Granfors scores fourth straight win in GB4 opener at Donington Park

Photo: Mat Acton

Fortec Motorsports’ Linus Granfors extended his GB4 points lead with a lights-to-flag victory in race one at Donington Park.

The Swede converted pole into a clear lead into Redgate, while fellow front-row starter Brandon McCaughan (KMR Sport) made a slow getaway and found himself in a three-wide battle into turn one with Fox Motorsport’s Liam McNeilly and Elite Motorsport’s fast-starting Finn Harrison.

McCaughan swept around the outside to maintain second ahead of McNeilly, while Harrison slipped back to fifth behind Burgyone before moving back past the KMR driver into Macleans.

Harrison’s team-mate Alisha Palmowski lost ground at the start from seventh, and while trying to reclaim a position from Graham Brunton Racing’s Callum Baxter ran wide at the Fogarty Esses and bounced over a sausage kerb. She was forced to pit with her car stuck in sixth gear at the end of the opening lap, eventually rejoining the race five laps down.

Granfors meanwhile held a 0.7s lead, and he slightly extended his advantage over McCaughan to one second over the next couple of laps. That margin remained the same until three laps to go, with McCaughan then closing to within 0.8s on the next tour before then halving the deficit by the start of the final lap.

But Granfors edged away once more to take the chequered flag 0.620s clear, while McNeilly marked the first race of his GB4 cameo appearance by finishing three seconds adrift in third. Privateer Marcus Luzio took fourth after passing Burgoyne at Goddards on lap five and then pulling away by four seconds.

Chloe Grant came home less than one second behind her KMR team-mate Burgoyne in sixth. An early excursion through the gravel at Fogarty dropped Harrison down the order, and he later prevailed in a frenetic battle with Fox Motorsport’s Branden Templeton before coming home seventh.

A lunge from Arden’s Leon Wilson on Templeton into the Melbourne hairpin allowed Baxter to sweep past the pair on the exit, and the Canadian remained ahead in eighth until the finish.

Race results (13 laps)