Misano, great Trident victory with De Palo in the first race of the season
The 2025 season of the Trident team in the Formula Regional European by Alpine championship could not have started better. Maurizio Salvadori's team achieved its first victory in a series where it has been competing since 2022. It did so with Matteo De Palo, the Italian driver who in the first qualifying session of the weekend achieved the best time in Group A, which allowed him to start from the front row.
De Palo got off to a great start from second place, putting the poleman in difficulty. In the lead at the first corner, he then managed the 17 scheduled laps like a champion, winning his first race in the Regional by Alpine with a good margin over his rivals. For Trident it is a special day, which confirms the good work done in recent years by the team led by Luca Zerbini. A constant growth culminated with this splendid success.
Maurizio Salvadori: “Today was a bit of a surprise. Of course, we were hoping for the win, but starting alongside us on the front row was Slater. He’s a tough driver to beat or even keep behind, as he already showed last year in Formula 4. Then the race unfolded the way it did, and our race pace was outstanding. Matteo drove flawlessly from start to finish and gradually pulled out a gap of over two seconds. We’re really happy with the result and we’re looking ahead to tomorrow when we hope we can do it again.”
Matteo De Palo: “We showed strong performance already in free practice, we just needed to put everything together for qualifying, and we managed to do that this morning. We were a bit unlucky with the group, starting first when the track was slower, so we didn’t really have a chance to fight for the overall pole. Luckily, the start was amazing. I managed to get alongside Slater, and in Turn 1 I gave everything to get in front because that was the only opportunity to take the lead on a track like this, where overtaking is tough. The pace was incredible, the car was there, and I feel like I drove well too. I just had to focus on doing my job and bringing the result home”.
Ruiqi Liu: “The qualifying session was not maximised from my side, I think there’s more potential in the car and in the driving, I just need to put everything together, and I will try to make that happen tomorrow. I have to prepare to obtain a good position on the grid because the track is really tricky, the traffic impacts the speed and I had a lot of understeer in the car because of the dirty air. But I think that the race pace was quite good, we need to be more focused in qualifying tomorrow, to have a better starting position”.
Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi: “It was a bit of a difficult race but at the same time quite a boring one for me. Qualifying didn’t go as planned with the car we have. Putting everything together we can do a better result tomorrow. At the same time, in this track it’s very difficult to overtake, especially with dirty air. So, even I am pretty, I basically get stuck there for the whole session. It’s not the first race I hoped for, but we’ve done many good things and have some positives to take away from today. Let’s go for tomorrow”.