Home Formula 4British F4 McLaughlin wins British F4’s Oulton Park opener after start incident

McLaughlin wins British F4’s Oulton Park opener after start incident

by Bethonie Waring

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Fionn McLaughlin won the first British Formula 4 race of the weekend at Oulton Park after a multi-car crash took out multiple drivers.

The race was red-flagged just moments after the lights went out after a staller caused problems further back. Theo Palmer seemed to have problems getting away from fifth on the grid, and those behind had to run wide to avoid.

Thomas Bearman, who started directly behind Palmer on track, was left with heavy damage, while Rowan Campbell-Pilling had damage to his front wing. Ahead of that incident, Chase Fernandez also ran into problems that took him out of the race.

When the field returned to the grid, slots three, five, seven and eight were empty. August Raber in ninth had seemed to avoid the drama, but then came into the pits rather than return to the grid, taking him out of the race.

Despite McLaughlin snatching the lead on the initial start, he was back to second on the grid behind Martin Molnar for the restart. 

The Hitech driver once again dived into the lead off the line and would remain unchallenged through the remainder of the race. The gap between himself and Molnar hovered at about a second as they both pulled away from Henry Joslyn in third. The pair swapped fastest laps, but it was McLaughlin who had the advantage by the end of the race.

He took the chequered flag 0.904 seconds ahead of Molnar, reducing the gap to the championship leader to just four points.

Joslyn had a quiet race in third ahead of Tommy Harfield, who started 11th and was the first driver on the left-hand side of the restart grid after Molnar. He shot up to fifth off the line, then passed Ary Bansal to secure fourth.

Leo Robinson climbed up from 12th to finish sixth, ahead of Ethan Jeff-Hall and Ella Lloyd. Yuhao Fu and Cole Hewetson completed the top 10.

Race results (15 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Fionn McLaughlin Hitech GP 20m25.096s
2 Martin Molnar Virtuosi Racing +0.904s
3 Henry Joslyn Fortec Motorsports +3.155s
4 Tommy Harfield Chris Dittmann Racing +4.965s
5 Ary Bansal Fortec Motorsports +6.246s
6 Leo Robinson Hitech GP +8.144s
7 Ethan Jeff-Hall Argenti Motorsport +9.714s
8 Ella Lloyd Rodin Motorsport +14.639s
9 Yuhao Fu Xcel Motorsport +15.453s
10 Cole Hewetson Xcel Motorsport +16.734s
11 Xavier Avramides Hitech GP +17.008s
12 Adam Al Azhari Rodin Motorsport +18.825s
13 James Piszcyk Rodin Motorsport +19.145s
14 Alba Hurup Larsen Chris Dittmann Racing +21.506s
15 Henry Mercier Argenti Motorsport +22.615s
Ret Chase Fernandez Xcel Motorsport
Ret Theo Palmer Xcel Motorsport
Ret Thomas Bearman Hitech GP
Ret Rowan Campbell-Pilling JHR Developments
Ret August Raber Argenti Motorsport
Fastest lap: McLaughlin, 1m20.908s

Championship standings
1
 Molnar 162   2 McLaughlin 158   Piszcyk 110   4 Joslyn 104   5 Raber 99   6 Harfield 87   7 Robinson 80   8 Al Azhari 73   9 Bearman 65   10 Jeff-Hall 62