HHC Motorsport’s South African driver Raoul Hyman has held out from pole to take his maiden win in the BRDC Formula 4 Championship. Hyman initially set out on building a three second lead over his team mate Sennan Fielding though from the halfway mark that lead came down markedly. Eventually the pair became embroiled in a five way battle for the lead.
Raoul held out against his team mate until Diego Menchaca claimed the upper hand in the battle for second, putting his Douglas Motorsport run car into second late in the day at Fielding’s expense. The Mexican fell just half a second short on his catch up to Hyman by the end of the 10 lap race. Nicolas Beer’s Sean Walkinshaw Racing machine rose from tenth to fourth but wasn’t able to make any impression on Sennan Fielding ahead.
Series debutant George Russell of Lanan Racing took fifth place, just over two seconds off the lead of the race.
Gustavo Lima for Hillspeed struggled to keep pace with the Lanan’s new driver, dropping almost three and a half seconds back over the course of the race. He battled with the HHC machine of Will Palmer, who followed the experienced racer across the line split by less than two tenths. Arjun Maini for Lanan, Rahul Raj Mayer for Hillspeed and MGR Motorsport’s David Wagner rounded out the top ten, which was covered by 20 seconds after ten laps.
The big event of the race was well down the order as Tom Jackson for Chris Dittmann Racing misjudged the Vale on Silverstone’s Grand Prix layout. He wiped out the #16 car of Chris Middlehurst, demolishing the left hand side of the car. Jackson made it back to the pits before retiring on lap three. Middlehurst was only credited with two tours of the circuit. Alfredo Zabalza of Hillspeed dropped out after just one lap while Lanan Racing’s Struan Moore didn’t even make it to the start of the race.
Hyman is already focusing on the championship. He said, “Sennan made it really difficult for me and he was really quick in the middle of the race. It’s great to have him in the team and we push each other and I just managed to handle the pressure. We start eighth tomorrow so the first thing is to be safe in the first laps and hopefully keep this championship lead throughout the weekend.”
The action resumes tomorrow with two more races on the Grand Prix layout at Silverstone.
