Higgins leads top three split by 0.044s in Brands Hatch’s bumper F4 test

Photo: Rodin Motorsport

James Higgins narrowly topped the times in a bumper Formula 4 test at Brands Hatch on Tuesday.

In total 28 drivers from the British F4 championship and from GB4 took to the circuit’s Grand Prix layout for four sessions.

An unrepresentative pace was set in the sole morning session, with Reza Seewooruthun leading a Hitech GP lockout of the top three positions. His 1m39.041s effort on his sixth and final lap put him 0.355 seconds ahead of Deagen Fairclough, with Mika Abrahams 1.159s off the pace. Rodin Motorsport’s Jack Sherwood was best of the rest in fourth and the only other driver within two seconds of Seewooruthun.

Eighth fastest overall and the top of the GB4 runners, who use first-generation F4 chassis, was KMR Sport’s Harry Burgoyne Jr.

Chloe Chong, Emily Cotty, Dan Hickey and Alex Ninovic all did several laps but since they were all outlaps they had no laptimes next to their names.

Rodin driver Ninovic lowered the pace to 1m36.261s in session two, although it again hard to call that representative, and he topped the times by 0.266s over Fairclough. This time 0.7s covered the top seven, and Elite Motorsport’s Alisha Palmowski was the top GB4 driver in ninth.

There were big gains in session three for every single driver, with laptimes more than 11s faster than before. Rodin’s Higgins stamped his mark on the session, setting a 1m25.173s to be quickest by 0.39s. Fairclough was second fastest, and Abrahams was 0.437s behind in third. The pace difference between the first and second-generation F4 cars was clearer to see this time, with Palmowski’s 1m27.093s lap making her the fastest GB4 driver by 0.049s over team-mate Finn Harrison but only 15th fastest overall and 1.92s off the pace.

Fairclough and Hickey missed the final session, and although Higgins was fastest again he was actually the only driver on track not to set their personal best laptime as he came just 0.017s short of matching the pace he reached in session three.

This time his advantage was trimmed to 0.012s (equating to 0.029s when compared to his earlier benchmark) and Ninovic was his closest rival. Argenti Motorsport’s Yuanpu Cui was only 0.015s further back, with 10 drivers lapping within 0.73s of Higgins. Burgoyne ended the day as the top GB4 driver in 13th overall, 0.861s off the pace but a comfortable 0.28s ahead of Palmowski.

Test results