Kuumar Shyam (Abu Dhabi)
Rashid Al Dhaheri, the region's leading single-seat racing driver, competing in the fourth round of the Italian F4 Series at the challenging Mugello circuit near Florence in Italy, achieved his first series podium finish of this season. He came in third in the second race of the weekend, as well as recording the fastest lap of the race.
After initial struggles in the first three races, the Emirati driver, who did well in his rookie year in the past season, showed some of his touch and world-class potential as he brought home his Prema Racing car in the final podium position. The day before, Al Dhaheri had set the second-fastest time in the pre-race qualifying.
Each weekend has three races, and the outing in Mugello – home to the MotoGP and the Tuscan F1 Grand Prix – was the fourth out of the seven-round championship. With nine races to come, Al Dhaheri is a distant sixth compared to the top five, but this result gives him a lot of timely confidence after suffering two retirements.
"All the divers and cars are separated by just a few hundredths of seconds, so I really had to fight hard to make sure I achieved my third-place finish. Now that I have tasted success in Italy, I cannot wait for the next race and I know that my family, friends and my great team will be fully behind me as we head to France for the next race," the teenager, 16, said.
Starting this season on home turf, he narrowly missed out to his compatriot Keanu Al Azhari in the five-round UAE Championship. Yet it was a decent start to a full-scale Formula 4 programme this year, including the Italian F4 Championship and the Euro4 Championship.
Al Dhaheri compete in 37 races last year in addition to 45 testing days. Al Azhari is not competing in the Italian series while Al Dhaheri is out of the rookie league. His colleagues of this cohort – Alex Powell and Stolcermanis Tomass – have got good results and are topping the rookie charts respectively.
Last season, Al Dhaheri was a regular fixture on the rookie podium in the Italian F4 Championship as well as on the home championship front. The Mugello showing is the first main race podium for Al Dhaheri this season in Italy, the 11th in its history.
Before the fourth race, Al Dhaheri was trailing Tomass by one point, but a poor outing for the latter meant Dhaheri has now took his colleague's sixth position on the overall leaderboard while Tomass has slipped to eighth. Powell also exchanged places with Tomass in the rookie standings.
The Italian F4 series is considered as one of the strongest feeder formula series for F1, with over 36 aspiring drivers from more than 25 countries. In his second race day of the two-day meeting, Al Dhaheri also finished in a points scoring position, rounding off a very successful weekend.
The fifth of the Italian F4 Championship will take place on July 21 in southern France at the famous Paul Ricard circuit, where Rashid will be hoping to get even higher up the podium.