After a good start Will Palmer managed to dominate at Brands Hatch to take victory in the first race of the BRDC Formula 4 championship weekend. The victory ensures he extended his championship lead.
Palmer had been the man to beat in qualifying, managing to secure pole position over his team-mate, Harri Newey. However; it had been a poor start for Newey, and he lost places to both Ciaran Haggerty and Tom Jackson, who had started behind on the second row.
The top four were set in their places as the safety car came out at the end of the first lap of racing. In their rush to get through the order, both Jack Bartholomew and Ameya Vaidyanathan spun at Druids, with the two cars needing to be recovered.
Palmer made the most of the restart, pulling out a 0.542 second gap over Haggerty. He would soon extend it further to 1.110s over his rivals. Meanwhile, second placed Haggerty was forced to defend his position from Jackson.
Haggerty was soon able to shake off Jackson, but was unable to catch Palmer who soon beat the race lap record with a 1m25.917s. It was the HHC Motorsport drivers race to win and was soon able to build up enough of a lead to take an easy victory.
Behind Palmer and Haggerty, Jackson took the final podium place having raced with Newey who took fourth. Behind them, Jack Lang, racing alongside Douglas Motorsport this weekend, held off Omar Ismail and Jordan Albert in the late stages for fifth place.
In the fight for positioning further back, championship contender Rodrigo Fonseca was able to fight for eighth place, but lost out to Chris Mealin and Sisa Ngebulana, with Fonseca being forced to settle for tenth.
Race two for BRDC F4 will start at 10:50am Sunday morning, local time.
Brands Hatch Race 1 Result
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