BRDC Formula 4

Fielding survives to win enthralling Autumn Trophy race

1 Mins read

An intense opening few laps saw some drivers lose their cool with others being forced to retire. However; amongst the chaos, Sennan Fielding came through to claim his maiden Autumn Trophy win and keep him in the title fight.

At the start, points leader Harrison Scott challenged for the lead into Riches but the slippery surface caught the Douglas Motorsport driver out, with him and rival Ben Barnicoat, sliding off of the track.

With the others also struggling to get heat into their tyres, a number of cars went off at the Montreal Hairpin while Ameya Vaidyanathan was off at Agostini. This left his car with some damage as he crawled slowly back to the pits.

Having stayed out of trouble, Fielding inherited the lead and had already built up a sizeable gap to second placed Struan Moore by the end of the first lap. It wouldn’t be plain sailing for Moore though as he too ran into problems, eventually retiring on the second lap.

Despite being last at one point Scott put in an amazing recovery and by lap three was already up to second. He was over two seconds a lap quicker than Fielding and looked primed to take the lead before another mistake saw him drop back into third, behind Sisa Ngebulana.

During this time Barnicoat and Vaidyanathan had taken to the pits. Both came back out, but the Hillspeed driver would soon pit for a second time, having encountered serious problems with his car.

After his off, Scott was just able to hold off the advances of Al Faisal Al Zubair, before getting back into a rhythm and continue his charge up the field. He was able to overtake Ngebulana after a small mistake and continued to set fastest laps

With two laps to go, Scott and Barnicoat started to exchange fastest laps with both knowing that the winner would claim pole position for race four as a reward. Both set their quickest time on the last lap, but it was Scott who eventually claimed the honours.

Fielding would take the flag by over 12 seconds, while Scott recovered to take second ahead of Ngebulana. Al Zubair had made the most of the pile up at the start to temporarily take third, but eventually fell behind. While Barnicoat crossed the line in fifth, three laps down.

Credit: Nick Smith / TheImageTeam.com
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