Olivieri Becomes Rookie Champion at Imola
- therookiereporters
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
The Italian driver converted his pole position into a victory, now putting him into the lead of the driver’s championship and making him the official FIA Formula Regional Europe Rookie Champion for 2026 on home soil.
On pole for Race 1 at Imola was Emanuele Olivieri, with a pole position on home soil. Current championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta and his teammate Tomass Stolcermanis were handed grid drops converted from time penalties they were given at Zandvoort but were unable to serve. Stolcermanis’ 5-second time penalty was converted into a 3-place grid and Nakamura-Berta’s 10-second penalty was converted to a 5-place grid drop.
Saeter was looking to inherit a front row start following the penalty Stolcermanis got, however he was disqualified from Q1 as decided by the stewards due to his front wing main plane being set 1mm too low, not meeting the regulations. RPM’s Miguel Costa was also handed a 5-place grid drop for failing to follow the single yellow flag protocol at Turn 12 during qualifying.
Following all the grid drops, joining Olivieri on the front row was MP Motorsport’s Sebastian Wheldon. The lights went out and it was time to race at Imola, an excellent start for home hero Olivieri who managed to create a gap between himself and Wheldon. Yellow flags waved as Al Dhaheri was off into the wall following a collision with the Prema of Tomass Stolcermanis who got front suspension damage, one of our championship contenders out.
With a safety car deployment, the grid was neutralised and race stewards had announced that the incident between Al Dhaheri and Stolcermanis would be investigated after the race. A great restart from Olivieri with Wheldon right on the back of him. Zhenrui Chi went off into the gravel trap.
For the second time in this race, the safety car came out, this time for the Rodin of Alex Ninovic, another driver that was within the top-7 of the championship. With 11 minutes left on the restart, Wheldon got away well, almost going side by side with Olivieri for the lead.
Two minutes later, yellow flags were waved again, for the RPM of Miguel Costa who ended up in the gravel trap. A trifecta of safety cars so far.
Olivieri had a great restart the third time round, building the gap to Wheldon but with just over a minute to go, yellow flags were waved again with the cars of Jan Przyrowski, Andrija Kostic, Marcus Saeter and Rene Lammers going off.
The race was to finish under safety car conditions and this now meant that Olivieri would take the championship lead. Winning Race 1 at Imola was Olivieri ahead of Sebastian Wheldon and rounding off the podium was Alexandre Munoz.
Emanuele Olivieri was crowned FIA Formula Regional European Championship Rookie Champion on home soil, a massive congratulations goes out to the Italian driver.
Article written by Ria Wiktor ©️ Ria Wiktor 2026
