Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Fortec Motorsports won both races at Oulton Park in the Dallara F317-based British Formula 4 iRacing Trophy Esports series.
Luke Browning took pole for the team in qualifying and led for all but a small stretch of the first race. His team-mate Christopher Lulham passed him off the line, but he was back ahead by Cascades and then had his position at the front secured by a safety car interruption.
That lasted until lap four of 14, and Browning handled the restart perfectly to remain ahead of Lulham. A gap of just under a second existed between them for the rest of the race, and Browning secured his third win of the virtual season.
Carlin was set to finish third and fourth with Zak O’Sullivan and Zane Maloney until the latter spun, promoting privateers Nico Varrone and Mikkel Grundtvig into fourth and fifth.
Johnathan Hoggard (Fortec) and Rafael Martins (Arden) were sixth and seventh, while outside of the points drivers deliberately slowed on the final lap to get a better starting spot for the reversed grid race two.
Another chaotic start led to another safety car appearance, and it was Maloney who emerged in the lead ahead of Double R Racing’s Nico Pino. But both ended up blowing their victory chances after the restart; Pino barrel rolled just a few corners after action resumed and Maloney spinning then colliding with two others.
Hoggard and Varrone moved into the top two places as a result, and lapped in peace for the rest of the race.
Far behind them was an impressive defensive drive by SMP F4 regular Alexey Nesov, who was completely new to the circuit and held off four cars for over half of the race to finish on the podium.
Carlin duo O’Sullivan and Christian Mansell finished on his gearbox, with the next Carlin car of Marijn Kremers and Arden’s Alex Connor dropping time on the final lap in sixth and seventh. Jamie Caroline, British F4 champion for Carlin in 2017, was the last car on the lead lap in eighth.
The title-contending Fortec duo were both involved in the chaos at the start, and it was Lulham who had the better recovery to claim a single point in 10th place. He now holds a three point lead over Browning.