I went to see the BRDC F4 championship at Silverstone recently, and I enjoyed it so much, that I decided to go to the next round, the 2014 BRDC F4 at Brands Hatch to see if it would be another exciting weekend. The event was on the same billing as British GT and British Formula Three at the Kent circuit, with the BRDC F4 taking third place in the line up, although in my opinion, it is one of the most exciting series around at the moment. It’s a long way for me to get to Brands, but given how good the previous round was, I thought that it was worth it.
There were, as normal, three races over the weekend, and Sennan Fielding was, no doubt, aiming to follow up on his success of becoming the first driver to win all three races at a single weekend at Silverstone. The first race on Saturday, with di Mauro, who came so close to a win at Silverstone, leading from pole, and managing to lead through the race to the chequered flag at the end, scoring a first win for both him and the team, Petroball. Sturan Moore fought hard for second place, and Arjun Miani took third.
Sunday saw the second and third races. The second race saw Will Palmer on pole, and was quickly challenged by Sennan Fielding, who started third. From where we were watching, we got a great view of a number of battles through the order, with Palmer’s lead over Fielding down to about a tenth of a second in lap two, before Fielding was hit by another car, sending him back to fifteenth, and an incident featuring Palmer moving him back to eighth. The previous day’s winner, di Mauro, fared even worse, being out on the first lap. After much challenging, Chris Middlehurst took the lead on lap seven from Arjun Miani, with the two of them holding those positions to score a win and a second place, and George Russell completing the podium. Palmer fought back to seventh place, and Fielding to ninth. Arjun Miani said on the podium, “It was a really good race to start off with and I got the lead pretty quickly. Unfortunately I had contact with other drivers but it was pretty unavoidable so I will apologise to them for spoiling their race.
“I made a big mistake at Sheene, but that’s what we do, we make mistakes and learn from them so we don’t do it again.”
Adam Carroll, a veteran of various racing series, was on hand to present the trophies on the podium, and stayed around for an interview afterwards.
Sunday afternoon saw the third and final race of the weekend, with Miani on pole. Interestingly, there seemed to be a lower rate of attrition in this race, with fewer incidents either through mechanical error or from the drivers. Miani was challenged hard through the race my di Mauro, who in turn had Struan Moore on his tail. Despite plenty of attempts, and close racing, the top three kept this order, and crossed the finish line with Maini ready for the top step of the podium, joined by di Mauro and Moore, with Fielding following for a fourth place, from sixth on the grid. With two weekends of the championship left, at my local track, Donington Park, in September, and then off to Snetterton in October, the championship is very close, with sixty points – that’s two wins in this series – separating the top six drivers of Russell, Maini, Hyman, Fielding, Palmer and Moore. All six have shown talent, and there have been wins this year for drivers through the top ten in the series.
The next two rounds promise to be every bit as exciting as those that have preceded them. If you get a chance, do pop along to see them.
We had, of course, a look around the paddock whilst we were there, to see what was going on, and took great interest in the cars in various states of work between races. The drivers were there too.
Here are a few photos from the weekend, I hope that you enjoy them.
