QUINN RETURNS TO TOP STEP AND LUNDQVIST DOUBLES UP IN BRITISH F4 AT CROF

Alex Quinn made a welcome return to the top step of the podium after claiming his first win in the F4 British Championship certified by FIA - powered by Ford EcoBoost since September last year. The Cornish racer led home a superb TRS Arden one-two finish with Oscar Piastri in second. There was further cause for celebration for the Banbury outfit as Olli Caldwell, who became the youngest ever F4 driver having celebrated his 15th birthday just hours before his first race, scored points on his maiden outing.  In the final race of the weekend it was form man Linus Lundqvist who followed up with his flawless wet weather win yesterday with an equally dominant performance in the dry from pole position. The Double R ace has been in a league of his own at times this weekend, topping FP1, FP2, claiming a double pole position and converting both into victories. A near-perfect weekend which has reignited his title bid before the summer break and propelled him to third in the standings behind championship leader Jamie Caroline and Piastri.

ROUND 14: TRS ARDEN ONE-TWO AS QUINN TAKES HIS FIRST BRITISH F4 WIN OF SEASON Quinn claims fourth Ford EcoBoost-powered win of career and first of 2017. Oscar Piastri climbs several places to bring home TRS Arden one-two. Oliver York takes sixth Ford F4 Challenge Cup win. Caldwell becomes youngest F4 driver in history and scores points on debut. Alex Quinn scored his first win of the 2017 F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford EcoBoost campaign at Croft ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri in a superb one-two finish for TRS Arden. Starting on the front row Quinn made an excellent getaway, as team-mate Ayrton Simmons fell into the clutches of fast starting cars behind. Piastri followed Quinn’s example as the lights went out, charging from fifth to third, after which the safety car was deployed due to the stranded car of Daniel Cao in the gravel at turn one. Quinn wasted no time at the restart, immediately putting daylight between himself and Jamie Caroline. Piastri perfected the restart and found himself in the slipstream of Caroline down the main straight, but was unable to pull off a move into Clervaux. The Aussie persisted though, sneaking past later on the restart lap, with Ayrton Simmons and Linus Lundqvist (Double R) achieving the same feat moments later at Complex and Hairpin. Out front Quinn set about pulling away from the squabbling field behind and brought team-mate Piastri with him. At one stage Piastri looked to have more pace, dancing all over the gearbox of Quinn. The team-mates provided a thrilling show with Quinn doing brilliantly to keep Piastri behind to take his first win with TRS Arden in British F4, adding to his collection of three wins from last season when he won the Rookie title. “From my point of view that was almost the perfect race,” said a jubilant Quinn. “I got such a good start to pass Ayrton off the line and take the lead. “Oscar put me under enormous pressure towards the end of the race. We both broke away from the rest of the field which was really nice to see and this one-two is a great result for TRS Arden. “It means a lot to finally get this first win with them. There’s been so much hard work from both myself and the team to get this victory. I hope it will be the first of many.” “It would have been nice to get first,” added Piastri. “I didn’t want to risk it all trying to pass my team-mate though. This is a great result for the team and a massive haul of points. “My start was really good. I managed to get past Logan and Ayrton and then Jamie went off the track which allowed me to get up to second and close up to Alex. As they squabbled behind we were able to break clear. “The car felt really good out on track. I cannot thank Arden enough and obviously Alex’s was very quick too. The team are doing a great job, as they have been all season.” Logan Sargeant (Carlin) completed the podium and made it a brace of third place finishes for the weekend. Despite a far from ideal start which saw him drop a couple places from fourth, he put on a brilliant fightback which featured some skilful overtaking, not least on championship leader Jamie Caroline at Sunny In. “I didn’t get the start I would have liked and fell back to sixth position,” commented Sargeant. “One of my moves was really nice. I slipped up the inside of Jamie at Sunny In. I was really pleased with that. “I just tried to keep my nose clean and that helped me into P3. I tried to chase down the leaders, but they had too much of a gap. I want to say a big thanks to the Carlin team again. They’ve been mega. I’m happy to pick up valuable points for them and myself in the championship. ”This has definitely been one of my best races. Some of my overtakes worked and some didn’t, but that’s all part of the learning process and hopefully next time all my overtakes will work!” Yesterday’s winner Linus Lundqvist just missed out on returning to podium in fourth, but brought home another strong points score ahead of the final race of the weekend from which he will start from pole. Fortec Motorsport’s Oliver York worked his way up from ninth to fifth and return to the top step of the Ford F4 Challenge Cup podium, while team-mate Hampus Ericsson finished third in class and broke into the points to finish ninth. Said Ford F4 Challenge Cup class winner York: “It was a really good race overall. There was plenty going on. The car felt amazing so huge thanks to Fortec. I had some really nice battles. “There’s only about three clear overtaking points at this track. The move I pulled off around the outside of Pasma through the fast left and right was pretty special. We made the best of the situation in that race and hopefully we can do even better in the final race today.” Patrik Pasma gained two places to finish sixth ahead of team-mate Caroline who fell away from the fight towards the front of the field after contact with Ayrton Simmons at Tower. The latter’s race coming to an abrupt end after it had promised so much starting from pole. Like Simmons, Jamie Sharp’s race came to a halt on lap nine, the Sharp Motorsport driver running wide and clattering the barriers, ultimately denying him another top ten result. Karl Massaad was another not to make the chequered flag after a sizable off just three laps later which saw the red flag thrown and with it the chequer. TRS Arden had further reason to celebrate. Not only did Olli Caldwell make history by becoming the youngest ever Formula 4 driver with his competitive debut in the race, having turned 15-years old just hours earlier, he also finished in the points. A tenth place finish a fantastic achievement having started last due to being unable to take part in qualifying yesterday because of his age. Caldwell was calm and composed in his maiden outing and gradually picked his way through the field in a performance which belied his age. Pictured: Feature shot - TRS Arden's Alex Quinn celebrates his first win this season in the F4 British Championship certified by FIA - powered by Ford EcoBoost. Above, clockwise from top left: Round 14 podium (left to right): Logan Sargeant, Alex Quinn, Oscar Piastri; Linus Lundqvist and Double R Racing took a commanding win in Round 15; There was no shortage of wheel-to-wheel action throughout the Ford EcoBoost-powered field; Olli Caldwell became the youngest F4 driver in history and scored points in his debut race. Images by Jakob Ebrey Photography.  ROUND 15: LUNDQVIST DOUBLES HIS FUN WITH SECOND BRITISH F4 WIN AT CROFT Lundqvist wins final race of weekend with Double R. Quinn follows up win with second place for TRS Arden, while team-mate Piastri pulls off hat-trick of podiums at Croft. Linus Lundqvist and Double R Racing claimed another flawless lights to flag victory at Croft in the final race of the weekend in the F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford EcoBoost. A perfect start from pole saw Lundqvist lead comfortably into turn one after which the Swedish single-seater champion effortlessly pulled a gap to the chasing pack on his way to victory. He recorded the fastest lap of the race, a time of 1m 21.444s, on lap four and then proceeded to lap consistently in the 1m 21s. A pace that could not be matched by the rest of the field with no other driver managing to lap below 1m 22s mark. “It’s great to get another win before the summer break,” said Lundqvist. “I’ve really enjoyed driving the car all weekend. I haven’t had any problems and the car has worked so well. It allowed me to push right from the beginning to build the gap I needed. I then just tried to manage the tyres and keep up a strong pace. “The weekend I have had is something any driver would call ideal; when the car is just perfect and you can extract so much pace from it which is what we have done all the time. “It feels so good to go into the summer break with this excellent performance. I want to carry this momentum into the second half of the season. I’ll be pushing 100% in every session so we can take the fight to the others in the championship.” Alex Quinn was another fast starter, leapfrogging team-mate Oscar Piastri and Jamie Caroline, by scything down the inside of them through turn one. Caroline found himself defending a two-pronged attack from the TRS Arden pairing and as he fended off Piastri, Quinn found enough space to pass them both. Piastri maintained the pressure through Hawthorn and Caroline ran off the track through the Chicane, losing ground and giving Oscar the opportunity to go by. “I’m really happy and the team has done a great job,” said Quinn. “I’m