Fortec Rookies Reign Supreme in British F4 Scholarship Class at Oulton Park

The Fortec Motorsports stable of young racers in the 2016 F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford championship continued to flourish at Oulton Park, Cheshire, last weekend. With two Scholarship class wins and a third place podium, 15 year-old Alex Quinn continues to lead the 2016 Scholarship Class standings, with Danish team-mate Nicolai Kjaergaard stepping on to the top step of the class podium for the first time this season to sit in third place at the end of an eventful round 12.Racing Steps Foundation supported Alex Quinn was once again the fastest rookie in both practice sessions on Friday, setting the fifth quickest lap time overall for the Daventry based British team. He also split the Carlin Motorsport stranglehold of the top four positions during the 20-minute qualifying session on Saturday morning. With only six minutes left on the clock, Quinn posted a 1m 22.741s to put him just under two tenths clear of Petru Florescu, but at the chequered flag both Devlin DeFrancesco and Florescu pipped his time to take pole and P2 respectively after traffic put pains to a potential front row scoring flying lap from Quinn. Team mate and fellow rookie Nicholai Kjaergaard just missed out on a top ten qualifying position, whilst fellow Fortec newcomer Frank Bird qualified in P13.Quinn brought home his seventh Scholarship Class win in race one (round 10) on Saturday afternoon from an outstanding overall P5 finish. The young karting graduate also set the fastest rookie lap with a 1:23.527s. Sixteen year-old Kjaergaard and Frank Bird completed the top 15, with the Dane securing another third placed rookie podium trophy.An action packed race two (round 11) from lights out on Sunday lunchtime showed the competitive pace of Quinn’s #7 Fortec challenger. He soared up the inside of the Carlin cars of Florescu and Max Fewtrell to steal the third place podium spot and take his eighth rookie class win of the season on the final of the 14 laps race.Former Ginetta Junior’s driver Bird put in a solid performance to cross the finish line in P14 with Kjaergaard, also in his first season of single-seater competition, taking P4 in the Scholarship Class and fifteenth position overall.Sunday afternoon at Oulton Park saw a thrilling finale to the F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford weekend. With the round 12 grid order being set by the fields initial qualifying sessions second fastest laps times, Quinn started from P5, Kjaergaard P9 and Bird from P10.After setting the fastest rookie time of the race on lap nine, Quinn suffered a gearbox issue on the penultimate lap ending his running from a potential points scoring P6. Frank Bird had made a superb start to round 12 and made up four places when he too ended his contest prematurely running wide at Old Hall on lap one.It was the turn of Kjaergaard to put in an inspired performance around the 2.2 mile Cheshire track for his Fortec team by taking his maiden Scholarship class win and holding off Sennan Fielding (JHR) for seventh place.


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