Home Formula 4British F4 Neate fastest in British F4 practice, Mavlyutov absent through exams

Neate fastest in British F4 practice, Mavlyutov absent through exams

by Bethonie Waring

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Argenti Motorsport’s Aiden Neate topped the times in British Formula 4 free practice at Oulton Park on Friday.

Neate was quickest in the second of two practice sessions, managing a 1m20.417s time to go 0.075 seconds quicker than Hitech GP’s championship leader Alex Dunne.

Daniel Guinchard also ended the day within 0.1s of Neate, with the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior just three thounsandths of a second slower than Dunne’s best lap.

Dunne set the pace in the opening free practice session, with a time of 1m21.035s at the halfway mark. The time wouldn’t be beaten for much of the session, before Ollie Gray became the first driver to set a sub-1m20s time.

Gray would lower the benchmark to 1m20.826s before the chequered flag, with JHR Developments’ Georgi Dimitrov taking second from Dunne.

The second of the two sessions was much quicker. Dunne was the first driver to better the FP1 benchmark, and he would remain top of the order for most of the session before a late flying lap from Neate took him to the top.

Dunne was knocked down to second, with Guinchard and Louis Sharp close behind. Gray improved on his early time to go fifth quickest overall, and McLaren junior Ugo Ugochuckwu put himself sixth ahead of Joseph Loake, the last of the drivers to set a time sub-1m21s laptime.

Dimitrov wasn’t able to improve on his FP1 time, finishing the day eighth quickest.

Hitech was without one of its usual quartet of drivers, as Daniel Mavlyutov was absent due to exams according to the championship.

Free practice results

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Aiden Neate Argenti Motorsport 1m20.417s 49
2 Alex Dunne Hitech GP 1m20.492s +0.075s 38
3 Daniel Guinchard Argenti Motorsport 1m20.495s +0.078s 50
4 Louis Sharp Carlin 1m20.648s +0.231s 49
5 Ollie Gray Carlin 1m20.682s +0.265s 48
6 Ugo Ugochukwu Carlin 1m20.756s +0.339s 47
7 Joseph Loake JHR Developments 1m20.859s +0.442s 48
8 Georgi Dimitrov JHR Developments 1m21.009s +0.592s 47
9 Eduardo Coseteng Hitech GP 1m21.072s +0.655s 42
10 Noah Lisle JHR Developments 1m21.199s +0.782s 48
11 Adam Fitzgerald Argenti Motorsport 1m21.205s +0.788s 48
12 Oliver Stewart Hitech GP 1m21.230s +0.813s 48
13 Michael Shin Virtuosi 1m21.428s +1.011s 32
14 Edward Pearson Virtuosi 1m21.555s +1.138s 52
15 Joel Pearson Chris Dittmann Racing 1m21.664s +1.247s 52