Nicolas Todt’s protege Caio Collet and Moroccan karting sensation Sami Taoufik will make their single-seater debuts in this weekend’s Formula 4 UAE round at Dubai Autodrome.

Collet is already down for doing French F4 this year, and the Brazilian will make gain some valuable race experience with the Energy Dubai team.

The UAE and French championships use different machinery, with Todt making the step up to single-seaters in a Tatuus chassis, as used in the Italian, German and North European championships, before switching over to a Mygale car when he races in France.

Taoufik was the rookie winner in the OK Class of the 2017 CIK-FIA European karting championship, the first year in which 15-year-olds were allowed to compete, and will also be making his debut with Energy Dubai.

They will be joined at the team by Italian karting champion Marzio Moretti, while German Leon K?hler, the 2017 CIK-FIA European KZ2 champion, will be making his first appearance in cars with Rasgaria with US Racing.

Hungarian Laszlo Toth will take over the DR Formula seat previously occupied by Edoardo Morricone.

Collet topped Thursday’s test by 0.073 seconds over fellow car racing rookie Kohler.

Caldwell to concentrate on European ambitions

Olli Caldwell, who currently sits third in the 2017-18 F4 UAE standings with Energy Dubai with three wins to his name, will not make a return to British F4 this year, having revealed he wants to concentrate his efforts on European tracks.

The 15-year-old Briton contested part-seasons in the German, Italian and British championships in 2017, having not reached his 15th birthday until June, and ended the year with a best result of sixth in the final race of the Italian F4 season.

“We decided we are going to do the full German and Italian series and focus on those, rather than, say, the British and the Italian,” said Caldwell, who is also planning to test Formula 3 machinery later this year.

“I decided to do that because the tracks I’ll be driving on are where I’ll be driving at a later point, perhaps in F3.

“It makes sense to race at them now. The more laps I can do, the more prepared I’ll be, especially as when you go up the testing is more limited.”