Arden’s Oscar Piastri continued to close the gap to championship leader Jamie Caroline in an extended British Formula 4 round at Knockhill.
Piastri claimed victories in the first and final races of the weekend whilst Caroline triumphed in the rescheduled Oulton Park race. Oliver York took his first win of the year in the third race.
Caroline is now 45.5 points ahead of Piastri with three rounds to go, whilst Logan Sargeant and Alex Quinn passed Linus Lunqvist in the title fight with strong weekends in Scotland.
Piastri started the weekend with a lights to flag victory in the opening race whilst Caroline worked his way up from fifth on the grid to finish second. Caroline was closing in on his title rival when a late safety car neautralised the race. A mistake on the restart meant the Carlin man wasn’t close enough to pass Piastri but third place Ayrton Simmons was too far back to take advantage.
Simmons had started fourth and stayed close to Caroline’s tail as he cut through the field, finishing third.
Alex Quinn and Logan Sargeant finished fourth and fifth after starting second and third, whilst Hampus Ericsson took the Challenge Cup victory.
Caroline answered with a dominant win in the second race of the weekend. He had a lead of more than nine seconds when the safety car made its second appearance of the weekend, but managed a clean restart and continued to set fast laps until the end of the race.
Sargeant helped his team-mate’s championship effort by taking second from Piastri early in the race. Piastri later dropped down the order with a technical problem, finishing sixth.
Double R Racing’s Karl Massaad took third, ahead of top Challenge Cup driver York and Simmons.
Ericsson claimed pole for race three, starting alongside team-mate York. York passed the pole sitter at the first corner and built a small gap to second place before the safety car. Ericsson couldn’t attack on the restart, busy defending from Sargeant and Quinn, allowing York to pull away and claim his first victory of the season.
Behind him, Sargeant managed to pass Ericsson for his fifth second of the year, but the Challenge Cup driver managed to hold on to third to take his first overall podium.
Quinn followed Ericsson across the line whilst Simmons held off attacks from Caroline to finish fifth.
Piastri bounced back to lead an Arden 1-2-3 in the final race of the weekend. It was a relatively simple race for Piastri, who made a good get away from pole and maintained a small gap to team-mate Quinn in second throughout the 20 minutes.
Simmons, who was fourth on the grid, also made a strong start to pass Caroline off the line. He enjoyed a tough fight with Sargeant early in the race, but was able to keep the Carlin driver at bay.
Sargeant took fourth, whilst a clutch problem for Caroline meant he could only finish fifth.
Image credit: Caroline Rhea
