Trident takes fifth place with De Palo at Imola

The eleventh race of the season, part of the sixth round of the Formula Regional European by Alpine championship, on home soil at Imola, and an eleventh positive result. Matteo De Palo and Trident Motorsport continue their positive season, which sees the Roman driver in second place overall in the championship standings. Having qualified third in Group B, equivalent to fifth overall, De Palo finished in the same position. Matteo is the only driver in the category to have finished in the top ten at every race. 

Also crossing the line were Ruiqi Liu, starting 15th and finishing 14th, and Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi, who moved up from 22nd to 16th. Race 1 was also interrupted after a few laps with a red flag due to a bad track excursion by Hiyu Yamakoshi, which fortunately resulted in no injuries for the Japanese driver.

Matteo De Palo: “It hasn’t been the best Saturday for us, we struggled to keep up with the front runners. Today, however, we made the most of what was possible, and from that point of view we can be satisfied. Already from free practice we were facing some difficulties, but we worked well and step by step managed to bring home a decent result. Let’s see if tomorrow we can take another step forward and aim for the podium”.

Ruiqi Liu: “Starting from qualifying, the pace was quite strong, but I was a bit unlucky with the track position. I had too much traffic in the two push laps, so I couldn't show my full potential. In the race, I started in P15 and on the first lap I ended up in the gravel, so I dropped all the way to the back. After that, I managed to recover to P14. I hope tomorrow will be better”.

Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi: “It’s been a tough weekend for me right from the start. Qualifying was very difficult, and we struggled to find good pace in the race. There’s a lot to analyse, and hopefully things will go better tomorrow”.