Fairclough on pole for British F4’s first overseas race at Zandvoort

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Deagen Fairclough will start British Formula 4’s first ever overseas race from pole position after going fastest in qualifying at Zandvoort.

The championship leader jumped to the top of the order midway through the session, and continued to improve his pace to claim pole for races one and three of the weekend.

His Hitech GP team-mate Reza Seewooruthun was second fastest overall, ahead of Virtuosi Racing duo Maxwell Dodds and Martin Molnar.

It was Molnar who set the pace in the opening laps on a wet track. He was soon knocked off the top spot by Chris Dittmann Racing’s Jessica Edgar, one of several F1 Academy racers cameoing in British F4 to gain experience of Zandvoort before racing there on the Dutch Grand Prix support bill.

Series regulars James Higgins and then Bart Harrison went fastest before a red flag period. At that point, Fairclough was down in 20th place, with title rival Alex Ninovic only three places higher on the timesheet. It was not long before that changed once qualifying restarted. 

Fairclough jumped to the top of the times with a 1m50.121s laps before red flags waved again for another incident. Higgins and Harrison sat second and third at the time of the second interruption.

The session resumed with a little over six minutes remaining. Both Fairclough and Ninovic improved their pace, with Fairclough setting an unbeatable 1m49.501s. Ninovic briefly jumped up to second before others found improvements.

Seewooruthun and Dodds were both able to lap sub-1m50s but could not challenge Fairclough.

Molnar was fourth quickest overall and second on the second-best laptimes. Yuanpu Cui was fifth, ahead of Kai Daryanani and Ernesto Rivera, the highest placed of those making their British F4 debut. Matus Ryba, Ella Lloyd and Ninovic completed the top 10.

Qualifying results