Formula 4 UAE Championship
James Wharton has moved to the top of the Formula 4 UAE Championship standings after a highly productive weekend in the penultimate round at the Dubai Autodrome.
 
Wharton secured three podiums from three races with a challenging weekend for title contender American Ugo Ugochukwu seeing the Victorian move to the overall championship lead.
 
Ahead of this weekend’s season finale, Wharton now holds a six-point advantage over 2022 Ferrari Driver Academy winner Tuukka Taponen after the Fin claimed a clean sweep of wins.
 
The two were neck-and-neck for the whole round and produced very similar times throughout, however it was Taponen who held the advantage in each affair, while Wharton managed to claim the fastest lap time in the third and final race of the round.
 
That same race was Wharton’s lowest finish for the meeting as he picked up runner-up placings in the first two races, before rounding out the podium in the final race of the weekend. 


 
Fellow Aussies James Piszcyk and Jack Beeton both enjoyed their strongest weekends in the championship thus far, with the former picking up two top 10 finishes, while the latter claimed his first points of the season.
 
A solid qualifying run for Piszcyk helped him get his best result for the year as he defended well throughout the race to reach the chequered flag in fifth place. 
 
Although he dropped out of the points for the second race, the New South Welshman bounced back in the finale to hold off Ugochukwu for much of the outing and cross the line in ninth. 
 
Beeton’s strongest result for the round came in that middle race where the youngster picked up a solid seventh place, gaining his first points of the year – however a DNF in the final race proved a disappointing end to a weekend of promise. 
 
Noah Lisle also had a forgettable weekend – his opening race P15 ending up his best result for the round as he didn’t finish the middle race and placed 19th in the final race of the round.
 
The Championship wraps up this weekend with the final round to take place at the famous Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. 


 
2023 Formula Winter Series
Gianmarco Pradel has enjoyed a solid debut in Europe on the weekend, claiming an outright podium in the Spanish Formula 4 Championship’s Winter series season opner.
 
Taking place at Circuito de Jerez in Southern Spain, the four-round series serves as pre-season competition before the main championship begins in May.
 
Racing for German outfit US Racing as its sole rookie, Pradel had an impressive start on debut as he was quick to get on top of the challenging Spanish circuit throughout both of the round’s races.
 
Starting strong, Pradel ended up finishing the opening race of the round with an overall podium behind teammates Kacper Sztuka and Frederik Lund, while beating Tina Hausmann to take out rookie honours. 
 
In the second race, Pradel managed to secure a top five finish, however he ended up falling behind Hausmann and settling for second for the rookies. 
 
Pradel now sits just behind Hausmann in fifth on the standings after she picked up an overall podium in the second race.
 
The Formula Winter Series continues this weekend at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in the Eastern Spanish town of Cheste.


FIA World Rally Championship (WRC)
 
Dale Moscatt’s official return to the WRC has been completed after the Aussie called the notes for Raken Al-Rashed at Rally Sweden over the weekend.
 
With the duo running a WRC2 campaign together in 2023, their first round as partners started off well having finished 34th overall after 18 completed stages.
 
Their strongest day for the event was on Friday as they picked up their three best stage results during the middle part of the day. 
 
An event-high P20 on the event’s fifth stage saw them climb to P28 on the standings to begin a solid run of stage results as they finished 24th on SS6 and 25th on SS7 and moving up a place on the overall standings. 
 
Unfortunately, an issue on the final stage of Friday saw the duo undo all that good work as they placed 45th on the stage that resulted in them dropping to 43rd overall.
 
A consistent day on Saturday with plenty of mid-20 and high 30 placings, including a day-high 25th on the penultimate stage, saw them finish the day back up the rankings in P38. 
 
Al-Rashed’s inexperience at the top level was highlighted on the final day as two placings in the 40s either side of a 29th was a challenging end the weekend.
 
Despite the tough run, the duo still climbed some positions throughout the day to finish 34th overall. 
 
The FIA World Rally Championship’s next round is the Guanajuato Rally Mexico on 16-19 March.