Roman Bilinski brought home a solid points haul from his debut weekend in the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship at Donington Park (10/11 July).
After being expected to replace Alex Connor at Arden Motorsport, the Polish driver was eventually drafted in to replace Frederick Lubin, who was ruled out of testing and the race weekend on medical advice.
Having driven for Arden in the British F4 Championship last season, he made the switch to Carlin over the off-season.
But he returned to the Banbury squad for their trip to the Leicestershire circuit for the third race weekend of the F3 season, after taking seventh- and fifth-place finishes at Brands Hatch last time out in F4.
He immediately impressed, going third, eighth, fifth and second in the four testing sessions on Thursday, before adding second- and third-fastest times on Friday.
Qualifying was equally impressive, the 17-year-old starting sixth and seventh for Race 1 and 2 respectively.
Race 1 brought a fourth-place finish, while Race 2 saw him take fifth as the Hitech GP pair of Reece Ushijima and Bart Horsten collided ahead of him.
The reverse-grid Race 3 brought a spectacularly consistent end to the weekend, jumping from 12th to fifth and securing three top-five finishes on debut.
The bonus points awarded for positions gained in Race 3 helped Arden, who are in their first British F3 season, ahead of Fortec Motorsport to take third place in the Teams’ Championship.
After just one weekend in the Championship, Bilinski sits 18th in the standings, just behind José Garfias (Elite Motorsport), having averaged 19.3 points per race.
For context, Ushijima sits second with 172 points from 19 races, an average of 19.1 points per race, after two wins at Silverstone.
Bilinski will return to Carlin for British F4’s visit to Oulton Park (31 July/1 August) , where he will look to bounce back from a points deduction which sees him 14th in the standings.
“I’m really pleased with how my debut weekend in British F3 went,” he said.
“Given the rest of the field have had pre-season testing, plus two events already, for us to come in and immediately be running up in the top six is really positive.
“It was great to work with Arden Motorsport again, they did a great job preparing the car and helping me acclimatise to the car and the series.
“The races themselves were certainly action-packed, I really had to have my wits about me out there, but we made progress in each of the three races and scored some good points.
“It was a fantastic opportunity for me to explore what the next steps in my career might be, but now the focus shifts back to the next round of British F4 at Oulton Park.”
