With more unsettled weather, Rockingham saw a chaotic qualifying and race one of the BRDC British F3 with 16 year old Brit Tom Gamble taking both pole and his maiden race win.
Damp and overcast conditions greeted the British F3 desk as we traded the sunshine of Buckmore Park for the cold of Rockingham Park in Leicestershire for rounds four, five and six of the 2018 BRDC British F3 season.
Before race one there was the little matter of qualifying, and both drivers and teams were out to build on their efforts from rounds one, two and three.
Two new drivers were making their debuts this weekend: Lanan Racing’s Josh Mason and Hillspeed’s Jusuf Owega were both taking to the track for the first time.
However, Fortec’s Tom Gamble was the man on top, putting in a late flyer and sealing the Brit’s maiden single-seater pole position in this formula despite the aforementioned wet conditions.
Pole had been closely fought throughout the session between the Douglas Motorsport duo of Jamie Chadwick and Jordan Cane along with Double R’s Linus Lundqvist, the Swede seemingly on course for his first British F3 pole before Gamble’s last minute effort saw him secure pole by just 0.015 seconds.
Lundqvist in second was just a further 0.030 seconds ahead of Carlin’s Clement Novalak, with Chadwick finally settling for fourth despite leading for most of the session. 0.138 seconds covered the top-four, illustrating how close it was with the top teams, and setting us up for a cracking first race.
Jordan Cane was fifth for Douglas Motorsport just ahead of Lanan Racing’s Kush Maini. Krish Mahadik in seventh was a quarter of a second faster than Fortec’s Manuel Maldonado with Sun Yue Yang and Hillspeed’s race debutant Owega completing the top-10.
It was a difficult session for championship leader Nicolai Kjaergaard. The Dane couldn’t seem to get going and could only manage the 12th quickest time.
Red flags came out with six minutes remaining to recover the stranded car of Arvin Esmaeili, who was stuck in the gravel at Chapman Curve.
When the session resumed, Chadwick was the first to post an improved time (going within 0.150 seconds of Lundqvist’s time), with the Double R lad seemingly on course for pole. With moments remaining, Novalak – complete with fresh front wing – popped up into third, but it was Gamble who ensured he took the spotlight with a last gasp lap securing pole by the narrowest of margins.
On gaining his first pole, Gamble said: “This is mega, and a great way to start the weekend, it couldn’t be better. It’s great to get my first pole and hopefully we can pull away from there in race one and see what we can do. The tyres gained grip as the session went on and I was getting faster and faster as the tyres got warmer. I knew there wasn’t much time left after the red flag and I knew the lap time was going to be later in the run so I was pushing and pushing on the last lap. I could see the times were coming down and I knew the next one was going to be a fast one.”
“It was very close sadly, I don’t really want it like that! It means it’s going to be very close in the race and we’ll have to see what happens. We need to make a good start as there is a long run down to the hairpin on lap one and if we can make a good start we should be able to lead the way, but you can’t predict anything off the line. Anything can happen in this weather so we will see what happens.”
BRDC British F3 Championship, Rockingham qualifying result:
- Tom Gamble, Fortec Motorsports, 1m30.689s
- Linus Lundqvist, Double R Racing, +0.015s
- Clement Novalak, Carlin, +0.045s
- Jamie Chadwick, Douglas Motorsport, +0.138s
- Jordan Cane, Douglas Motorsport, +0.362s
- Kush Maini, Lanan Racing, +0.421s
- Krish Mahadik, Double R Racing, +1.137s
- Manuel Maldonado, Fortec Motorsports, +1.389s
- Sun Yue Yang, Carlin, +1.424s
- Jusuf Owega, Hillspeed, +1.701s
- Arvin Esmaeili, Douglas Motorsport, +1.761s
- Nicolai Kjaergaard, Carlin, +2.136s
- Billy Monger, Carlin, +3.842s
- Sasakorn Chaimongkol, Hillspeed, +4.591s
- Chia Wing Hoong, Chris Dittmann Racing, +4.704s
- Tristan Charpentier, Fortec Motorsports, +5.454s
- Josh Mason, Lanan Racing, +6.726s
- Pavan Ravishankar, Double R Racing, +8.014s
- Ben Hurst, Hillspeed, +8.294s
With the rain showing little sign of easing up we moved onto race one.
Following on from his first pole position, Gamble marched to his first single-seater race win and claimed the lead in the championship standings. Starting from pole, he made a great start and was never really challenged. An early safety car intervention after several cars went off on the first lap didn’t fluster the Brit as he held off Lundqvist – who claimed second – to bolster his championship challenge with Cane third.
