Lundqvist stars at Silverstone to extend lead
SILVERSTONE BRSCC JUNE 9-10
Linus Lundqvist once again proved the man to beat in BRDC British F3 at Silverstone, not putting a wheel wrong all weekend and extending his lead in the standings.
The Swede in his words had “the perfect Saturday”, taking his first outright pole position and holding off Kush Maini for the duration of the 10-lap race on the Grand Prix layout to claim his fourth win of 2018.
He cruised through from 17th on the full-reversed-grid second race to sixth by the flag on Sunday, and enjoyed runner-up spot in the final race to hold a 56-point lead over Nicolai Kjaergaard at the halfway stage of the season.
“It’s been a very solid weekend, I’m still really happy with getting my first pole position,” said delighted Double R Racing man Lundqvist. “It’s always good to have that points buffer but there’s still so long to go. I can’t start playing safe for the championship; I still need to win races.”
If Lundqvist left Silverstone the most satisfied British F3 driver, Lanan Racing’s Kush Maini was perhaps the most frustrated. The Indian was pipped to pole by just 0.051s for race one and shadowed Lundqvist throughout, but never had enough of a chance to overtake. He was knocked into a spin on the opening lap of race two by Jamie Chadwick and recovered to 14th, but had secured a fast enough lap to start from pole in race three.
Maini bogged down off the line and allowed fellow front-row starter Tom Gamble to lead into Copse, though, and an attempt to repass the Fortec driver into Maggotts and Becketts put Maini on the kerb and he lost another spot to Lundqvist, eventually finishing a frustrated third.
“I came out of Copse in second and I think he underestimated how quick he [Gamble] could go into the corner [Maggotts]. I was bouncing all over the place [on the kerb],” said Maini, who sits third in the standings, now 97 points adrift of leader Lundqvist. “It’s motorsport and it can do that to you [bad results], and there’s still half the championship left, but I’m definitely not happy.”
Kjaergaard also had a weekend to forget, scoring two fourth-place finishes and a sixth as all four Carlin cars struggled through the high-speed corners.
Double R secured its second win of the weekend courtesy of Pavan Ravishankar, who made the most of the reversed-grid second race to take his maiden British F3 win after starting from pole position. The Singaporean put in a faultless drive to beat Carlin’s Sun Yue Yang, while Gamble took third before going on to win the final race of the weekend, a change of engine after race one rectifying a lack of straightline speed.
A notable absentee from the British F3 grid were any Chris Dittmann Racing cars, as its two drivers – Briton Harry Webb and Malaysian Chia Wing Hoong – were unable to secure funding to compete.
The Silverstone layout lent itself to the other one-make series on show and produced some titanic slipstreaming battles.
Danny Winstanley extended his lead at the top of the Caterham Seven 420R standings after winning both races, but had to fight all the way for them. Up to 12 cars
battled for the lead at one stage in the first race, with multiple overtakes for top spot on almost every lap. Winstanley was unable to break away but used his experience to beat Sean Byrne and Jack Brown. In race two, front-row starters Winstanley and Byrne worked together to pull away from the rest of the field and the drag to the line went in favour of Winstanley – but only by the small margin of 0.008s!
A misjudgement when lapping a backmarker on the final lap into Village cost Shane Stoney victory in race one of the Ginetta GT5 Challenge. James Kellett, who’d kept polesitter Stoney honest throughout, pounced up the inside into the right-hander to take the lead and victory.
Stoney made no mistake in the second race, pulling a gap to the gaggle of Ginettas behind to win, while Tom Golding dominated both G40 Cup outings, which were held in conjunction with the GT5S.
Jordan Collard took his maiden victory in the first Mini Challenge race, passing long-time leader Ant Whorton-eales into Copse with three laps to go.
Only one racing lap was completed in the second race following a delayed start (see page 67) and safety-car period to recover several cars from the Northamptonshire scenery – most notably front-row starter Jack Davidson, who spun at Becketts.
Rob Smith took his first Mini win this year from Whorton-eales and Nathan Harrison in the dash to the flag.