Luke Browning made a superb start and controlled the race thereafter to take his first F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford EcoBoost victory of 2020 in the opening contest at Oulton Park.

The Fortec Motorsport racer got a fantastic launch and beat pole sitter James Hedley (JHR) down to Old Hall on the opening tour of the 2.26-mile Cheshire circuit, making a move stick around the outside before establishing a half-second buffer in the opening exchanges.

A mid-race safety car briefly threatened Browning’s lead as the gap was wiped out, but he made a textbook restart and established a comfortable 2.7-second lead at the chequered flag as Hedley fell back late on.

Championship leader O’Sullivan was the first to get by, and in doing so mitigates the damage to his points advantage, the Carlin racer now 11 markers clear of Browning at the top of the standings.

And a move around the outside at Knickerbrook promoted Stevenson into the final podium spot, the Argenti Motorsport racer capitalising on a brief mid-race shower to make progress as others adopted a more cautious approach.

Hedley duly took fourth ahead of Arden Motorsport’s Alex Connor, who spent the majority of the race debating third with O’Sullivan before the late-race shuffle at the front, with team mates Roman Bilinski and Frederick Lubin behind in sixth and seventh.

Fortec’s Roberto Faria had been in the mix among the top six in the first half of the race, but an incident dropped the Brazilian back to last.

That result also means a second Rookie Cup victory of the campaign for Lubin, and reverse-grid pole position for the second race of the weekend tomorrow afternoon (13:00 BST), with all fourteen cars classified.

Carlin’s Christian Mansell soaked up pressure from JHR’s Abbi Pulling behind to secure eighth, the Australian rising up from the penultimate row of the grid to add to his points tally. Pulling’s JHR team mate Nathanael Hodgkiss rounded out the top ten.

Nico Pino (Argenti), Matias Zagazeta (Carlin) and Reema Juffali (Argenti) took eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth respectively, with Faria rounding out the finishers.

The weekend continues with race two at 13:00 (BST) tomorrow.

Provisional Result – Round 7