not too upset it’s the summer break because last season I had a tough weekend at Croft, so to leave here with podium and a win gives me a lot of hope for the second half of the season. “We’ve scored a lot of podiums in the first half of the season, but we’ve just been caught out by bad luck at times. I think things are looking up in the championship now though after this weekend which is really positive. “I got a good start off the line which enabled me to put pressure on the guys in front and while Oscar and Jamie were squabbling I took my chance up the inside. “Oscar was very quick in the first part of the race which didn’t make things easy, but then I managed to just pull away a bit towards the end which underlines my consistency in the car over a race distance.” “Three podiums out of three is always a good result over the weekend,” added Piastri. “I got a good start and moved alongside Jamie. Unfortunately Alex got on the inside of both of us. “In the end I think I was a little fortunate to stay ahead of Massaad because he was very fast. His pace dropped off a little bit at the end and I’m very happy to have held onto third. This race was very similar to race two when I caught Alex up and then dropped back off again. “The team has done an amazing job. We’ve been fast all weekend regardless of the conditions. We’ve certainly made up some ground on Caroline in the standings which is great for the championship.” Caroline’s excursion at the chicane immediately left him having to defend from Karl Massaad who hustled the Carlin driver in first part of the race, getting a better exit out of Sunny on lap six to take fourth place, with Caroline increasingly susceptible due to a technical gremlin. However, the championship leader did well to hold onto fifth, keeping a hard charging Logan Sargeant at bay who had climbed several places up the order during the race. The highlight a perfectly judged move down the inside of Simmons for sixth. Simmons pulled off some deft overtaking manoeuvres himself, namely on Oliver York late on with a daring late lunge at Tower. Although this relegated York to eighth ahead of Patrik Pasma, York took another Ford F4 Challenge Cup win just hours after standing on the top step in the class podium celebrations in race two of the weekend. The Challenge Cup podium was identical to the earlier race with Harry Webb (Richardson Racing) and Hampus Ericsson (Fortec Motorsports) taking second and third. Olli Caldwell just missed out on a Challenge Cup podium on his debut weekend despite a superb effort on track in only his second British F4 race. It featured some excellent wheel-to-wheel racing from the birthday boy, coming out on top heading into Clervaux on lap two having been three abreast with Lucas Alecco Roy and Daniel Cao. Caldwell then set his sights on Ericsson and Jamie Sharp, the trio jostling for position with Roy and Liu getting in on the act to make for a thrilling battle. The F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford EcoBoost now heads into its annual summer break, with the action set to continue at Snetterton on 29/30 July, 2017. Carlin’s Jamie Caroline will defend a 67.5 point lead from Piastri, with Lundqvist just 18 points further back in third. F4 British Championship certified by FIA - powered by Ford EcoBoost Provisional results Round 14 Croft 11 June 2017 11 laps / 23.37 miles 1 Alex QUINN / GBR / Arden 17m 00.619s / 82.48mph 2 Oscar PIASTRI / AUS / Arden +0.463s 3 Logan SARGEANT / USA / Carlin +5.524s 4 Linus LUNDQVIST / SWE / Double R +6.633s 5 Oliver YORK / GBR / Fortec +7.341s 6 Patrik PASMA / FIN / Carlin +8.336s 7 Jamie CAROLINE / GBR / Carlin +11.509s 8 Harry WEBB / GBR / Richardson +13.005s 9 Hampus ERICSSON / SWE / Fortec +14.317s 10 Olli CALDWELL / GBR / Arden +14.574s etc. Fastest lap: Alex Quinn 1m 21.750s / 93.57mph Ford F4 Challenge Cup: 1 York; 2 Webb; 3 Ericsson; 4 Caldwell Provisional results Round 15 Croft 11 June 2017 15 laps / 31.87 miles 1 Linus LUNDQVIST / SWE / Double R 20m 36.846s / 92.77mph 2 Alex QUINN / GBR / Arden +5.728s 3 Oscar PIASTRI / AUS / Arden +6.860s 4 Karl MASSAAD / LEB / Double R +8.301s 5 Jamie CAROLINE / GBR / Carlin +10.649s 6 Logan SARGEANT / USA / Carlin +10.928s 7 Ayrton SIMMONS / GBR / Arden +17.332s 8 Oliver YORK / GBR / Fortec +17.861s 9 Patrik PASMA / FIN / Carlin +19.544a 10 Harry WEBB / GBR / Richardson +23.499s etc. Fastest lap: Linus Lundqvist 1m 21.444s / 93.93mph Ford F4 Challenge Cup: 1 York; 2 Webb; 3 Ericsson; 4 Caldwell Provisional championship standings 1 Caroline 238 points; 2 Piastri 170.5; 3 Lundqvist 152.5; 4 Quinn 139; 5 Sargeant 134; 6 Pasma 108.5; 7 York 98.5; 8 Simmons 81.5; 9 Webb 52; 10 Massaad 46 etc. Provisional Ford F4 Challenge Cup standings 1 York 279.5 points; 2 Webb 239.5; 3 Monger 100; 4 Ericsson 79.5; 5 Caldwell 24 Full times

Share this post