Alex Lynn had a perfect weekend to score two race wins, two pole positions and two fastest laps, including a new lap record, in the latest round of the Formula Renault UK Championship at Thruxton.
The daunting Hampshire circuit, Britain’s fastest track, was completely mastered by 17-year-old Essex driver Lynn, who made it five races win out of six this season in his Fortec Motorsport car.
After setting the pace in Friday’s test, Lynn took pole position in the opening qualifying session on Saturday morning (at an average speed of 123.39mph), then during the afternoon set no fewer than three laps good enough for pole for the second race.
“It feels really sweet and now we’ve just got to keep our heads down,” he said. “In the second session I did my pole lap on my first proper attempt, but I wasn’t sure it was enough so I tried again. I can’t complain though – I was pretty chilled out!”
Alex instantly pulled out a gap in the opening race on Saturday, setting the lap record on the first flying lap. He then kept the gap static to main rival Tio Ellinas in the second half of the race before taking a comfortable win.
“I really enjoyed that drive – it was really satisfying,” he smiled. “I pegged the gap to Tio to give the tyres a rest, but then he started closing and I thought ‘I’m not having that!’ So I picked the pace back up just to have a bit of fun.”
Sunday’s race was a dominant drive from Lynn to win by more than six seconds from Ellinas, who had to emerge from the pack before claiming his customary second place. “It’s been a great weekend – I’m absolutely thrilled!” said Alex, who from this year is a member of two highly-prestigious young-driver programmes: the MSA Team UK scheme and the British Racing Drivers Club’s SuperStars programme.
“I could do fastest laps on every lap in race two – the team just gave me a great car.”
Fortec team manager and race engineer Russell Dixon said: “It was even better than the first race weekend of the season at Brands Hatch, because this time he got both fastest laps. He was perfect in every session. What can you say? He didn’t put a foot wrong.”
As part of the ultra-popular British Touring Car Championship package, the Formula Renault UK Championship enjoyed live coverage of its second race at Thruxton on ITV4 and ITV4 HD, and was streamed live at itv.com/touringcars. Now there is a breather in the Formula Renault UK schedule before the fourth round, at Oulton Park in Cheshire, on June 4/5.
