Raoul Hyman has taken his second win in the BRDC Formula 4 Championship in a battle to the finish at Brands Hatch. The HHC Motorsport driver fought off advances from Lanan Racing’s Arjun Maini who initially fell back from the pole sitting Malaysian but mounted a resurgence late in the race to finish a cars length off the lead. Will Palmer took the final podium position in his HHC run MSV F4-013 adding a third place to his F4 Winter Series race win.
The top six was dominated by two teams, with George Russell in fourth for Lanan and HHC’s third driver Sennan Fielding in fifth. Struan Moore put his Pci Circle sponsored Lanan car in sixth.
The first non-Lanan or HHC driver honour went to MGR Motorsport’s Chris Middlehurst though the reigning Protyre Formula Renault champion was unable to make any in-roads into the 4 second advantage Moore held. He did hold a substantial lead over the first of the Hillspeed runners Gustavo Lima, who sat a further seven seconds back dicing with the best of the Douglas Motorsport cars.
Rodrigo Fonseca for Douglas and Rahul Raj Mayer for Hillspeed rounded out the top ten.
The race wasn’t without drama, especially not top ten result changing drama. Diego Menchaca for Douglas and Nicolas Beer for Sean Walkinshaw Racing were battling for eighth and ninth respectively on the last lap when the pair collided through Clearways. Menchaca was tipped into a spin by the SWR car which fell down the order too.
Charlie Eastwood lost control of his car at Hawthornes earlier in the race while running in a top ten position. He recovered to fourteenth at the expense of Alfredo Zabalza’s Hillspeed run car. Diego Borelli finished eighteenth for SWR after clashing with the #43 MGR Motorsport car of David Wagner in an early move at Druids. MGR’s late signup Michael Claessens was an early retirement after a spin at Sheene on lap six dumped him in the gravel. Still he fared better than Jordan Albert who didn’t start in his SWR car after a practice shunt left his car too heavily damaged.
A relieved Raoul Hyman said “I was pushed hard the entire way by Arjun who drove a great race. Mid-way through I got into my stride and we pulled away a bit, which was good – the car was phenomenal, so thanks to the team for that. Mid race I managed the gap quite well but Arjun came back at me towards the end, but I wasn’t that worried because I knew we were quick in the right places so that I wouldn’t be overtaken. I’m really happy, my second win of the year and it’s great for the championship as well.”
