Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Reza Seewooruthun won British Formula 4’s third race at Thruxton after a car issue sent Hitech GP team-mate Deagen Fairclough into retirement while he was dominating.
Fairclough had pole and shared the front row with Jack Sherwood, as Zack Scoular and Abbi Pulling filled row two for a surprise rolling, rather than standing, start.
There was battling from the off, but Fairclough quickly distanced himself from it and was 1.222 seconds ahead of Sherwood after two laps. Scoular and Pulling were fighting for third, and a rapid Seewooruthun was fifth.
Fairclough’s gap grew to 2.489s on the next lap, and it got larger and larger until he was 6.7s clear of the fight for second at the end of lap six. However his domination came to an end not long after as on lap seven his car ground to a halt on track and the safety car led the field for the rest of the 11-lap race (a shortened so it did not end after the curfew on track activities).
Scoular made a great move around the outside of Sherwood at the final chicane to take second place on lap three, but Sherwood reclaimed the position by going down the inside of him at turn one on the next lap.
At Cobb, the less tight chicane, Scoular made another move while Alex Nionvic passed Pulling and Seewooruthun to get into fourth. However he than had a huge lock-up, Scoular went off at the final corner, and it was Sherwood who started lap five in second ahead of Seewooruthun, Ninovic, Pulling and James Higgins.
Seewooruthun went too deep into Cobb this time and lost out to Ninovic, but Seewooruthun swept back past exiting Seagrave and overtook Sherwood at Goodwood. At the final chicane Sherwood lost another place to Ninovic after a big lock-up, and behind them Higgins and Yuanpu Cui were getting more involved before Cui picked up race-ending suspension damage.
The race was permanently neutralised on the next lap, with the demise of Fairclough and Cui bringing Scoular back up to sixth.
Race result (11 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reza Seewooruthun | Hitech GP | 18m29.315s |
| 2 | Alex Ninovic | Rodin Motorsport | +0.357s |
| 3 | Jack Sherwood | Rodin Motorsport | +0.934s |
| 4 | Abbi Pulling | Rodin Motorsport | +1.432s |
| 5 | James Higgins | Rodin Motorsport | +1.826s |
| 6 | Zack Scoular | Xcel Motorsport | +2.315s |
| 7 | Leo Robinson | JHR Developments | +3.305s |
| 8 | Matin Molnar | Virtuosi Racing | +3.458s |
| 9 | Rowan Campbell-Pilling | Argenti Motorsport | +5.124s |
| 10 | Mika Abrahams | Hitech GP | +5.297s |
| 11 | Alex Berg | Fortec Motorsports | +5.448s |
| 12 | Kai Daryanani | Fortec Motorsports | +5.594s |
| 13 | Chloe Chong | JHR Developments | +7.685s |
| 14 | Nina Pothof | Fortec Motorsports | +8.207s |
| 15 | Ella Lloyd | JHR Developments | +8.450s |
| 16 | Maxwell Dodds | Virtuosi Racing | +8.824s |
| 17 | Yuhao Fu | Virtuosi Racing | +9.985s |
| Ret | Deagen Fairclough | Hitech GP | |
| Ret | Yuanpu Cui | Argenti Motorsport | |
| DNS | August Raber | Xcel Motorsport | |
| Fastest lap: Fairclough, 1m11.245s
Championship standings |
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