Mahadik was fourth for Double R Racing, ahead of Maldonado, with Carlin’s Sun Yue Yang completing the top six. Maini climbed through the order after an early pit stop to claim seventh for Lanan Racing, with Owega taking a strong eighth on his race debut. Chadwick and Chia Wing Hoong completed the top-10.
Gamble’s start laid the foundations for his race: the Brit made a great start and had pulled several car lengths clear of Lundqvist by the time the pack reached the tight Deene hairpin. Much like Oulton Park in the last rounds, track conditions were difficult and there was all sorts of funny business as Chadwick, Arvin Esmaeili, Novalak, Kjaergaard and Maini all found trouble. Kjaergaard, heading into the race as championship leader was out on the spot completing a miserable day, as was Esmaeili, while Novalak pitted at the end of lap one with front and rear damage. Maini was also an early pitter while Chadwick resumed at the back having undone all her hard work from qualifying
Gamble held a 1.2 second advantage over Lundqvist at the end of the first lap, with Cane in third ahead of Mahadik, Maldonado and Owega. With cars littering the track like a destruction derby, a safety car period was necessary, wiping out any lead Gamble had.
The race resumed at the start of lap five, and Gamble pulled out a lead once more from Lundqvist. The early top-10 included debutant Josh Mason who was running ninth, and taking advantage of the first lap shenanigans to run high up the order.
Gamble’s lead continued to increase steadily, at around half a second a lap. Starting the last lap he held a margin of almost three seconds, and claimed the flag 2.3 seconds ahead of Lundqvist, who was 6.6 seconds clear of Cane in third.
With the drivers immediately behind the top three remaining static, and Mahadik and Maldonado holding fourth and fifth throughout, there was still time for late drama as Owega slipped from sixth to eighth on the last lap, benefitting Yang and Maini, but still claiming a very strong result on what has been an impressive weekend so far for the German driver, while Mason slipped out of the top-10 late on with an off at Tarzan which left him stranded in the gravel.
There was better luck for Mason’s Lanan teammate Maini though, with the Indian climbing through the order after his opening lap issues to take seventh, with several moves in the closing laps, while Chadwick’s ninth was a decent recovery from her early troubles, too.
Chia Wing Hoong’s 10th place is his best F3 result for Chris Dittmann Racing, while Pavan Ravishankar and Ben Hurst kept their noses clean to score more good points, ahead of Sasakorn Chaimongkol. Billy Monger was running 10th after the first lap, having started at the back following an incident on the formation lap, but pitted at the safety car restart, putting him a lap down. It’s not all doom and gloom for Monger as he will start from pole position in tomorrow’s reverse grid race two.
Following his race win, Gamble had this to say: “We knew getting off the line well would be a race defining moment and we made as good a start as I wanted. It was frustrating when the safety car came out because I knew it was going to bunch up the pack and make it much more hard work. Luckily I made a decent restart and managed to pull away a bit towards the end to hold on for the victory.”
“There’s a bit of overtaking to do in race two tomorrow, so it’s going to be interesting from where we’re starting, but hopefully I can pull off a lot of overtakes and see where we end up. If we go from the back to towards the front in race two you can potentially earn more points than the winner, if not more. We’ve got an opportunity to add more big points tomorrow and we’ll see what we can do with it.”
BRDC British F3 Championship, Rockingham race one result:
1. Tom Gamble, Fortec Motorsports, 12 laps
2. Linus Lundqvist, Double R Racing, +2.318s
3. Jordan Cane, Douglas Motorsport, +8.929s
4. Krish Mahadik, Double R Racing, +15.442s
5. Manuel Maldonado, Fortec Motorsports, +22.500s
6. Sun Yue Yang, Carlin, +23.810s
7. Kush Maini, Lanan Racing, +24.721s
8. Jusuf Owega, Hillspeed, +24.967s
9. Jamie Chadwick, Douglas Motorsport, +31.840s
10. Chia Wing Hoong, Chris Dittmann Racing, +32.975s
11. Pavan Ravishankar, Double R Racing, +48.421s
12. Ben Hurst, Hillspeed, +1m02.869s
13. Sasakorn Chaimongkol, +1m03.481s
14. Billy Monger, Carlin, +1 lap
DNF. Josh Mason, Lanan Racing, 10 laps
DNF. Clement Novalak, Carlin, 1 lap
DNF. Arvin Esmaeili, Douglas Motorsport, 0 laps
DNF. Nicolai Kjaergaard, Carlin, 0 laps
DNS. Tristan Charpentier, Fortec Motorsports
Tomorrow (Sunday) sees race two kick off just gone 11:00 and, as always, Overtake will bring you all the action…
