• TRS Arden driver Ricky Collard takes the reverse-grid race win but fails to finish the feature race • Third-race drama also for Carlin’s championship leader Lando Norris • Double R and Matheus Leist celebrate their second win of the season
The scene is set for a dramatic conclusion to the inaugural season of Ford EcoBoost-powered competition in the MSA Formula Championship, with a handful of drivers still battling for the prestigious FIA Formula 4 Champion of Great Britain title. The battle goes down to the wire in a fortnight’s time at Brands Hatch…
Sunday at Silverstone there was drama aplenty, with Ricky Collard claiming victory over Sennan Fielding in the reverse-grid race to narrow the overall points lead of Saturday Silverstone victor Lando Norris to just 11 with just the three Brands Hatch races in which to decide their battle for the crown. But both Collard and Norris suffered in the third Silverstone race, an accident-strewn affair in which victory went to Double R’s Brazilian star Matheus Leist ahead of Carlin man Colton Herta.
ROUND 26: COLLARD ON TOP IN SILVERSTONE THRILLER
Ricky Collard fought his way to the front to claim his sixth Ford EcoBoost-powered win of the MSA Formula season this morning, overpowering Sennan Fielding near the end of a tense and dramatic race played out in front of a bumper Silverstone BTCC crowd.
After a relatively low-key day in his TRS Arden machine yesterday, 19-year-old BRDC Rising Star Ricky was in no mood for compromise despite the disadvantage of a fifth-place grid slot for the 20-minute reverse-grid race. He claimed two scalps on the opening lap and then followed Fielding past early leader Dan Baybutt to hit second by the seventh lap. The ensuing 14 laps kept spectators enthralled as JHR Developments driver Fielding and Collard battled to decide the outcome.
Ricky’s first serious challenge came at the end of lap 17 as they entered Luffield, Collard drawing alongside his rival before Fielding closed the door to maintain his advantage. Ricky regrouped and staged another Luffield assault next time around as Sennan took a slightly wider line; it was enough of a gap for Collard to impose himself on the inside and run side by side with Fielding down the pits straight, crossing the line one-thousandth of a second ahead before Ricky made his overtake secure through Copse at the start of the 19th tour.
An unsettled Fielding had no time to think about repassing: his mirrors were suddenly full of the Fortec car of Dan Ticktum, which had battled back to third after losing ground in the early laps. Collard crossed the line six-tenths clear of Fielding, with Ticktum a further four-hundredths behind for third place.
“I made a really good start,” said a jubilant Collard, “I think the best start I made all season. I knew it really had to count. The first 10 minutes of the race was absolutely frantic – I had Sowery attacking me really hard from behind, and so was Ticktum, and I was trying to attack Fielding… It was a really, really enjoyable race. I knew I had one shot at taking the lead and I was trying to work out where I was stronger than him. Luffield had to be the place. He made a bit of a mistake going into Brooklands and I managed to get inside him – one of my best moves of the season – and we were rubbing wheels all the way around Luffield and all the way down the main straight at 120mph. These Ford EcoBoost cars absolutely awesome to drive. All credit to Sennan, too – we raced hard but we raced fair.”
Added Sennan: “Ricky hit me quite hard a couple of times during the race, including on the first lap, which sent me wide – that caused quite a loss of rear-end grip. Then there was contact at Luffield, where he managed to get in front.”
Ticktum’s third was his 11th overall podium finish of the season and his 15th Rookie class victory, provisionally netting Dan the Rookie championship title with four races in hand. “It was hard at the start, I went back to sixth I think,” said Dan. “Everyone was going for the same bit of track and I got boxed in quite a few times. My pace was good, though, and I was able to get back up there.”
Ticktum and MBM Motorsport driver Toby Sowery battled tooth and nail for much of the race, Dan finally underlining his superiority on lap 12. Sowery crossed the line P4 but alas was deemed to have exceeded track limits on several occasions, netting him 15 seconds in penalties to drop him well down the finishing order.
Fourth thus went the way of Double R’s Matheus Leist, with JTR’s Baybutt, who led the opening six laps after getting a better start from P2 on the grid than did pole man Sandy Mitchell. Colton Herta was Carlin’s leading finisher in sixth, just ahead of top-10 returnee Rafael Martins for SWB Motorsport.
Saturday race victor and championship leader Lando Norris took eighth for Carlin, with Jack Butel scoring his third top-nine finish of the season at the wheel of his JHR Developments car. TRS Arden man Mitchell, who was penalised five seconds for track limits, completed the top 10 ahead of Carlin’s Petru Florescu and Enaam Ahmed (TRS Arden). The penalised Sowery was classified 13th with the top 15 completed by Darius Karbaley for Falcon Motorsport and Tarun Reddy for Double R.
