Formula Regional Middle East race winner Nikhil Bohra heads into 2025 on the sidelines after two difficult years in FR Europe with Trident and MP, which yielded only one podium and a best points finish of 12th.

By Marco Albertini

Born in New York City, Nikhil Bohra spent his early years in Bangalore before moving to Singapore. His interest in cars began early and at his eighth birthday party, on his first outing in karts, he impressed a karting team. 

“When I was 8, I wanted to have my birthday party at a local go-karting track and brought some friends over and there was a team there, which was testing for the [Indian] National Championship,” said Bohra.

“At some point, the team’s coach was talking to my dad saying ‘This kid is quite quick, has he ever driven before?’. After that, I started training with that team and then I raced in the Indian National Karting Championship before moving to Singapore, racing in the Asian championship.”

Rising up to Formula 4 following a sabbatical

After not racing throughout 2020 and a majority of 2021, Bohra made his F4 debut in the final round of that year’s ADAC Formula 4 season at the Nurburgring, where he achieved a best result of 12th in race two.

During the winter of 2022, Bohra competed in the Formula 4 UAE Championship with 3Y by R-ace GP. Despite a slow start to the season, the Singaporean-licenced driver scored points three times and ended the season with a fifth-place finish in Yas Marina.

After ending the winter on a high, Bohra turned his attention to Italian F4, where he competed for US Racing. Following a challenging start, Bohra found form at Spa-Francorchamps, becoming a regular points scorer and achieving a season-best fourth place at the Red Bull Ring.

Bohra in Italian F4 | Credit: ACI Sport

Reflecting on the transition from karts to F4, Bohra said: “It was difficult, but it wasn’t like most other drivers, because during Covid I stopped racing, I didn’t have the muscle memory from karting, so starting F4 was kind of hard and especially in the racing, I was rusty from having no racing experience and that took some time to come but the year wasn’t so bad to be honest.”

Moving up to Formula Regional

Stepping up to FR Middle East for the 2023 season and reuniting with R-ace GP, Bohra kicked off the year by winning in Dubai and finishing second in the following round in Kuwait. The second half of the winter though, proved to be the opposite, only achieving a fifth-place finish and three more points finishes, ending the season ninth in points.

Returning to Europe for the rest of the year, he joined Trident for his first season in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine. Starting the season on a strong note with a third-place finish in just his second race in the championship, the Indian-American was scoreless for the next four rounds, before taking fifth place in the second Red Bull Ring race.

Bohra on the Imola podium | Credit: FRECA / ACI Sport

In the last three rounds of the season, Bohra achieved a fourth-place result in Monza and scored three more points finishes, enabling him to end the season, 12th in the standings, as the best Trident driver.

This year, Bohra joined MP Motorsport for a dual campaign in the Formula Regional Middle East and European championships. In the Middle East, Bohra had a challenging start to the season but scored a win at Dubai and finished 12th in the standings after a handful of top-10 results.

His sophomore season in FR Europe only saw him score two points in a season where MP struggled to match their previous year’s results, finishing no higher than sixth across the 20 races.

Speaking of the season at Mugello, he said: “It’s been a really difficult season for sure, on paper the rookie season was better than this. We’ve struggled a bit, the first four rounds have been pretty tricky but we never stop pushing, this weekend we made a step but the results don’t show it, there’s more to come, for sure.”

Following his difficult sophomore FRECA season, Bohra looks to be on the sidelines for 2025.

Header image credit: Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine