PREMA Racing and Freddie Slater continued to keep their championship chase strong at Hockenheim as the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine lined up for its penultimate round of 2025 at the German venue.
Freddie Slater managed to increase his championship margin on his closest competitor with a stunning Race 1 win. Coming from a tough qualifying session, the British racer stormed back to the lead with impressive overtaking and sailed away into the distance. Slater started from P5 in Race 2, as the rain started to fall on the grid, but not quite enough for wet tyres. Slater started well but was caught in the podium battle. Right after he moved up to P4, a spin called the Safety-Car on track, and a strong subsequent rainfall led the race to be called early with a red flag.
Both Rashid Al Dhaheri had tough weekends as they were impacted by qualifying, and despite showing good pace in the races, the tricky conditions reduced the overtaking opportunities in Race 1, with an improving track. In Race 2, they both pitted for rain tyres, but the race was red-flagged, preventing them from maximizing the choice.
Making his second race outing with the team, Yuanpu Cui continued to showcase great improvement and inch closer to the top-10 positions. In Race 2, he gained two spots to finish in P13, while in Race 2, he was among those who pitted, and the interruption curtailed his chances despite the solid performance.
#14 - RASHID AL DHAHERI
"Not a great weekend here at Hockenheim. I had quite a few things to fix on a new track that was quite interesting. Some very difficult conditions created good opportunities, from which we were able to gain a few positions during the races. There are a few things that we need to understand and improve, and then for the final race, we will be strong at Monza to get things done."
#27 - FREDDIE SLATER
"It has been a positive weekend. Qualifying pace was obviously not quite where we wanted, but then we bounced back nicely in Race 1. I had a mega pace, and I was able to make the moves when I needed to, managing to bring home P1. Massive thank you to the team for the bounce back from qualifying, because it hasn't been easy. We always had to dig deeper and extract everything we could. In Race 2, it was a bit annoying for me not to go green at the end, but that's racing. We know where we are heading into Monza, and the team knows what we got going there. We need to start Thursday strong and try to win this thing."
#45 - JACK BEETON
"I had good expectations, and I was hoping to keep the momentum from the last two rounds at Red Bull Ring and Barcelona. Unfortunately, we started this weekend a bit slow, we qualified P22 in both qualifying sessions, and that just set us on a back foot. I had quite a decent pace in the races, and I was able to move forward. It's tricky to overtake with these cars, so I knew it was always going to be difficult. We finished P18 in Race 1 on a drying track when we were on slicks. It was quite tough to overtake because there was only one dry line. In Race 2 I went from P22 to P14. Made a few good overtakes and had great pace. Unfortunately, qualifying really set us back. We need to work on that for Monza. It's going to be a crazy race and I'm really looking forward to it."
#56 - YUANPU CUI
"A really challenging weekend, but I'm really happy about my improvement and the team's support. It's been a bit unfortunate in the last race with the mixed conditions, but I'm delighted with the progress, and the team did amazing. Hopefully, we will get more opportunities in the future!"