning Italian F4 champion and Williams junior Kean Nakamura-Berta was the driver to beat. He was one of four title protagonists in a battle that was fought until the bitter end – but he ultimately came up 17 points short, finishing third overall. Nakamura-Berta opened up on how he experienced his hardest-fought championship to date and what he learned from it heading into his 2027 F3 campaign.

By Archie Harper

When looking at the field heading into a new FREC season, the favourites tend to be the names that appeared at the top of the Italian F4 standings. The Italian series has been home to every champion of FREC, all of whom, with the exception of 2021 champion Grégoire Saucy, have won races in the series too.

Nakamura-Berta’s status as the reigning champion meant his name attracted the most attention in discussions of prospective champions in FREC. The drivers’ title in sister series E4 only heightened expectations.

Perhaps the only obvious complication for the 18-year-old was the introduction of a completely new FR car for 2026. The four-round FR Middle East Trophy series in the winter presented every driver, including Nakamura-Berta, their first taste of what the new Pirelli-shod Tatuus T326 cars felt like in anger.

“There were loads of hopes and dreams with the new car,” Nakamura-Berta said. “Performance-wise it was really different to the old car. It handled like a car with larger-diameter wheels – probably going more towards an F2 type of car in terms of driving style where we, at least, had to maximise braking [in a] straight line and we struggled to combine compared to the old car.

“There was more aero with the car. We saw gains through medium-high-speed corners. Compared to the older car it was a bit more stable. I would say it was quite different from what I think I expected, at least. When I got in the car it made sense how it felt to drive, especially that first time.

“The gearings for corners changed, how the power was distributed was largely changed as well – we found we had a lot less torque off the corner, so low revs did not work! And compared to the year before we were running one gear lower pretty much most corners just to maximise the engine power and high revs.”

All those changes clearly did not faze the British-licensed Japanese-Slovak driver. Racing with the Mumbai Falcons, the reigning teams’ champions, Nakamura-Berta claimed four podiums heading into the final round at Qatar, which he entered 24 points behind R-ace GP’s Rashid Al Dhaheri in the championship battle.

But he took pole position and race victory in race one to slash the gap to seven points. Engine issues with the new car meant race two was cancelled, and later that day, Nakamura-Berta claimed a second pole position and victory in race three to secure the winter title, his third championship since October.

“It definitely boosted expectations, but going into the season I think expectations were anyway to try to fight for the championship in both campaigns.”

The next step in Nakamura-Berta’s quest to fulfil those goals was to start off his main European campaign in style. He certainly won the first race at the Red Bull Ring in fine style – but a lack of focus soon led to disorder.

“After winning Middle East, I think my mental approach became a bit too relaxed, leading to errors in the first round, taking it a bit too easy at times and not being as focused,” he reflected. “If we look purely at pace and at qualifying, we were definitely a dominant force. We took pole in both qualis, we had a really strong race one – winning the race. Race two, it was the first sprint race, reversed grid, ever had in that series and it was chaotic and crazy, but we still brought home some points.”

For Nakamura-Berta, taking pole in the second qualifying session meant that race three could have been as calm – and successful – as the first. He led, like before, until a safety car was brought out. It was then that Nakamura-Berta had the first blip in his campaign.

“It was very disappointing at the time – it was really bad,” he said. “We led the race for the opening three, four laps, then – after a safety car – came down into T4 and there was some gravel, dirt, on the inside kerb. I only registered it slightly, didn’t pay much attention to it – then hit it, got some understeer and drove off into the gravel and then from there went from P1 to P10, got in a few more collisions, some not my fault, some my fault. But once you’re P11, P12, it’s chaos.

“The only really disappointing thing was we took a penalty to the next round, which ended our chances in race one in round two.

“Red Bull Ring as a whole was okay. It was not as bad as it looked. We showed our pace which was positive and a lot of lessons were learned, not just for that year but for the future.”

The penalties carried from Spielberg included two five-place grid penalties to be taken in race one at Zandvoort. He topped his qualifying group, but the penalties relegated him to 12th on the grid, and he gained only one place on track after the team, he said, had ‘left the tape on the brakes’, which cost him braking efficiency in the race. He then received a 10-second penalty for a collision with Yuki Sano that dropped him to 23rd, and he and teammate Tomass Štolcermanis were ultimately disqualified after Prema withdrew their appeal against their prior disqualification from qualifying one for a parc fermé infringement.

Nakamura-Berta bounced back by taking his third pole from four attempts in an interrupted qualifying session the next day, and in race two he looked poised for another victory. But after a safety car restart, he made a mistake that gifted Sebastian Wheldon the lead, with the 2025 Italian F4 runner-up going on to complete a sweep of victories at Zandvoort ahead of Nakamura-Berta in second.

“Pace, I would say, wasn’t quite there to win that race that day. The MP car just looked a little bit stronger,” Nakamura-Berta said. “That was a weekend where it was damage limitation.”

