Raven gets the ball rolling with US victory
After a turbulent opening weekend in F4 United States Championship, 2014 Formula Ford Festival winner James Raven is confident of fighting for the title after taking his first race win at Road America earlier this month.
Portsmouth driver Raven crashed in qualifying and ran wide in one of the races compromising his chances at Virginia International Raceway last month, but he took two seconds and a win earlier this month to sit third in the standings.
His victory came under the safety car, but a daring move on the penultimate lap promoted him from third to first in a single corner.
“We’ll take it,” said Deforce Racing driver Raven. “We were edging away before the safety car but it still would have been nice to race to the finish. I’m really happy with the weekend, we took the most points from the weekend, in the championship we went from ninth to third and 28 points behind the leader.
“I’m looking forward to the rest of the year as the championship is really tight.”
Benjamin Pedersen and Dakota Dickerson won the other races, while the highest finishing Brits behind Raven were Matthew Cowley and Teddy Wilson.
The series uses the Crawford F4-16 chassis with a Honda engine. The next round is Mid Ohio on June 28-July 1.
Motorsport Ireland’s Young Racing Driver of the Year for 2017, Jordan Dempsey, will move from US F4 – having only competed at the opening meeting – to Chinese F4.