Fortec Motorsport’s Luke Browning made it four wins in a row to further extend his lead at the head of the 2020 British F4 Championship to 35 points with a measured drive from pole position to take the opening race victory of the weekend at Knockhill.
Leading away from the start, it was Browning that developed an early cushion over Arden Motorsport’s Alex Connor of over two seconds that the 18-year old would never relinquish.
Connor was able to hang on to second place after another spirited drive drive from Argenti Motorsport’s Casper Stevenson, who himself is running into a bit of a purple patch, stringing together three podium finishes in the last four races, and now sits fourth in championship, albeit a full 82 points behind runaway leader Browning.
Browning’s nearest title contender Zak O’Sullivan finished down in fourth place and lost further ground to the Fortec man after what appeared to be a championship run at the beginning of the season after strong performances at Donington and Brands Hatch. O’Sullivan spent some time defending from James Hedley before the 2019 Ginetta Junior champion made contact with Fortec’s Roberto Faria at Clark curve and was forced to retire. Faria would later make a great comeback to secure seventh.
Roman Bilinski recovered well from his qualifying off to claim a well deserved fifth place after a thrilling battle with Hedley’s JHR Developments’ team mate Abbi Pulling, with the latter impressively scoring her sixth top six finish of the season so far.
Returning rookie Rafael Villagomez scored an impressive eighth place and finishing as top rookie in today’s race after spending last weekend racing in the opening round of the French F4 championship – the Mexican pulling double duty this season. Christian Mansell finished just behind in ninth place, and actually managed to extend his rookie championship lead, further validating his impressive debut season racing in Europe.
Nico Pino rounded out the top ten, with Frederick Lubin, Reema Juffali and Mathias Zagazeta rounding out the rest of the finishers. Nathanael Hodgkiss was the other non-finisher after pulling into the pit lane with a few minutes remaining with what appeared to be a mechanical issue.
Race 1 Classification:
| 1 | Luke Browning | Fortec Motorsport | 25 Laps |
| 2 | Alex Connor | Arden Motorsport | + 2.725 |
| 3 | Casper Stevenson | Argenti Motorsport | + 4.375 |
| 4 | Zak O’Sullivan | Carlin | + 5.858 |
| 5 | Roman Bilinski | Arden Motorsport | + 21.584 |
| 6 | Abbi Pulling | JHR Developments | + 21.947 |
| 7 | Roberto Faria | Fortec Motorsport | + 22.618 |
| 8 | Rafael Villagomez | Fortec Motorsport | + 24.747 |
| 9 | Christian Mansell | Carlin | + 25.894 |
| 10 | Nico Pino | Argenti Motorsport | + 31.298 |
| 11 | Frederick Lubin | Arden Motorsport | + 31.898 |
| 12 | Reema Juffali | Argenti Motorsport | + 34.282 |
| 13 | Mathias Zagazeta | Carlin | + 34.998 |
| 14 | Nathanael Hodgkiss | JHR Developments | DNF |
| 15 | James Hedley | JHR Developments | DNF |