He had thus fallen to 27 points behind Wheldon, and round three at Spa-Francorchamps demanded a comeback. Victory was out of reach, but he clawed back just over half the gap he had to Wheldon with third- and fifth-place finishes in the two races.

“It was, again, damage limitation, but I think that was the most consistent weekend I had had up until that point,” he said. “Results-wise might not have looked as fantastic, but driving and team and execution of the weekend was probably the best.”

Those results left him third heading into round four at Monza, on 81 points. New leader Rashid Al Dhaheri and Wheldon were separated by just one point on 94 and 93 points respectively.

The midway point of the season at the Temple of Speed harked back somewhat to the season opener. Scorching beneath the Italian sun, with highs of 35ºC recorded, Nakamura-Berta started his weekend with a pole position for race one, which he converted into a second race victory of the season. A fifth in the reverse-grid race was followed by qualifying second behind rookie leader Emanuele Olivieri for race three on Sunday.

But at the halfway point of the season, drama crept in again in a moment that evoked memories of Nakamura-Berta’s mid-race error at the Red Bull Ring in its championship implications.

On lap four, Nakamura-Berta and Olivieri collided at the first Lesmo while fighting for the lead, sending Nakamura-Berta spinning into the gravel and out of the race.

“To be honest, at the time I was very, very disappointed,” he said. “In race one, we had quite clean fights with Emanuele, and once you have a decently fair fight, you have a respect for each other that you would leave space or et cetera and I think that was a bit shattered in race three.

“At the time, when I crashed, I could not believe that the incident happened and, in the end, that was probably a title-deciding moment. For me, losing 18, possibly 25, points while they closed everyone up again in the championship. It was a controversial crash as well.”

To make things harder to swallow, Olivieri went on to take his first win of the season after the stewards decided no further action was necessary. But all told, the weekend left Nakamura-Berta in a better position than before. He was now second in the standings, eight points behind Wheldon, while Al Dhaheri and Olivieri rounded out the top four – the quartet that would remain at the top for the remainder of the season.

Nakamura-Berta took home a 10th and a third at the Hungaroring, while Al Dhaheri grabbed the points lead with a second and a first. But it was round six – the last before the summer break – that proved something of a breakthrough for Nakamura-Berta in terms of executing a complete weekend.

“Going into Le Castellet, we knew we could be strong – we had a good pre-season. We took pole in Q1 in the first group, which was unexpected, [and] won the race whilst also struggling with a clutch issue the whole weekend. We took home a P3 as well which I think was damage limitation.”

The weekend in France rocketed Nakamura-Berta into the championship lead for the first time all season on 172 points, 13 points over Al Dhaheri and Wheldon. It was, in terms of days, the longest that any single driver held the lead.

“We got back to where we should be,” Nakamura-Berta said. “Before that we’d done good weekends, executed them well, but got into a few unfortunate situations. That weekend finally gave us the results we were hoping for.”

The next round at Imola, nearly 50 days later, was the polar opposite.

Coming out of the summer break, Nakamura-Berta lined up only 19th and finished 15th in the first race. In the next two races he finished 10th and ninth respectively. For a driver who had been outside the top five only twice since Spa, it was a severe blow.

“Imola was definitely by far the worst weekend we’d had in the championship,” he said. “It was the only weekend where I wasn’t on the podium before that and, even excluding that, I’d been on a podium at every circuit and that was the first one.

“I actually love Imola. I love to drive there, but it seems like whenever I go back there I always leave with pretty miserable memories.

“We looked okay in FPs and stuff and then, starting from quali, I think performance overall was just not there.

“My side of the garage really struggled with the car balance and a few fundamental issues with the car which [I] think we’d experienced before but we didn’t really look into it as much. Imola’s quite a bumpy circuit and really struggled over the bumps and the kerbs and it looked like most of the other cars could ride them a lot better than us. That leads to a more unpredictable car and et cetera, so we struggled there.

“Race one and race two were tough races to swallow – we just had to survive. We thought we had a bit more to give on Sunday morning but it just didn’t look like it. So it was a tough weekend overall.”

The results of that weekend dropped him all the way to third in the championship heading to the final round at Hockenheim, another circuit with a bumpy surface. Olivieri had scored 48 points at Imola and now led the standings on 200 points ahead of Wheldon on 180, while Nakamura-Berta was on 175.

“Once you have a weekend like that, you lose the championship lead. [You] go into the last round [with an] ‘anything can happen’ mentality,” he said. “Just give it our best and see where we end up.”

For Nakamura-Berta, that mindset defined a final round in which Olivieri had the momentum. The Italian had stood on the podium at every round since Monza and capitalised on Nakamura-Berta’s difficult weekend in Imola by taking a win in race one and second place in race three.

“Initially it started off quite like we expected,” Nakamura-Berta said of the final round. “At that point in the season it looked like there were other cars on track which were definitely quicker than us, I would say.

“Two favourites were the MPs and the R-aces. They looked rapid and they were slowly making improvements throughout the season, whilst we hit a bit of a plateau.”

