Alice Powell made it a clean sweep at Oulton Park with another win in the second race of Monday’s F3 Cup opening double header.
Having taken pole and a dominant victory earlier in the day, Powell did not manage to repeat her race one start as a lightning getaway from Alex Craven launched him ahead of the former GP3 star into turn one for the first time, Robbie Watts leaping into third place.
The race was then neutralised behind the safety car following a mid-pack kerfuffle, Olly Rae the biggest loser from the opening lap which turned out to be his only one, Dave Karaskas and Chris Needham also losing laps.
The arrival of the safety caught out Tristan Cliffe, who spun his car heading up the hill out of Lodge as he locked up trying to scrub his speed, dropping to last after a helping hand from the marshals.
James Cross – robbed of what may have been a possible podium in race one by a battery failure – had already made his way from 16th (and last place) to sixth by the time the safety car came in.
While Craven held on ahead of an attacking Powell, the restart was a poor one for third place man Watts who dropped behind Mark Harrison and Chart, the latter quickly making short work of taking third spot from Harrison on the same lap.
The Enigma Motorsport man began to rapidly close in on the two leaders, but his pursuit of Powell effectively ended when the Mark Bailey Racing driver found her way around leader Craven with a smart move halfway around the lap.
Craven initially kept up pace with Powell, but the race one winner soon got into her stride and began to extend a lead, three seconds clear by lap 10.
That became a gap of 4.5s by the race’s conclusion two laps later, Powell completing a sweep of the weekend in style, Chart unable to find a way through into second place as Craven took his second runner-up finish of the day.
Harrison’s race turned into a rear-guard action for the remaining handful of laps in the battle for fourth place, the Magic Motorsport driver only just managing to fend off the charging Cross by 0.142s, Cross having passed Watts on lap nine of the 12.
Cliffe managed to recover to seventh, while Gino Ussi, Neil Harrison and Nick Robinson rounding out the top 10, James Ledamun taking Trophy class honours.
