MONGER MISSES OUT ON MAIDEN WIN
Car woes deny JHR driver, but Pull is victorious
One lap. It’s incredible how quickly delight can turn to despair during a British F4 race. Billy Monger was one tour of the Rockingham circuit away from claiming his maiden single-seater win, but mechanical troubles prevented him from joining James Pull as a first-time winner in Northamptonshire.
JHR’S Monger led from pole in the final race of the weekend and was able to fend off Petru Florescu at the start. He then began to pull away and didn’t put a wheel out of line until he suddenly slowed on the last lap coming out of Deene. Points leader Max Fewtrell and Monger’s team-mate Sennan Fielding pounced, while Monger was able to salvage third.
“An oil pressure light came on with three laps to go and I knew I would struggle out of the hairpins,” he explained. “There was nothing I could do.”
But he did still manage to take some positives out of the race. “We proved to a lot of people that we have the pace to win races,” he added.
Earlier Pull did achieve that first win – and it had been a long time coming. The Carlin driver has contested every race since the series became an FIA F4 category last year and finally broke his duck in a wet opener.
He kept Alex Quinn at bay off the line and then pulled away in a dominant performance – his first win coming at just the right time as the title race enters its closing stages.
“I was quite enjoying that!” beamed Pull. “I’ve always loved racing in the wet and Rockingham is really slippery so that helped me even more. At the start I had to make sure Alex didn’t get past and then I got into a rhythm. It felt amazing – I really got into the
1 James Pull (Carlin); 2 Alex Quinn (Fortec Motorsports) +5.072s; 3 Max Fewtrell (Carlin); 4 Jamie Caroline (Fortec Motorsports); 5 Sennan Fielding (JHR Developments); 6 Rafael Martins (Arden). Fastest lap Pull 1m33.026s (75.07mph). Pole Pull. Starters 19. Race
1 Fielding; 2 Luis Leeds (Arden) +0.535s; 3 Fewtrell; 4 Caroline; 5 Quinn; 6 Ayrton Simmons (Arden). FL Leeds 1m19.760s (87.56mph). P Nicolai Kjaergaard (Fortec Motorsports). S 19.
1 Fewtrell; 2 Fielding +0.636s; 3 Billy Monger (JHR Developments); 4 Petru Florescu (Carlin); 5 Quinn; 6 Martins. FL Pull 1m19.971s (87.33mph). P Monger. S 19. Points (after 24/30 rounds) 1 Fewtrell 287pts; 2 Fielding 263; 3 Leeds 252; 4 Pull 234; 5 Devlin Defrancesco (Carlin) 222; 6 Florescu 220.
zone and can’t thank the team enough.”
Quinn held second while Fewtrell was third. Jamie Caroline put in a typically impressive wet weather drive to storm from 18th on the grid to fourth.
Meanwhile, Carlin racers Devlin Defrancesco and Florescu both failed to finish – but didn’t come to blows this time. In a tough weekend for the pair, which has made title bids increasingly unlikely, Defrancesco collided with Zane Goddard and Florescu was caught up in an incident at Deene on the opening tour.
The big winner from the weekend was Fielding – who has now jumped up to second in the standings. He was fifth in the opener and then won race two despite having to deal with two safety cars. Luis Leeds was second but that proved to be his only top six finish of the meeting, while the consistent Fewtrell was third after passing Caroline into Deene.
1 Tregurtha 543pts; 2 Middleton 488; 3 Brown 403; 4 Dave Wooder (TCR) 385; 5 Daniel Harper (Douglas Motorsport) 337; 6 Nicosia 335.
1 Bushell 366pts; 2 Whorton-eales 344; 3 Coates 293; 4 Rivett 285; 5 Lee Pattison (Team Cooksport) 242; 6 Paul Streather (Finesse Motorsport) 215.
1 Orton; 2 Hibbert +1.461s; 3 Burns; 4 Pointon; 5 Davies; 6 Boardley. CW White. FL Wrigley 1m23.441s (83.69mph). P Orton. S 15.
1 Davies; 2 Burns +1.224s; 3 Orton; 4 Hibbert; 5 Wrigley; 6 Ben Green (Supergreen Racing). CW Chris Ingram (Douglas Motorsport). FL Burns 1m24.155s (82.98mph). P Davies. S 15.