Van Langendonck fastest in British F4’s Brands Hatch test

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

British Formula 4 points leader Dries Van Langendonck set the fastest time in a pre-event test around the Brands Hatch Indy circuit this week.

The McLaren junior’s best time of 44.795 seconds was enough to keep Virtuosi Racing’s Jarrett Clark fractionally behind by 0.018s.

The full-day test session allowed drivers to prepare ahead of this weekend’s races at the Kent track.

In the morning session it was Van Langendonck and Rodin Motorsport picking up where they left off in the opening round at Donington Park: fastest overall, 0.091s clear of Argenti Motorsport’s Ethan Jeff-Hall.

Jeff-Hall left it late to improve on his previous best that had left the British driver sat fifth overall, behind the two Hitech cars of Scott Kin Linblom and Theo Palmer, the latter 0.040s adrift of his team-mate’s time.

Xcel Motorsport tallied the most laps in the morning, Jaber Alsabah clocking 125 laps, sitting in 17th, while his teammate Mate Kobakhidze managed the second most with 111.

In the afternoon it was Virtuosi’s Clark going fastest overall, a 44.813s putting him 0.074s clear of Ethan Carney in second but still 0.018s adrift of Van Langendonck’s time in the morning.

Rounding out the top three was Van Langendonck with a 44.888s, just one thousandth separating the Belgian and second-placed Carney.

Xcel once again showed its strength, clocking the most amount of laps with Jackson Wolny breaking the 100-mark late to finish the session with 104. Behind him in the lap count came teammate Kobakhidz with 100.

Van Langendonck’s earlier time remained unbeatable with the McLaren junior finishing the session top. Clark tucked in behind, splitting the top two from the morning session with Jeff-Hall completing the top three.

Carney and Lindblom rounded out the top five with Palmer fractionally behind after the Hitech driver improved on his morning time by 0.003s to cement his sixth place finish overall.

British F4 will introduce a split qualifying format for this weekend to help manage its 30-car field around the 1.2-mile (1.9-kilometre) Indy layout, separating drivers into two groups getting 15 minutes each on track.

Test results