17-year-old Enaam Ahmed took the first win of the BRDC British F3 Championship weekend, continuing his perfect season with a maiden Rockingham Motor Speedway win.
A fantastic start from Ahmed saw the Carlin driver take the lead into the second sector as the front-row hindered each other to the Deene hairpin. Cameron Das had been under pressure after starting on pole, with Omar Ismail getting the better run.
Ismail and Das had been side-by-side going into the hairpin with the American pushing his rival onto the dirty line. This allowed space on the inside for Ahmed to escape up the road, quickly building a gap to Das.
Sadly for Ismail, the Chris Dittmann Racing driver lost momentum, falling behind Callan O’Keeffe and Ben Hingeley as well. O’Keeffe kept up with Das as the pair dropped Hingeley into the clutches of the rapid James Pull and Ismail.
As the race unfolded, Das and O’Keeffe continued to decrease the gap with Hingeley eventually making it a quartet at the front.
Ahmed would manage the gap though, taking the win by under a second to Das and O’Keeffe. A mistake by Hingeley on the penultimate lap denied him a podium chance, settling for fourth some seconds ahead of Pull, Ismail and Nicolai Kjaergaard.
The battle for eighth proved to be the battle for the reverse grid pole with Jamie Chadwick putting in another outstanding defensive drive, to hold off team mate Guilherme Samaia. The Brazilian was clearly much quicker and was forced to also hold off Toby Sowery in tenth.
Ahmed: “I know we’ve got a good car, we took a risk in qualifying and should have been on the front row. I never focus on the championship, I just focus on racking up podiums and wins, we’ll see where we are at the end of the season.”