Home Formula 4British F4 Fairclough cruises to 13th British F4 victory at Brands Hatch

Fairclough cruises to 13th British F4 victory at Brands Hatch

by Bethonie Waring

Photo: British F4

Deagen Fairclough claimed a lights-to-flag victory in British Formula 4’s first race of the weekend on Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout.

Fairclough dominated proceedings and had a gap of more than six seconds when the safety car was brought out late on. An off for Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic had taken him out of the race and allowed team-mate James Higgins to close the gap to him in the battle to be championship runner-up.

The incident brought Reza Seewooruthun back onto the tail of Hitech GP team-mate Fairclough, but the race ended behind the safety car and so he could not fight for victory.

A good start for Fairclough took him out of reach on the opening lap. Leo Robinson in third also got a good getaway, but could not find a way past Seewooruthun and then came under attack from Ninovic.

With Robinson and Ninovic battling for third, Seewooruthun was able to pull away slightly, but failed to match Fairclough’s pace. The leader’s fastest lap was half a second quicker than Seewooruthun’s, and he did not put a wheel wrong on the way to his 13th victory of the season.

Ninovic continued to keep the pressure on Robinson for third, until his small but costly mistake. He ran slightly wide, putting him onto the damp grass so he lost grip. He then cut back across the track and ran into the barriers at Stirling, immediately ending his race.

The incident promoted everyone behind him up a position including Higgins. He had lost out to Jack Sherwood early in the race, dropping back to sixth. He could not find a way back past his Rodin team-mate, and he is now 65.5 points behind Ninovic.

Since an additional race has been added to this weekend’s schedule at notice, a rerunning of the race that got cancelled after one lap last time out at Silverstone, that means he can still usurp Ninovic in the standings.

Rowan Campbell-Pilling finished seventh, ahead of Bart Harrison and Kai Daryanani.

Race results (13 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Deagen Fairclough Hitech GP 22m04.063s
2 Reza Seewooruthun Hitech GP +0.282s
3 Leo Robinson JHR Developments +0.938s
4 Jack Sherwood Rodin Motorsport +1.205s
5 James Higgins Rodin Motorsport +1.715s
6 Rowan Campbell-Pilling Argenti Motorsport +2.139s
7 Bart Harrison Chris Dittmann Racing +3.209s
8 Kai Daryanani Fortec Motorsports +3.847s
9 Martin Molnar Virtuosi Racing +4.304s
10 Zack Scoular Xcel Motorsport +4.535s
11 Yuanpu Cui Argenti Motorsport +5.015s
12 Ella Lloyd JHR Developments +5.428s
13 Yuhao Fu Virtuosi Racing +6.312s
14 Nina Gademan Fortec Motorsports +7.446s
15 August Raber Xcel Motorsport +8.142s
16 Alex Berg Fortec Motorsports +8.876s
17 Chloe Chong JHR Developments +10.576s
18 Thomas Bearman Hitech GP +11.018s
19 Abbi Pulling Rodin Motorsport +11.305s
Ret Alex Ninovic Rodin Motorsport
Fastest lap: Fairclough, 1m24.397s

Championship standings
1
Fairclough 536   Ninovic 318   3 Higgins 252.5   4 Seewooruthun 243   5 Sherwood 226   6 Robinson 129   7 Abbi Pulling 122   8 Molnar 102   9 Cui 95   10 Campbell-Pilling 99