Championship contenders Kaylen Frederick and Kush Maini were victorious in the two races at Snetterton today (Saturday), on a day that saw both encounter highs and lows thanks to tricky track conditions. Frederick took advantage of a fast start in a very wet race one to claim his fifth win of the year, but a first lap incident in race two forced him to fight back to 12th in the reverse grid encounter.
Maini had an off track excursion of his own in race one, finishing 11th, but then fought back in this afternoon's contest, held in slightly drier conditions. He surged from third on the grid to the lead on lap one, and then pulled out a decent margin to claim his third win of the year, reversing the damage to his title aspirations suffered in race one.
Qualifying
Double R Racing's Louis Foster claimed a double pole in qualifying this morning, with a series of lap times towards the end of the session ensuring he secured front of the grid starting slots for races one and three.
Foster was over six tenths of a second clear of Frederick, with fellow Double R-runner Benjamin Pedersen securing third on the grid for race one. Sasakorn Chaimongkol (Hillspeed), Manaf Hijjawi (Douglas) and Nazim Azman (Carlin) completed the top six in qualifying for race one.
Foster's second quickest time secured him pole for tomorrow morning's race three, a quarter of a second quicker than Chaimongkol, with Frederick set to start third. Pedersen, Hijjawi and Douglas Motorsport's Ulysse De Pauw were fourth, fifth and sixth on second quickest times.
Race one
Frederick made a better start than pole man Foster to lead the field down to Riches on the first lap. The American led by 1.2 seconds at the end of lap one, a position he maintained at the end of lap two. Frederick then began to pull away, establishing a lead of over two seconds next time around, and had the gap up to almost five seconds at the end of lap six.
With the win in the bag, Frederick was able to ease off slightly, with Foster clawing the gap back to just over three seconds at the chequered flag. Azman completed the podium after resisting pressure from Hillspeed's local man Oliver Clarke in the closing stages, with De Pauw and Hijjawi completing the top six.
Behind them, Josh Skelton claimed seventh for Chris Dittmann Racing, while Bart Horsten delivered one of the drives of the season so far to surge from 18th and last on the grid to eighth for Lanan Racing. A mistake on the penultimate lap dropped Maini from eighth to 11th.
Race two
Indian driver Maini made amends in race two. Starting from third on the grid, he blasted past Alex Fores (Chris Dittmann Racing) and pole sitter Piers Prior (Lanan) on lap one, and immediately built a lead, while further back, Frederick starting 13th was swiped off the road and forced into delivering a recovery drive.
Maini built a lead of over seven seconds with two laps remaining, but Douglas Motorsport's De Pauw was a man on a mission. Having started ninth, the Belgian had picked off his rivals before moving into second on lap eight. He then lapped considerably quicker than the leader to bring the gap down to 4.2 seconds in two laps, claiming second place with Skelton third for Chris Dittmann Racing.
Foster was another to make continuous progress, climbing from 12th on the grid to take fourth, including a last lap move on pole man Prior, with Pedersen also carving through the field, taking sixth from a starting position of 17th.
After falling to the tail of the 18 car field after his dramas on lap one, Frederick recovered to 12th, including a gain of five places on lap eight, and very nearly claimed 11th at the flag, finishing 0.150 seconds behind Hitech's Reece Ushijima.
Race one winner Frederick said: "The conditions were really tricky with a lot less grip than in qualifying, so judging the start was quite hard and even I got some wheelspin, and I had a relatively good start compared to everyone else. So the start was really key there, making sure you got traction and from that point I built up my lead and just kept looking forward. At the end I took a couple of chill laps to make sure we brought it home. There was no point in trying to set the world on fire in those last few laps."
Race two winner Maini said: "After qualifying I'll take that. We limited the damage but we don't want to win the reverse grid race, we want to win the main ones. But today I'll take it because we haven't been the quickest and we've struggled a bit in the wet. But we did the job in the second race and I think tomorrow race three will be tough. We will see what the weather is like for the grid for race four. I'm happy with that but obviously today has not been my best day."
BRDC British F3 Championship, Snetterton race one top-six:
1. Kaylen Frederick, Carlin, 10 laps
2. Louis Foster, Double R Racing, +3.125s
3. Nazim Azman, Carlin, +15.281s
4. Oliver Clarke, Hillspeed, +17.166s
5. Ulysse De Pauw, Douglas Motorsport, +18.124s
6. Manaf Hijjawi, Douglas Motorsport, +23.351s
Click here for full result.
BRDC British F3 Championship, Snetterton, race two top-six:
1. Kush Maini, Hitech GP, 10 laps
2. Ulysse De Pauw, Douglas Motorsport, +4.421s
3. Josh Skelton, Chris Dittmann Racing, +9.028s
4. Louis Foster, Double R Racing, +13.940s
5. Piers Prior, Lanan Racing, +14.351s
6. Benjamin Pedersen, Double R Racing, +18.716s
BRDC British F3 Championship, top-six standings after race 16 of 24:
1. Kush Maini, Hitech GP, 328pts
2. Kaylen Frederick, Carlin, 282pts
3. Louis Foster, Double R Racing, 274pts
4. Ulysse De Pauw, Douglas Motorsport, 263pts
5. Nazim Azman, Carlin, 244pts
6. Josh Skelton, Chris Dittmann Racing, 239pts