ROUND 27: LEIST CLAIMS HIS SECOND WIN IN EVENTFUL FINALE
Through the drama of a chaotic third and final Silverstone round of the MSA Formula weekend, young Brazilian Matheus Leist picked his way carefully to victory – his second of the season for the Double R team – ahead of Carlin driver Colton Herta.
Only 10 of the 19 starters made it to the chequered flag, with championship protagonists Lando Norris and Ricky Collard both in the wars; Collard’s race ended in the pits and Norris finished 10th and last after a pit call following contact. As a result, the title fight will go down to the wire next month at Brands Hatch with just 11 points separating them.
It was a spate of crashes on the opening lap which shaped the race. The first saw Josh Smith’s Fortec car spear off the circuit after contact with Enaam Ahmed’s TRS Arden machine. Then, at Luffield, Collard tagged Dan Ticktum into a spin which set off a chain reaction involving the cars of Sandy Mitchell, Rafael Martins and Tarun Reddy which led to their elimination also.
Carlin man Norris had made an impeccable start from pole position to lead the race ahead of fast-starter Toby Sowery (MBM Motorsport) but, as they headed into Brooklands on lap two towards the scene of the earlier accidents, Norris slowed and Sowery did not, and the resulting contact between them led to Sowery’s retirement and Norris’s pit visit for repairs. Said Lando: “I’m not sure what happened, really. I took my normal line, not too wide, not too tight and I was at least half-way around the corner when I got a big hit in the side.”
Sowery was at a loss also: “I don’t know what happened. Lando didn’t really back off a noticeable amount but then I guess he must have seen something that I didn’t and braked hard. I took my normal line and that’s how we met…”
With the safety car called into play while all the cars involved were retrieved to safety, it was Leist heading the train ahead of Herta, Collard, Baybutt and Ahmed. Racing did not resume until the seventh lap, by which time there had been further contact between Collard and Ticktum; the latter retired to the pits and an investigation of the incident by the stewards of the meeting. This second contact left Collard’s front wing flapping; he was summoned to the pits for attention to the damage but did not act upon the warning flags, leading to him being black-flagged.
Leist mastered the restart and built a 0.9s lead over Herta, with Ahmed slotting into third after his team-mate’s removal from proceedings. Leist’s tyres were well past their best in the latter stages and Herta set fastest lap in his pursuit, narrowing the Brazilian’s advantage to 0.6s at the line. “It was mad, a crazy race,” said Colton, “but it all helped me because I had a poor start. Maybe if we’d had a couple more laps I could have done something about Matheus because his tyres were going off… I was pushing at the end but I just didn’t have enough.”
Said a delighted Matheus, who had to settle for fourth after starting Saturday’s race from the pole: “This makes up for yesterday. We worked hard on the car and made some changes and I had a very good set-up. I’m really happy with my second win, and a bit surprised – but that is motor racing, that’s how it is sometimes, people crash and you are lucky. It’s been a long time since my first win at Donington and I’m so happy with this.”
Ahmed cruised home for third overall (and his third Rookie class victory) despite some damage picked up in his first-lap incident: “I had a bent front wing because of contact with Josh Smith on the first lap – he didn’t give me much room and we touched. That was the most mad race I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. I had a lot of problems in qualifying and I had pretty much written off the weekend, I’m just so happy to finish with a podium.”
The battle for fourth between James Pull (Fortec) and Dan Baybutt (JTR) came to a sticky end on lap 16 when they touched. Pull joined the growing list of retirees and Baybutt dropped down the order, with Falcon Motorsport’s talented rookie Darius Karbaley profiting from the carnage to move into fourth for his and the team’s best result of the year. “I must have lucked in somewhere!” said Darius. “I really didn’t expect this sort of result. People kept falling off in front of me…”
Richardson Racing’s Louise Richardson was another to stay out of trouble and her reward was fifth place: “I think I’m about the only one who didn’t pick up any damage. It all happened in front of me and it was just a case of driving through the debris and avoiding it.” She finished just ahead of JHR Developments driver Jack Butel, for whom sixth was a season’s best.
With Sennan Fielding out of the race after just a lap with gearbox issues, the finishing order was completed by Carlin’s Petru Florescu, Baybutt, Richardson Racing man Greg Holloway and pit-stopper Norris.
Judicial investigation of the various on-track incidents continues and the results remain provisional.
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