For race one, Nakamura-Berta qualified sixth while Olivieri qualified second behind Wheldon on pole – meaning the only two drivers ahead of Nakamura-Berta in the championship started on the front row in the penultimate race.

Nakamura-Berta needed to finish ahead of Olivieri to remain in contention, and with the grid as it was, only extreme drama – and perhaps a miracle – would have made it possible.

Both happened within seconds.

Olivieri and Wheldon collided heading into the first corner, knocking both out of the points. Nakamura-Berta capitalised on their misfortune to take second place and launch himself back into title contention. He now sat just seven points behind the Italian entering the final race.

“We did not expect what happened in that first race. It definitely put us right back in contention,” he said. “At one point [we] almost thought we could win that race but, again, just did not have the pace for that.

“Seeing the two in front, who we were fighting for the championship with, collide was crazy. It sort of brought you back into the moment that anything could happen.

“Day two, there was a possible chance for rain and I think that was really our only hope for that weekend. But that Saturday was… suddenly all hope came back! Almost.”

Heavy rain showers had been predicted for Sunday, threatening to throw the final day of the season into chaos and blow the title fight even wider open.

“If it was to be dry, we were going to struggle to win that championship. We didn’t have the pace,” he admitted.

“In quali, I pulled out something out the arse to put us P1 in our group. Honestly don’t really know where we found two, three tenths overnight – [I] did a better job on my side and the team managed it, found a little bit, little details on the car.

“Without rain, we knew we would struggle. And I knew to win the championship we had to win the race.”

It wasn’t good enough for pole in the end. Wheldon went faster in the second group and took his second pole position of the weekend by 0.132 seconds. And in the race, his Prema could not match the pace of the MP and the R-ace GP behind – nor that of Jan Przyrowski’s RPM, who played perhaps the most decisive role.

The Pole had claimed victory ahead of Nakamura-Berta in race one and was fast again from third on the grid in race two. His pace was such that he put Nakamura-Berta under pressure early in the race, and the pair interlocked wheels at the hairpin on lap six, tipping the Prema car onto two wheels.

“It was just a cherry on top of everything kind of falling apart,” he said about the incident.

“The collision itself was not actually that bad because I only lost one position to Olivieri. The damage coming from the collision was the bad part.

“We got damage to the floor, so slightly to the diffuser, to the floor, and I think we had a little bit of damage to the suspension on the right rear as well, which meant we were crabbing a little bit down the straights.”

In the end, Nakamura-Berta finished sixth after struggling with the damage. Wheldon converted his weekend-long pace into victory but ultimately lost the FRegional Europe title by nine points to Olivieri, who rose from fourth on the grid to finish the race second. Nakamura-Berta ended the season 17 points back in third.

The events of the final race, Nakamura-Berta said, ‘summed up the season’, but there was already a future to look forward to. With Nakamura-Berta’s results, the natural next step was F3, where he will race in 2027. Remaining with the Williams academy, he will join teams’ championship runners-up Trident, moving away from the Prema stable for the first time.

The step up doesn’t just add pressure and competitiveness. The faster machinery and higher power also demands more of drivers physically.

“Physical and fitness wise, we have our training camps twice [or] three times a year to check on the benchmarks which Williams have set and to make sure you’re ready for the next jump,” he explained.

“Ideally you want to be – already if you’re a FREC driver you want to be – F3 level. If you’re F3, you want to be F2 level. I think on that side of things we’ve done a good job.

“In terms of the physical side, we’re in a good level going into Formula 3 – hit all the benchmarks for that. In terms of preparing for more downforce, we’ve done days on the F1 sim and we’ve also got a Formula 3 model, so we’ve been doing that just to get used to more speed, more downforce and more power.

“And then the mental side of things, that’s probably going to be the most important going into the season. We have a psychologist who we all use as well to make sure your mindset’s in the correct place, because that’s going to be very, very important as we’ve seen.”

Racing on grand prix weekends means F1 juniors in F2 and F3 get easier and more consistent access to support from the F1 paddock as their careers progress.

“You’re going to be around the F1 team. Hopefully if you have a good weekend you can maybe be invited into the box!” he said.

“You get to know people in that paddock, as well, who you might be working with in the future. Relationships are very important in all sports, and I think it will give you a jump start to getting to know people, building bonds.

“You might be able to listen in to debriefs if you have time, see how the F1 drivers work, and I think that’s really good insight into what you have to prepare for.”

As he prepares to move to the next stage, Nakamura-Berta has the most dramatic and gruelling season of his junior single-seater career to look back on. He’ll get one more go in FR machinery with Theodore Racing at the Macau Grand Prix on 22 November, the last event on the horizon in 2026, before his focus fully shifts to conquering F3.

“This year has shown me just how important collecting points can be, avoiding no-point finishes. Even from watching Formula 3 we’ve seen that,” he said. “At points towards the end of the season we started to struggle a little bit oddly, but apart from that we were really strong all the way.

“It’s just normally looking back on my mistakes, what I could’ve done better to possibly influence the championship in a different way. But in the end, once it’s done, it’s done. You can’t really go back in the past.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency