Another dominant race one from Carlin driver Petru Florescu sees him take the victory and the lead in the F4 British Championship. He seemed relatively untroubled in the early stages and made the most of the battle behind to win by over 8 seconds.
Florescu lead the field away from the Thruxton grid as team-mate Max Fewtrell made the best initial getaway to jump into second. Florescu was not prepared to be held up and quickly opened up a gap as the battle for second intensified.
The Romanian set a number of fastest laps around the circuit, as the gap continued to grow to those behind. Meanwhile Sennan Fielding had made the most of the clean line to leap into second with Devlin DeFrancesco making the most of his superior straight line speed to quickly catch up, as Fewtrell was pushed back after a strong opening lap.
With half the race still to go, DeFrancesco made a bold attack for second, heading around the outside of the chicane, cutting it and rejoining right behind Fielding. The two weren’t finished though as second position swapped places three time before DeFrancesco made the vital move.
Fielding wasn’t going to take it lying down as he attacked around the outside of Church with the Jamun Racing driver being bounced over the kerbs into the final corner. This allowed the Carlin driver to complete a 1-2, while Fielding used his momentum to narrowly hang on in front of fourth place Alex Quinn, who has been a few second behind the battle.
The chicane proved to be the home to a number of controversial battles over the course of the race with two collisions standing out. After working his up from the back, Nikolas Kjaergaard caused trouble as he ran into the chicane with too much speed. Bouncing over the kerb and hitting Jack Martin.
This wasn’t the biggest incident though as a desperate lunge to stay in front saw James Pull launch team-mate Fewtrell onto the barrier at the chicane. Despite the dangerously positioned Carlin, the safety car was not called as Max waved to the crowd, walking away from the crash.
Pull’s incident caused him to half spin, continuing after Quinn and Luis Leeds had already passed him, inheriting fourth. While the Carlin driver was able to catch up to the two in front he was unable to make the pass as the laps counted down.
Another frantic race behind allowed Florescu to win in front of team mate DeFrancesco, with the Canadian picking up his best result of the year ahead of Fielding. Quinn, who is now the only driver to have scored in every race this year, almost benefited from the final corner incident in front, settling for fourth. Behind him was Leeds and Pull, whose sixth place was his worst finish of the year.
Fewtrell was sent flying as the Carlin cars came together (Credit: F4 British Championship)
