Kiwi youngster Louis Sharp wins in British F4 at Oulton Park

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Carlin’s Louis Sharp claimed his maiden British Formula 4 triumph in the third race at Oulton Park.

The 15-year-old qualified second but led within the first second of the race as Hitech GP’s poleman Alex Dunne was slow off the line and also lost a spot to JHR Developments’ Georgi Dimitrov as drops of rain landed on the track.

The pace between the top three was pretty equal at first, with Sharp fastest of the three but usually only by a tenth of a second per lap.

His lead, while usually growing, only grew to a second after 10 laps, and that was at the same time as Dunne set the fastest lap of the race in third place. There was only lap left after that, so it was still enough for Sharp to run without pressure from start to finish and earn his first victory ahead of Dimitrov who claimed his first non-reversed grid race podium in the series.

Third place for Dunne means his championship lead extends to 68 points over Ollie Gray, who with sixth place moves past his team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu for the runner-up spot in the standings. Ugochukwu started at the back of the grid and had made it up to 11th before being gifted a point for 10th place when Oliver Stewart retired from seventh on the last lap.

Virtuosi Racing had a race to forget, as Michael Shin lost his front wing on the formation lap then team-mate Edward Pearson got a puncture on lap one after Chris Dittmann Racing’s Joel Pearson made contact as he dived down his inside at the Island hairpin.

Joel Pearson picked up damage and later had an off at the chicane when he passed Joseph Loake, and ended up fighting his car all the way to a lowly 12th.

Race result (11 laps)