Irfan takes maiden British F4 victory at Silverstone

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Josh Irfan claimed his maiden British Formula 4 victory in a dominant performance at Silverstone. 

The Rodin Carlin driver jumped into the lead off the line and was unstoppable throughout the 10-lap race. 

In the final two laps, William Macintyre began to close the gap to Irfan, but could only get to 0.416 seconds behind before the chequered flag. 

It was an incident-free first race on Silverstone’s full Grand Prix layout for the series, once the race got underway. However, the start was delayed due to an issue on the grid for Kanato Le and Isaac Barashi, both of who to start from the pitlane. 

James Higgins, who started second on the grid behind Macintyre, got a good start once the race got underway, but it was Irfan who emerged on top.  

He pulled away from Macinytre, who blamed the aborted first start for causing his clutch to overheat and slow down his getaway second time around, as he led the four-car fight for second.

Macintyre had James Piszyck, Deagen Fairclough and Higgins close behind, and his defences enabled Irfan to break away and build a lead of 1.6s up front.

Daniel Guinchard joined the fight for second midway through the race, but the order wouldn’t change.  

Macintyre finished 0.8s ahead of Piszyck, and Fairclough was fourth on-the-road but a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits dropped him to sixth behind Higgins and Guinchard.  

Sonny Smith was handed a five-second penalty for the same reason and dropped from 17th to 19th. 

Noah Lisle spent the entire race defending against Gustav Jonsson for sixth. The battle led to a train of drivers forming behind Lisle by the end of the race, but he held on to his position. 

Patrick Heuzenroeder and Mika Abrahams completed the top 10. 

Pre-race points leader Louis Sharp could only finish 12th, which means second place was enough for Macintyre to move to the top of the championship standings.

Race results (10 laps)