Fortec’s Henry Joslyn fastest in final pre-season British F4 test day

Photo: British F4

British Formula 4’s pre-season finished at Oulton Park on Tuesday, with Fortec Motorsports’ Henry Joslyn setting the pace.

A three-hour session kicked off the action, and Rodin Motorsport’s James Piszcyk was initially fastest. He lapped in the 1m25s, and when Hitech GP’s Leo Robinson brought the pace down into the 1m24s he was only on top for 23 seconds before Piszcyk moved back ahead with a 1m23.799s.

Argenti Motorsport’s Ethan Jeff-Hall was in his slipstream and went even faster, setting a 1m23.368s.

Robinson responded on his next lap, going fastest by 0.148s, but Piszcyk also had more in hand and broke into the 1m22s. This time he was not quite handing a rival a tow, but Argenti’s August Raber was close behind and comfortably went quickest when he crossed the line.

This trend continued over the next few laps on a busy track, as Piszcyk, Robinson and Jeff-Hall traded first place until Joslyn got involved. He set a 1m21.258s, and when his rivals finished their laps they could not beat him.

On his next attempt Raber did, but only by 0.044s, and the first runs were completed. Having been late leaving the pits, Robinson completed his run later and with successive improvements set two new benchmarks and the day’s first sub-1m21s lap.

His 1m20.939s went unbeaten for 35 minutes, and when he was demoted to second by Raber it was by just 0.014s. Robinson and Raber then began a tit-for-tat battle to be fastest, and the former prevailed with a 1m20.481s set towards the end of the session’s first half.

There was no change at the top for a further 45 minutes before Joslyn embarked on his third run. In the middle of it he made a big gain to 1m20.363s, then found a further 0.214s a few laps later to end the session as fastest.

Raber got within 0.183s of him on his penultimate lap, with Virtuosi Racing’s Martin Molnar trailing by 0.211s. Robinson was fourth, making a tiny gain late on, with team-mate Fionn McLaughlin fifth. Little over a tenth of a second separated him from Chris Dittmann Racing’s Tommy Harfield in 10th place.

McLaughlin and Piszcyk were among the five drivers who failed to improve in session two, which ran for three-and-a-half hours.

Xcel Motorsport’s Chase Fernandez headed out early and set a 1m20.792s, and half an hour later JHR Developments’ Joel Bergstrom went under that benchmark twice. The new laptime to beat was 1m20.599s, which Jeff-Hall soon did by 0.06s.

Joslyn was next to lead the way, and did so for nine minutes before JHR’s Rowan Campbell-Pilling set a 1m20.345s. That proved harder to outdo, which Raber eventually did 36 minutes on. The session one benchmark remained out of reach though until just before the final hour of testing, when Joslyn posted a 1m20.107s.

On his final run at day’s end he improved several more times and a 1m19.782s put him 0.088s ahead of Raber. Harfield was 0.204s behind, and a second covered the top 15.

Test results