Fairclough fastest in British F4 test on Brands Hatch’s Indy layout

Photo: British F4

Hitech GP’s Deagen Fairclough was fastest in British Formula 4’s pre-season test day on Brands Hatch’s Indy layout.

It was a super competitive test, with just 0.48 seconds covering the top 17 on pace at the end of the day.

Argenti Motorsport’s Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Yuanpu Cui was on top session one, setting a 45.034s lap to lead team-mate Rowan Campbell-Pilling by 0.139s. Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic was a further 0.037s behind in third, his team-mate Jack Sherwood was 0.218s off the pace in fourth and just 0.002s ahead of Fortec Motorsports’ Kai Daryanani.

Fairclough lowered the pace to 44.714s in session two, and was fastest by 0.203s over Virtuosi Racing’s Maxwell Dodds. Just 0.057s covered second to fifth place, with Campbell-Pilling, Chris Dittmann Racing’s Brt Harrison and Cui completing the top five.

Rodin’s Abbi Pulling was 0.856s off the pace in 18th, while Argenti’s Emily Cotty struggled to lap at pace and Virtuosi’s Martin Molnar was absent. Ninovic, Pulling and Rodin’s James Higgins were the only drivers to go slower than in session one.

Fairclough found even more pace in session three, improving to 44.660s. Higgins was 0.15s behind in second, and Campbell-Pilling was 0.252s back in third. Once again less than 0.9s covered the top 18, and there were seven non-improvers including Harrison and Cui.

Half of the field improved in session four, with Fairclough making a slim 0.037s gain on his session three pace to lead Ninovic by 0.114s and Molnar by 0.162s. Dodds and Pulling were also within 0.2s of him, and the only driver more than a second off the pace was Cotty.

Higgins and Campbell-Pilling ended the test fifth and ninth fastest overall based on their session three times, with Harrison slipping down to 11th (but matching his session two pace in session four) and Cui only 13th despite topping last month’s test day at Brands Hatch and a test at Silverstone last week.

Test results