Harfield takes his and Chris Dittmann Racing’s first British F4 victory

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Chris Dittmann Racing’s Tommy Harfield claimed his and his team’s first British Formula 4 win in race one of the weekend on Donington Park’s Grand Prix layout.

Harfield achieved the feat from pole position, also his first, and finished 1.979 seconds ahead of Hitech GP’s championship leader Fionn McLaughlin.

Dries Van Langendonck joined Harfield on the front row, but the Rodin Motorsport driver stalled at the start of his first ever car race and fell to the back of the field.

Everybody managed to avoid his stationary car and Virtuosi Racing’s Martin Molnar gained one spot as he moved up to second. Molnar stayed close to Harfield, lapping quicker than him early on. But the leader did not put a wheel wrong and there were no opportunities to make an overtake.

Behind, McLaughlin had taken third from team-mate Thomas Bearman on lap one and set the fastest lap as he closed in on Molnar. In the closing laps, the pair began battling for position. A late lunge by Mclaughlin on the penultimate lap put him ahead, and when Molnar tried unsucessfully to fight back it allowed Harfield to make a gap up front on the final lap.

Multiple drivers visited the pits during the race. The first were Xcel Motorsport’s Chase Fernandez and Argenti Motorsport’s Henry Mercier. The former needed a whole new wheel, while the latter had a broken front wing. At the same time, JHR Developments’ Rowan Campbell-Pilling was circulating very slowly and he eventually made it to the pits with a puncture. 

A few laps later, a black-and-orange flag summoned Xcel’s Yuhao Fu in due to front wing damage.

After his early battle with McLaughlin, Bearman also ran into problems. He had been battling with Fortec Motorsports’ Ary Bansal to keep fourth, and when Bansal got alongside him there was contact that damaged both drivers’ cars.

That promoted Rodin’s James Piszcyk to fourth ahead of a close battle for fifth. Argenti’s August Raber held the position but had Fortec’s Henry Joslyn and Argenti team-mate Ethan Jeff-Hall close behind. Raber held on and then closed in on Piszcyk late in the race. 

Adam Al Azhari and Cole Hewetson were the next finishers on-the-road, but Hewetson was penalised five seconds for a start infringement and Jeff-Hall got the same penalty for track limits abuse. That promoted Al Azhari to seventh, ahead of Jeff-Hall, Virtuosi’s debuting Alexander Savinkov and Hewetson.

Van Langendonck managed to climb up to 14th by the chequered flag.

Race results (22 laps)