Three different race winners at Brands Hatch this weekend in the BRDC Formula 4 championship, running on Yokohama control tyres, saw the championship order change. Wins for Gaetano di Mauro, Chris Middlehurst and Arjun Maini mean that the latter rockets up the leaderboard to second overall.
The first race of the weekend, on Saturday, saw di Mauro start from pole position after clinching the fastest lap in qualifying. The Brazilian new-comer's season reached its pinnacle with a lights-to-flag victory, finishing ahead of Struan Moore and Maini in third. This marks a superb achievement, with di Mauro having gradually improved his performances over the season until he reached the top step of the podium.
The second race of the weekend saw Will Palmer start in pole, thanks to his eighth place in the first race and he led initially from the lights. However, he and Fielding came together and this sent them backwards down the order and allowed Maini and Middlehurst through to the front.
Maini eventually spun on his own and this allowed Middlehurst through to the front of the pack and despite Maini's charging, held out to the flag with a margin of slightly more than 0.3 seconds. Third was series leader George Russell, having a weekend to forget so far and starting from 10th while Raoul Hyman was fourth.
The third and final race of the weekend saw Maini start in pole, thanks to the fastest race lap of the weekend, ahead of di Mauro whose own lap was just 0.008s slower. The race belonged to these two, never separated by more than a second with Maini taking the win and di Mauro, his second podium of the weekend. Third went to Moore, ahead of Fielding and Russell.
The results mean that Russell actually extends his championship lead by nine points while Maini's three podiums sees him leap-frog Hyman into second, just nine points behind Russell. Hyman is third, a further four points back while Fielding holds fourth, 16 points adrift.
Commenting, Head of Motorsport at Yokohama HPT Ltd, Mark Evans, said; "This was another superb weekend of action from the F4 field. Three different race winners proves just how competitive the series is and the fact that the top three in the title race are separated by only 13 points with six races to go looks like it will be a thrilling end to the season."
The penultimate round of the series talks place over the weekend of 19-21 September at Donington Park in Leicestershire.
