Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
JHR Developments’ Joseph Loake was the pacesetter in both of British Formula 4’s free practice sessions on Silverstone’s National layout on Friday.
The expanded 20-car field had been on track the day before for four test sessions, and were back out again on Friday morning.
Several drivers appeared at the top of the times in FP1, including the returning Fortec Motorsports’ debutant James Higgins, Argenti Motorsport’s Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Daniel Guinchard, Hitech GP’s points leader Alex Dunne, Williams junior Ollie Gray and his Carlin team-mate Louis Sharp.
In the final 10 minutes it came down to a fight between Dunne and Loake for top spot, and Loake prevailed by 0.109 seconds with a 54.898s lap.
He was able to improve on that in the afternoon session, as Dunne once again was his closest opponent and set a 54.495s lap in the middle of FP2 that looked unlikely to be beaten until Loake went faster by 0.015s with his penultimate lap of the day.
Every driver set their best lap of the day in FP2, and the highest-placed of this weekend’s debutants was Higgins in 13th.
In addition to several track sessions on Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout before the season finale there on October 8/9, British F4 has organised further running for teams with a test at Snetterton on October 27/28.
Dubbed the ‘New Driver Test’, it aims to attract drivers who are looking to compete in British F4 next season but have not raced in the series this year.
Free practice results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gaps | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joseph Loake | JHR Developments | 54.480s | 50 | |
| 2 | Alex Dunne | Hitech GP | 54.495s | +0.015s | 43 |
| 3 | Ugo Ugochukwu | Carlin | 54.562s | +0.082s | 40 |
| 4 | Aiden Neate | Argenti Motorsport | 54.583s | +0.103s | 41 |
| 5 | Georgi Dimitrov | JHR Developments | 54.591s | +0.111s | 50 |
| 6 | Ollie Gray | Carlin | 54.634s | +0.154s | 41 |
| 7 | Daniel Guinchard | Argenti Motorsport | 54.647s | +0.167s | 51 |
| 8 | Marcos Flack | Fortec Motorsports | 54.696s | +0.216s | 57 |
| 9 | Edward Pearson | Virtuosi | 54.737s | +0.257s | 50 |
| 10 | Eduardo Coseteng | Hitech GP | 54.744s | +0.264s | 41 |
| 11 | Oliver Stewart | Hitech GP | 54.810s | +0.330s | 41 |
| 12 | Adam Fitzgerald | Argenti Motorsport | 54.842s | +0.362s | 40 |
| 13 | James Higgins | Fortec Motorsports | 54.849s | +0.369s | 60 |
| 14 | Louis Sharp | Carlin | 54.873s | +0.393s | 43 |
| 15 | Noah Lisle | JHR Developments | 54.975s | +0.495s | 55 |
| 16 | Jack Sherwood | Chris Dittmann Racing | 55.067s | +0.587s | 50 |
| 17 | Michael Shin | Virtuosi | 55.093s | +0.613s | 48 |
| 18 | Jaden Pariat | Chris Dittmann Racing | 55.175s | +0.695s | 50 |
| 19 | Daniel Mavlyutov | Hitech GP | 55.384s | +0.904s | 46 |
| 20 | Isaac Barashi | Argenti Motorsport | 55.459s | +0.979s | 56 |