Struan Moore has told the BRDC F4 Championship he has nothing to lose after topping the general testing sessions ahead of the penultimate round of the championship at Donington Park.
The BRDC Formula 4 Championship returns to Donington Park next weekend and joined with the Avon Tyres British GT Championship and Cooper Tyres British F3 Championship fields in testing at the circuit. With just six races left in the championship season Raoul Hyman and George Russell lie just nine points adrift at the top of the championship table.
Neither the championship leading Lanan Racing machine of Russell nor the HHC Motorsport run MSV F4-013 of Hyman topped the pre-weekend test at the East Midlands venue though. That honour went to Russell’s team mate Struan Moore, who lies sixth in a close and competitive title fight.
Moore bettered his team mate by a slim margin of just 0.023 seconds round the 2.4 mile Grand Prix layout at Donington. HHC’s Will Palmer and Douglas Motorsport’s Charlie Eastwood both managed to outpace Hyman in a top six covered by less than two tenths of a second. Jordan Albert for SWR – Caterham F1 took sixth place in the test.
Sennan Fielding, Arjun Maini and Gaetano di Mauro for HHC, Lanan and Petroball Racing respectively came next with Diego Menchaca for Douglas rounding out the top ten.
Chris Dittmann Racing took eleventh in the test session thanks to Kieran Vernon. Vernon is a new name to the championship though it is not clear if he will race. The team put him into the car to gather data in addition to his role as driver coach. Fortunately for Vernon, he lapped almost a second and a half faster than Tom Bale in the second CDR machine, dropping Hillspeed’s Alfredo Zabalza into twelfth place.
Bradley Smith also featured, taking fifteenth place for Mectech Motorsport. Mechtech are a new team preparing for the 2014 BRDC Formula 4 Winter Championship which starts in November at Snetterton, following the finale of the main series at the same circuit in October. Smith was seven tenths faster than Bale behind MGR Motorsport’s Michael Claessens and Rahul Raj Mayer for Hillspeed.
Connor Jupp and Jai Nijjar, both racing for recent additions to the series Meridian Motorsport, rounded out the eighteen car field for the test. More drivers are expected to qualify and race when the competitive action gets underway on Saturday 20th September.
“This is the fourth round in a row where I’ve been quickest overall in testing,” said Moore, “and I just need to make sure I can do this in a qualifying session! But this is definitely good for confidence ahead of next weekend.
“I went well here last year, the pace was good and I got a podium in the second race and lined-up fourth for the last race having set the fourth quickest time of the weekend. It’s clearly a circuit that suits me, but I’ve stepped up to another level with Lanan and that’s shown today, and in the last few rounds.
“Hopefully now I can go on to get some more podiums and wins next weekend. There are six more races this year and I’ve got nothing to lose.”