Alex Lynn would be able to celebrate properly for his maiden victory following a superb performance in the final race of the weekend.
With Saturday’s penalty denying him his first F3 win Lynn was out to top his strong performances throughout the weekend with a victory in the feature race at Silverstone.
Despite starting from pole position Lynn slipped to fourth place on the opening lap and would have it all to do with Jazeman Jaafar, Harry Tincknell and Carlos Sainz in front of him.
Lynn did it the hard way, for although he led away from pole position he slipped to fourth on the opening lap and had to battle back to the front and then past the car of Jaafar three laps from the end to secure the win. Jaafar finished a close second to move back into the championship lead with just three races remaining.
“I made a really good start,” said Lynn, “but I think I had too much wing on and there was a massive headwind coming out of Copse. Jazeman got a pretty big tow on me and had too much straightline speed for me to respond.”
It wouldn’t take Lynn long to be challenging for the lead as he made it by the Carlin of Sainz on lap two and had overtaken Tinknell on lap three. The race was now on with Jaafar 2.5 seconds ahead. It would take the Brit three laps to reduce the gap down to half a second.
With Lynn closing in, Jaafar wasn’t ready to give up the top spot easily and an eleven-lap battle would commence until Lynn held his nerve and outbraked the Malaysian in to Brooklands on the eighteenth lap.
“I genuinely thought my race was over. I can’t quite believe I caught him back up again, let alone passed him.” added Lynn.
Despite not getting the win Jaafar remained upbeat after leaving Silverstone with a six-point lead in the championship.
“The goal was to bounce back after all the points I lost earlier in the year,” said Jaafar. “We never stopped pushing, had a bit of luck and it turned out a good weekend. I’m glad I’m leading the championship and I’m looking forward to Donington – it will be an exciting weekend.”
The other two title contestants battled hard over seventh place with both drivers running wide on a number of occasions, unfortunately Felix Serralles would be the one to lose out in this battle with Jack Harvey after hitting something off line sending him airborne. The heavy landing would leave Serralles in pain for the remainder of the race and he would need assistance getting out of the car. The Puerto Rican would later head to hospital to get checked out.
A major battle had broken out over third place in the mean time between the Fortec of Tincknell and Hannes van Asseldonk. The British driver would take the final podium at the chequered flag in a race that he described as “One of the hardest races he has ever done”
“I was pushing as hard as I could and in the last four or five laps Hannes was really strong; I’ve never battled so hard to stay in front.” said Tincknell.
Sainz took fifth place after losing out to van Assledonk at Village on the tenth lap. Carlin team-mate Pietro Fantin took sixth place with the in-pain Serralles taking Harvey into Copse on the final lap. Rupert Svendsen-Cook and Geoff Uhrhane rounded out the top 10.
Spike Goddard would take a lights to flag victory in the National class ahead of title rival Duvashen Padayachee.
