Fairclough scores record-breaking British F4 win in wet

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Deagen Fairclough took a record-breaking 12th victory of the British Formula 4 season with a lights-to-flag display in the final race on Silverstone’s National layout.

Wet conditions meant the race started behind the safety car, and an intervention by it midway through the race disrupted running. Most of the field managed to keep their cars on track, however, with all but one driver finishing.

As in the first race of the weekend, Fairclough dominated proceedings. He managed a good getaway on the rolling start after the first safety car period to keep Rodin Motorsport’s battling James Higgins and Alex Ninovic.

The newly-crowned champion did not have much time to escape down the road before the safety car bunched up the field again – this time for separate incidents involving Ninovic and Matus Ryba and led to the former retiring.

On the restart, Higgins and Martin Molnar tried to stay with Fairclough but could not keep with his pace. By the chequered flag, he had extended a gap of 6.6 seconds to Higgins, who was comfortably ahead of Molnar.

Zack Scoular and Jack Sherwood spent the race fighting for fourth, with Gustav Jonsson and Reza Seewooruthun joining the battle at times. Scoular initially had the advantage, but Sherwood came through to take the position and began to close the gap to those ahead late on. He ran out of laps before he could get to within fighting distance of Molnar and had to settle for fourth, with Scoular coming home fifth.

After starting 10th, Seewooruthun came through to finish sixth, ahead of Harri Reynolds, Jonsson and Alex Berg. The top 10 was completed by Yuhao Fu, taking his first top-10 finish of the season. 

The race started with two less cars than intended after a significant accident earlier in the day. The reversed-grid race was set to start with Thomas Bearman on pole, but a stall on the grid in wet conditions led to a multi-car accident. Three other drivers were involved in the crash, including Rowan Campbell-Pilling who joined Bearman in being unable to contest the final race of the weekend.

The crash led to a red flag period, during which time the rain only became heavier. Officials attempted to start the race after a brief safety car period, but conditions were too treacherous and the race was red flagged and abandoned.

Race results (17 laps)