Tom Gamble took a lights to flag victory in the opening BRDC British F3 Championship race at Rockingham. The Fortec Motorsport driver survived the chaos of the opening lap where 3 cars retired.
After his late pole position earlier in the day, Gamble led the cars away at a damp Rockingham circuit. The weather was clearly a factor as heading into the first corner both Jamie Chadwick and Clement Novalak slid off into the Deene Hairpin.
A number of cars scattered, with Billy Monger and Kush Maini heading into the pits to fix their cars. As a result of the carnage, Novalak, Arvin Esmaeili and Nicolai Kjaergaard (though in a separate incident at Tarzans) all retired from the race, leaving Gamble and Linus Lundqvist up front as the safety car came out.
On the restart, Gamble put in the fastest lap attempting to break away from Lundqvist, while third place Jordan Cane fell into the clutches of Krishnaraaj Mahadik. The leaders were over two seconds quicker than Cane and his train of cars that featured Josef Owega in his debut race with Hillspeed.
The young German was in sixth and along with Sun Yue Yang was baring down on the back of Manuel Maldonado. Sadly he could not make enough inroads and a mistake dropped Owega to eighth by the flag.
Over the line, Tom Gamble held off Lundqvist to take his maiden BRDC F3 victory as Cane rounded out the podium. Behind them was Mahadik while Maldonado continued to hold off Yang and the recovering Maini who had pitted on the opening lap.
