It was a battle filled Formula Middle East race held as part of the 2013 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix last weekend, where Emil Bernstorff took the chequered win. The Briton completed 10 laps in 23 minutes 24.372 seconds finishing the race ahead of Alban Varutti and Michela Cerruti in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Bernstorff made a clean start, keeping his competitors at bay as the lights went out. Behind him, Varutti managed to stay close and had a good look on the inside at turn one but was not able to find a way past. Behind the race leaders, Cerruti had a bad start, dropping down the order to eighth before managing to make her way up the grid. By the end of the opening lap, the Italian was able to move up to fifth and had a heated five-way battle with Mohammed Mattar, Saed Al Mehairi, Paul Stanley and Abdulla Al Thawadi.
Thawadi, who started in ninth, had a good start and kept up with the pace. The fast five changed positions numerous times over six laps, even driving three abreast into the turns and by the end of lap six, Cerruti was ahead of Al Mehairi, Stanley, Thawadi and Mehairi. Meanwhile, Fauzi Dib Saad and Ali Al Khalifa had a two-way battle for eighth, whilst behind them, Adeeb Kuzbar and Christophe Mariot fought for tenth. Towards the end of lap two, Kuzbar made a mistake and spun. He rejoined at the tail end of the pack. On lap seven, Ali Al Khalifa, who was in ninth made a mistake and spun at the turn before the back straight, stalling his car in a dangerous position and causing the Safety Car to be called out. This allowed the various gaps to be closed with one lap to go. At the restart, Cerruti immediately tried a manoeuvre on Varutti but decided to play safe and maintain her third position. Bernstorff kept his lead from pole to claim the win.
Formula Middle East will continue with Race 2 on Sunday, 21 April at 12.15pm. Formula Middle East is an initiative led by the BIC in partnership with Series Promoter Motorsport Asia along with the unrivalled expertise of Eurointernational, the most successful Team in the history of Formula BMW and JKRAS, who will prepare the grid of identical Mygale-built FB02 single-seat racing cars for potential Formula 1™ stars of the future.
