James Fletcher secured his, and Team KBS’, maiden victory in the BRDC Formula 4 Championship with a superb lights to flag victory in the opening race at Snetterton.
There was early drama in the race, with pole-sitter Jake Dalton unable to get off the line after suffering a drive shaft failure. Fortunately the drivers behind were able to successfully avoid the MGR driver, with Fletcher moving into the lead into turn one.
Matt Bell slotted into second and the privateer began challenging Fletcher for the lead in the early stages. His challenge faltered on lap three however when an off track excursion dropped him to fourth, before contact with Gustavo Lima moments later saw him fall to eighth, leaving him in a battle with Sennan Fielding.
The moment for Bell promoted Seb Morris and Charlie Robertson into the podium positions, with Robertson finding his way past his former Ginetta Junior rival for second place on lap five.
The HHC Motorsport driver then set about closing down the gap to Fletcher. While he managed to slash the leaders three second gap in half, Fletcher had enough left in his pocket to stretch the lead to over two seconds as he crossed the line for his first victory.
“That was awesome,” said Fletcher. “In the first couple of laps I was hassled a bit by Matt Bell but unfortunately he went off, which gave me a lot of breathing space to crack down and get on with it. I think towards the end my tyres started to go off a little bit, which allowed Charlie Robertson to start to catch me, but he didn’t have enough laps. The whole race was absolutely fantastic and it’s obviously great to have a race win as well for Kelvin [Burt] because the whole of the team has done such a great job.”
With Dalton’s retirement, second place was enough to move Robertson into the championship lead. Morris completed the podium for his fourth rostrum finish of a successful season so far, with Raoul Hyman best of the rest in fourth.
Diego Menchaca and Pietro Fittipaldi had finished fifth and sixth on the road respectively, however the MGR team-mates were to fail post-race scrutineering, resulting in their exclusion’s from the results.
Falco Wauer was promoted to fifth, while Fielding, who was originally named as pole sitter for race two, was moved up to sixth. Behind Bell, it was Struan Moore who ended up with the coveted eighth place and pole for race two, while Jake Hughes and Ross Gunn rounded out the top ten.
2013 BRDC Formula 4 Championship Round seven result:
1. James Fletcher, Team KBS, 10 laps
2. Charlie Robertson, HHC Motorsport, +2.085s
3. Seb Morris, Hillspeed, +4.878s
4. Raoul Hyman, HHC Motorsport, +7.532s
5. Falco Wauer, Team KBS, +14.958s
6. Sennan Fielding, Douglas Motorsport, +16.520s
7. Matt Bell, MattRBell Racing Team E-Lites, +18.337s
8. Struan Moore, Hillspeed, +18.406s
9. Jake Hughes, Lanan Racing, +19.799s
10. Ross Gunn, Motionsport, +27.057s
