Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
The final GB3 and GB4 final races of the weekend at Silverstone have been cancelled due to bad weather.
Heavy rain beforehand resulted in GB3’s third contest starting behind the safety car. But red flags were waved after three laps due to standing water and poor visibility, with no green flag action having taken place.
Race two winner McKenzy Cresswell supported the decision to stop, revealing that conditions were worse than the wet-weather race that took place at Silverstone earlier in the season and that it was impossible to see the safety car in the spray.
GB3 race three was delayed while other races on the weekend bill went ahead, in the hope that conditions would improve later in the afternoon. But the rain persisted, and the decision was eventually taken to abandon the race, as well the GB4 contest scheduled to follow afterwards.
Many drivers supported the decision, especially in light of Dilano van’t Hoff’s recent fatal accident in a Formula Regional European Championship race that took place in low visibility conditions at Spa-Francorchamps earlier this month.
“Anything above halfway through third gear was pretty hard to see under the safety car,” said Arden’s GB3 driver Noah Ping. “We could have maybe squeezed it in, but ultimately I think it’s the right decision especially with what’s been happening – it’s really unfortunate and sad. I would have loved to race, but it was definitely a bit scary.
“I’m sure they will come up with something,” he added on the spray issue in single-seaters. “There’s a lot of smart people in the racing community.”
“Of course safety is always the priority,” said Rodin Carlin’s John Bennett, who was running in second when the GB3 race was red-flagged. “It’s a shame because we always want to race.”
GB4’s points leader Tom Mills was denied the chance to complete a hat-trick of wins by the abandonment of their race, having won the weekend’s other two contests.
“The water just sits so flat here,” said Mills. “Unless you’ve got cars on track constantly it gets bad. It was the right call, safety comes first.
“There’s nothing more they could have done. The spray is too bad. It wasn’t even the standing water that was the concern. I love the wet, but its safety, especially with what happened at Spa. No race director wants to be the one to make the call [to race] and then something happens.”
The promoter of the two series, MotorSport Vision, has not confirmed at this stage whether or not the races will be rescheduled for later in the season.