Sixteen-year-old Australian Jack Beeton leads the Formula 4 South East Asia Championship after placing second overall at the latest round, held at Sepang in Malaysia.

For the second championship round after the non-championship round in Macau, Beeton was joined at AGI Sport by fellow Australians Peter Bouzinelos and Nicolas Stati in their International racing car debuts.

Beeton qualified third behind the two Italian Prema Racing cars after his two out of three win at the opening Zhuzhou, China round a fortnight earlier. Bouzinelos was 10th and Stati 15th.

Beeton finished the first race over 13 laps in third, behind two French R-ACE GP drivers Hadrien David and Raphel Narac. Stati finished 14th and Bouzinelos 18th.

The top 10 finishers were reversed for the start of Race 2. After a great start, Beeton was pushed wide at Turn 2 before he recovered to finish fifth. His teammates Stati and Bouzinelos finished 11th and 12th respectively.

Rain came as the cars gridded for Race 3 and the start was delayed. On full wets and with little visibility due to the tyre spray, Beeton was able to improve from sixth to fourth. Bouzinelos improved to 11th while Stati was 14th.

Beeton leads the SE Asian F4 Championship by 13 points over France’s Hadrien David who won each of the three races.

The last round of the championship will also be at the Sepang circuit on December 1-3.