Starting from pole position, Nakamura-Berta headed R-ace GP’s Italian Rookie category winner Emanuele Olivieri with Colombia’s Salim Hanna completing the podium for the Italy-based Prema squad.

The result was Nakamura-Berta’s second win of the season after the British driver finished first in the inaugural FIA FREC race at Austria’s Red Bull Ring in April.

UAE’s Rashid Al-Dhaheri, who had led the standings ahead of the Monza event, finished outside the points for the first time this season after contact dropped him back.

Nakamura-Berta’s latest triumph, in the first of three races scheduled during the ACI Racing Weekend, came on the back of a determined drive to fend off Olivieri, who briefly took the lead with a pass around the outside on the entry to the Variante del Rettifilo on lap 12, only to fall behind at the Variante della Roggia just seconds later.

“It feels incredible, I’ve been working really hard since the start of the season,” said Nakamura-Berta. “We’ve been quick at every round. Occasionally things haven’t went well for us and I’ve really wanted to come back on the top step. It’s really nice to do it here. Statistically it’s my best circuit, I really enjoy driving here. The team did an incredible effort, car has been incredible since the start of the week so we just keep it going. My experience around here is very, very helpful, doing two years of Italian F4 and understanding how to manage race here is vital as well. It’s a combination of a lot things and I did a few good corners as well.”

After sharing the front row of the grid with Nakamura-Berta, Olivieri was overtaken by Hanna at the start before he regained the position while braking for the Variante del Rettifilo on lap five.

“It's good to perform in my home race, the race was quite good for me and finally I’m having quite a solid weekend,” Olivieri (pictured below) said. “I tried to pressure on Kean and with fresh tyres we were quite fast. I was trying to save some of my push-to-pass [Race Mode]. I used a lot of it to overtake him and honestly we had a good fight, he did a good job and we brought some solid points home.”

Behind Hanna, Kazakhstan’s Alexander Abkhazava got the better of his MP Motorsport team-mate Sebastian Wheldon to finish fourth following contact with Al-Dhaheri at the Variante della Roggia on lap 10, as Wheldon crossed the line in fifth after an eventful race for the double FIA FREC winner.

Having run wide at the Variante della Roggia on lap one, the American fought back from 10th to challenge third-placed Hanna. But when Wheldon lost momentum running over the kerbs at the Variante del Rettifilo on the final lap, Abkhazava was able to snatch fourth as Chi Zhenrui (pictured bottom) made it three MP Motorsport cars in the top six.

Latvian Tomass Štolcermanis came through 16th on the grid to finish seventh for Prema Racing as Jan Przyrowski took eighth having lined up in 26th place. The RPM-run Pole set the fastest lap in the process. Reno Francot (CL Motorsport) and Gabriel Gomez (Rodin Motorsport) rounded out the top 10.

Volunteer marshals take centre stage during Safety Car intervention
Several volunteer marshals took centre stage to help recover six cars involved in a first-corner incident that resulted in the Toyota Yaris Safety Car being deployed for three laps (above). Mattéo Giaccardi, Francisco Macedo, Alex Ninovic, Maksimilian Popov, Yuki Sano and Reeza Seewooruthun were all forced to retire with damage following the multi-car collision, which was due to be investigated by the stewards after the race.

More action with FIA FREC Race 2 up next
Race 2, which features a reverse grid for the top 12 drivers from Qualifying 1, is scheduled to get under way at 16:30 local time. Qualifying 2 and Race 3 are due to take place at 08:30 and 13:00 respectively on Sunday. All races are set to run for 30 minutes plus one lap and will be streamed live on YouTube as well as being broadcast by 70 networks across 200 territories worldwide.

FIA FREC explained
Taking over from the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine (FRECA) for 2026, FIA FREC enjoys the full support of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the global governing body for motor sport and the federation for mobility organisations worldwide.

Positioned one step above Formula 4 in the FIA Single-Seater Pyramid, FIA FREC, which is organised by FIA Member Club Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI), caters exclusively for the second-generation Formula Regional Tatuus T 326. All-new for 2026, the Pirelli-equipped car has been developed by the Italian constructor in partnership with the FIA and follows the aerodynamic philosophy deployed in Formula 1 to encourage closer racing. Its design also represents another step in terms of performance and safety.

The second-generation Formula Regional Tatuus T 326 features the new Race Mode push to pass system, which allows drivers to trigger full engine performance for a period of time when activated by a button pressed from inside the cockpit. The amount of time depends on how many times the button is pressed but each driver has a total of 100 seconds available per race. Race Mode’s introduction for the 2026 FIA FREC season is the result of extensive research and development managed by the FIA.

Click HERE for results. Race 1 results remain provisional.