Mavlyutov wins from pole behind the safety car in Oulton GB3 race three

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

HIllspeed’s Daniel Mavlyutov triumphed in GB3’s reversed-grid race at Oulton Park, where most of the 25-minute encounter took place behind the safety car.

Mavlyutov led home Elite Motorsport’s Ayato Iwasaki and Fortec Motorsport’s Edward Pearson after a contest that featured less than three minutes of green flag running.

The race commenced on a drying track, with Matthew Rees, Tymek Kucharczyk and Oliver Stewart opting to start from the pitlane on slick tyres as most of the grid took the start on slicks.

Mavlyutov lined up from pole ahead of Shawn Rashid and the drama began as soon as the lights went out.

Elite’s McKenzy Cresswell stalled and was struck from behind by Douglas Motorsport’s Lucas Staico, who had started directly behind him.

Rashid collided with the fast-starting Zak Taylor and retired, and he was joined in the Old Hall barriers by Rodin Carlin’s Callum Voisin who was tagged into a spin by the slick-tyre shod James Hedley near the back of the field and suffered rear-left suspension damage. Voisin’s team-mate John Bennett also retired on the opening lap following contact with Nico Christodoulou, with the safety car swiftly deployed.

Rain started to fall during the caution period, with Taylor spinning down the order while running fourth and Christodoulou being forced to head for the pitlane with front wing damage. Kucharczyk and Stewart also came back in to fit wet-weather tyres.

Max Esterson was rear-ended out of 10th place by Arthur Rogeon shortly after the restart, resulting in both cars retiring and the safety car returning to track, and the time taken to clear the incident meant the cars remained in formation until the chequered flag.

Hitech GP’s Michael Shin was fourth ahead of Fortec’s Jarrod Waberski. Carlin’s Costa Toparis came home sixth ahead of Arden’s Noah Ping.  Gerrard Xie (Hillspeed), David Morales (Arden) and Alex Dunne (Hitech) completed the top 10. Race two winner Hedley was 11th ahead of race one victor Joseph Loake.

Race result (10 laps)