George Russell has taken the win in the third race at Brands Hatch. The Lanan Racing driver claimed his third victory in the BRDC Formula 4 Championship after battling HHC Motorsport’s Sennan Fielding for the top spot in the dying minutes. Raoul Hyman took the final podium spot some eight seconds from the lead battle but embroiled in a fight of his own for third.
Arjun Maini initially led the race for Lanan after starting on pole but was soon under pressure from Hyman for the lead. The Malaysian driver’s HHC team mate Will Palmer made a good start to secure third though he was soon taking heat from the third Lanan machine of Struan Moore. A second lap move at Hawthornes put paid to both drivers chances of victory, with Moore in the barriers and Palmer dropping down to seventh.
The lead was decided in a similar fashion with a well-executed move from Hyman being repaid by a less than perfect counter by Maini. Hyman did his overtaking at Druids on lap three, a move to which Arjun immediately responded with a dive at Graham Hill. The resulting off for the two protagonists allowed Russell, who held a watching brief in third, to make his pass for control of the race. The #8 car went on to build a lead of over a second and a half though that would be reduced to 0.415 seconds at the flag.
Once Fielding had dealt with his team mate and race 1 winner Raoul he set about passing Maini with a move into Paddock on lap five. Finally able to break from the scrapping pack behind, Fielding hunted down the leader but was unable to make a move stick. HHC could still celebrate an advantage over Lanan however when Hyman followed Fielding’s Paddock Hill move with a decisive overtake at Druids.
Hyman could never really escape the fourth placed Lanan machine, which was joined in the fight by the MGR Motorsport machine of Chris Middlehurst and Sean Walkinshaw Racing car of Jordan Albert. This trio finally crossed the line after 14 laps covered by only 0.400 seconds. They had however achieved a solid gap over Diego Borrelli in the second SWR machine who bettered Will Palmer’s efforts at damage limitation, an eighth place come final classification time.
Gaetano di Mauro took a fantastic ninth place for Petroball Racing, besting the first of the Douglas Motorsport entries, Charlie Eastwood. Eastwood’s result was far from set in stone though as he was over a second away from di Mauro and just five thousandths of a second ahead of his team mate Diego Menchaca.
Russell hailed a turn around in Lanan’s fortunes after the #8 crew struggled for pace in the earlier races. He said, “We were struggling a little bit in the first two races with pace but to finish up with a win was great. Sennan and I had quite a big gap to third place so it was a really good race. I saw Sennan catching in my mirrors but luckily that was the end and we won the race.”
