Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Zane Maloney believes ?pushing 100%? would have cost him victory in the final British Formula 4 race at Thruxton, which was Carlin’s 400th win in professional motorsport.
The Barbadian was kept under pressure by championship leader Louis Foster throughout the race, with the pair finishing just 0.211 seconds apart.
Maloney felt he could have gone faster, but believed that pushing harder would have led to significant tyre wear on the abrasive track surface of Thruxton, and risked the milestone victory.
?Louis really pushed me at the end,? Maloney told Formula Scout. ?I was just able to hold him off.
?I was controlling the pace and trying not to eat the tyres up. So I wasn?t 100% pushing, but if I did I think I would have lost the race.
?The decision not to push was the best thing to do, because it saved the tyres at the end.?
Tyre wear played a significant part throughout the weekend. Maloney backed off for the final two laps of the previous race, allowing Foster’s Double R Racing team-mate Sebastian Alvarez to cut two seconds from his lead. He still finished 4.630s clear, netting ?5000 for becoming the first Rookie Cup entrant to win a race.
Maloney also pointed to the importance of getting a tow around Thruxton’s high speed layout.
?I won in race two by so much because they started battling and then they got out of the tow,? he explained.
?We had a similar pace, but they couldn?t catch me because they didn?t have the tow. Whereas, if they were right behind me, I think they would have stayed with me because the tow is 0.25s around Thruxton, which is a lot of time.
?You just have to get out of the tow, which I wasn?t able to [in race three] because we had the same pace. Every lap [Foster] would edge a little bit on me, and when he got closer the tow was more and more so he got closer and closer, but I held him off.?