
Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Arden’s Alex Connor topped the times in free practice for the first British Formula 4 round of the season at Donington Park.
Reigning Ginetta Junior champion James Hedley set the pace in FP1 for JHR Developments, and was quick for most of the second session but couldn’t match Connor’s pace at the end of the day’s running.
He quickly matched his FP1 time in the afternoon, setting a 1m08.436s lap, but couldn’t find any further improvements.
Second-year driver Connor lowered the benchmark laptime to 1m08.085s, over a quarter of a second ahead of Carlin’s Zak O’Sullivan – last year’s Ginetta Junior title runner-up – in second.
Hedley ended the day third quickest ahead of Fortec Motorsports’ returnees Luke Browning and Roberto Faria.
Faria ran into problems in the closing stages of FP1, bringing out the red flag when he ran off at the final chicane.
He was able to get back out in FP2 and was top of the order after the first 10 minutes, but dropped back to fifth by the chequered flag.
Carlin duo Christian Mansell and Matias Zagazeta took sixth and seventh. Late laps by Abbi Pulling (JHR), Casper Stevenson (Argenti Motorsport), and Nathanael Hodgkiss (JHR) brought them into the bottom of the top 10.
Stevenson’s day started badly, as his track time was severely limited in the morning and he only set a representative pace in the afternoon session.
Free practice results
Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Alex Connor | Arden | 1m08.085s | 48 | |
2 | Zak O’Sullivan | Carlin | 1m08.347s | +0.262s | 45 |
3 | James Hedley | JHR Developments | 1m08.436s | +0.351s | 40 |
4 | Luke Browning | Fortec Motorsports | 1m08.495s | +0.410s | 47 |
5 | Roberto Faria | Fortec Motorsports | 1m08.557s | +0.472s | 42 |
6 | Christian Mansell | Carlin | 1m08.693s | +0.608s | 41 |
7 | Matias Zagazeta | Carlin | 1m08.869s | +0.784s | 43 |
8 | Abbi Pulling | JHR Developments | 1m09.005s | +0.920s | 44 |
9 | Casper Stevenson | Argenti Motorsport | 1m09.034s | +0.949s | 29 |
10 | Roman Bilinski | Arden | 1m09.330s | +1.245s | 46 |
11 | Nathanael Hodgkiss | JHR Developments | 1m09.350s | +1.265s | 46 |
12 | Rafael Villagomez | Fortec Motorsports | 1m09.351s | +1.266s | 54 |
13 | Nico Pino | Argenti Motorsport | 1m09.526s | +1.441s | 37 |
14 | Reema Juffali | Argenti Motorsport | 1m09.672s | +1.587s | 50 |
15 | Frederick Lubin | Arden | 1m09.737s | +1.652s | 50 |