Petr Ptacek will make his single-seater racing debut this weekend when he travels to the Yas Marina Circuit to contest the opening round of the F4 UAE Championship.

The 15-year-old has signed up to tackle the Italian F4 Championship in 2018 and has made a positive start to his pre-season testing programme with BhaiTech Racing after driving at Misano, Vallelunga, Adria and Mugello.

But the KZ2 karting graduate is keen to get some competitive F4 mileage under his belt before the start of the new European season and traveling to Abu Dhabi will allow that to happen.

He’ll be driving for Rasgaira Motorsports this weekend and will be joined by two of his BhaiTech engineers at Yas Marina, the home of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“I’ve been pretty happy with how my F4 testing has gone but I’m keen to get on the track competitively now and start that side of my development,” Petr explained.

“I’ll be doing a full race weekend in Abu Dhabi and I’m expecting it to be a great experience. Yas Marina is an amazing circuit and it will be useful practice to work with two of the guys from BhaiTech during the races.”

Petr will kick off his debut F4 UAE weekend on Wednesday when he takes part in an official test. A 30-minute free practice session, a 20-minute qualifying session and a 30-minute race await Petr on Friday, before he tackles three further races on Saturday, each lasting 30 minutes.

Petr’s bid for success in the Italian F4 Championship will be supported by Eterna Watches, Bell Helmets, OMP Racing and Xeramic in 2018.

[Issued by Team]