Fairclough tops British F4 test at Brands Hatch, Blakeley quickest in GB4

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

British Formula 4 and GB4 tested together at Brands Hatch on Wednesday ahead of their respective season finales over the next two weekends, and Deagen Fairclough was fastest overall.

Hitech GP’s newly-crowned British F4 champion set a 1m24.798s to end the day over a quarter of a second clear of Rodin Motorsport duo Alex Ninovic and Jack Sherwood.

Having confirmed at the start of the day that he had raised enough budget to continue racing this weekend with KMR Sport, Lucas Blakeley was the fastest GB4 competitor in fourth ahead of Fortec Motorsports’ points leader Linus Granfors.

Blakeley led the the first of the day’s three sessions with a 1m25.531s before being pipped late on by Rodin’s James Higgins, who posted a 1m25.281s to top the times. Fairclough was 0.092s behind Higgins, with fellow British F4 rival and Xcel Motorsport driver Zack Scoular in fourth.

Ninovic lowered the pace to 1m25.046s in session two to lead team-mates Sherwood, Higgins and Abbi Pulling, with Fairclough best of the rest.

Fairclough set his test-topping time in session three to lead Ninovic, who was also second in the overall classification despite not bettering his personal best from session two. Hitech’s line-up also included recently crowned F4 Central European Zone champion Oscar Wurz.

In GB4, Elite Motorsport’s title contender Alisha Palmowski was Blakeley’s nearest challenger in session one despite being over half a second slower than him, with Granfors over 0.8s off the pace in third.

Finn Harrison led an Elite one-two ahead of Palmowski in session two, though neither could beat Blakeley’s session one benchmark for GB4. Blakeley then lowered the pace to 1m25.139s in the final session, with Granfors also setting his best time to leapfrog ahead of Harrison and Palmowski.

KMR’s Harry Burgoyne Jr, who also remains in title contention, was the seventh quickest GB4 runner.

Test results