Omar Ismail claimed his first win of the year to help his BRDC Formula 4 hopes. A tight race saw him hang on from his pole position start. He started on pole ahead of Will Palmer, Harri Newey and Tom Jackson.
At the start, we saw Newey drop behind Jackson after another poor start from the 16 year old, but there was no change on the front row as Ismail leads from Palmer and Jackson after the first lap, meanwhile, Ameya Vaidyanathan had great start up to 5th.
The Top 4 broke away as Chris Mealin was out after broken front steering rod, he collided with Fernando Urrutia. He would later emerge though as an attempt to set the fastest lap. With 16 minutes to go, Newey retook third from Jackson as the two continued to fight.
Ismail and Palmer broke away in the early stages, split by 0.5 seconds, but would fall off in the later stages, with a queue behind Vaidyanathan in fifth. This wouldn’t last long with the Indian driver soon falling back to fifteenth after a mistake.
With half the race to go, Mealin had fixed the steering arm and was back out to set quick laps but struggled to make his way below a 1:51.7.
At the front, Palmer set the Fastest Lap closing on Ismail in front. This speed would not keep up however with Palmer soon falling back into the clutches of his HHC Motorsport team mate Harri Newey, holding off until the finish.
Jackson started to fall away and soon fell to the back after issues, eventually going back out to sit quick laps. The Chris Dittmann Racing driver had lost his tyre off of the rim. He crawled to pits and continued eventually finishing sixteenth.
At the end of the race, Rodrigo Fonseca in fifth started holding up field, unable to hold on, falling back into seventh. Meanwhile Newey claimed the fastest lap.
So Ismail won his first race of the season from Palmer, Newey, Michael O’Brien, Jordan Albert, Sisa Ngebulana, Fonseca with Ciaren Haggerty eighth and pole for race two.
