As the BRDC British F3 Championship heads into its penultimate round, Enaam Ahmed topped practice around Snetterton with a personal best of 1min 42.581. The Carlin driver has been untouchable this season and was at the head for all four sessions on Friday.
Ahmed’s pace will likely be spurred on this weekend by the knowledge that the title is just within reach. With 489 points on the board, he sits just four behind last years title winner Matheus Leist as well as 106 ahead of nearest rival James Pull.
Providing Ahmed leaves the weekend with a 95 point margin, he will have claimed the title. Poor results for Pull and Toby Sowery meanwhile, could see him win as early as the second race.
Mathematically, the drivers behind; Ben Hingeley, Cameron Das and Callan O’Keeffe could still claim the honours this season, though for many of them, attention will have turned to the closer fight for second place.
Ahmed was quick out of the blocks on Thursday, setting the pace with a late lap to deny Sowery. Friday proved to be a similar story as Ahmed left all four sessions as the fastest driver with Pull second in three out of the four tests.
With a title still to fight for Pull and Sowery were unsurprisingly the next closest challengers, but the gap to the front was 0.303 seconds during the quickest session of the day, once again proving the dominance that the championship leader has over his car.
Snetterton is a circuit that many drivers were familiar with it being a popular testing venue and having raced earlier this season. Until the last meeting it had remained the last venue that Das had picked up a podium and should be a great opportunity to end the year on a high, going fourth in practice.
Fifth overall would be O’Keeffe. The South African has remained a consistent challenger towards the front even if a win is yet to materialise, he remained narrowly ahead of Brands Hatch race winner Krishnaraaj Mahadik.
Rounding out the top ten in overall times would be Chase Owen, Ben Hingeley, who had performed stronger later in the day as well as Jordan Cane and Omar Ismail.
