JHR Developments’ Georgi Dimitrov successfully fended off team-mate Joseph Loake and a charging Alex Dunne to claim a fourth career victory in the second ROKiT F4 British Championship certified by FIA race of the weekend at Donington Park.
Starting from pole courtesy of setting the tenth fastest time in qualifying, Dimitrov held the advantage over Loake off the line, the latter taking advantage of a stalled Edward Pearson (Virtuosi) to move into second spot.
From there, Dimitrov set about extending his lead out front, which peaked at 1.7 seconds, but he was reeled in over the closing laps as a six-car train formed behind him. After showing his nose on the inside at the Roberts chicane with two laps remaining, Loake tried the outside line at the same corner a lap later, but was forced to take avoiding action over the gravel.
That brought race one winner Alex Dunne into contention, the Hitech GP racer having quietly picked his way through from tenth to the final spot on the podium. As Loake recovered momentum, Dunne struck, moving into second at Hollywood, but there has no time left for him to seriously challenge Dimitrov for the win.
Dimitrov’s winning advantage, therefore, was a slender 0.197 seconds over Dunne, with Loake surviving late contact with a charging Michael Shin (Virtuosi) at McLeans to round out the podium.
Shin continues to go from strength to strength and finished fourth, plus banked the bonus point for the Motul Fastest Lap, with Eduardo Coseteng rounding out the top five. Having kept a watching brief on Dimitrov and Loake’s scrap up front, Daniel Guinchard (Argenti) fell back in the late race action, but still made an advance on the previous day with sixth.
Edward Pearson did well to recover from that start line stall to take seventh, his namesake for Chris Dittmann Racing scoring his first points of the season behind in eighth spot. Ugo Ugochukwu (Carlin) was another to struggle at the start, and spend much of the race frustrated by Hitech’s Oliver Stewart, but eventually found a way past on the outside at McLeans and led the Scot home in ninth and tenth.
Noah Lisle (JHR), Adam Fitzgerald (Argenti) and Daniel Mavlyutov rounded out the finishers, with Aiden Neate (Argenti) and Oliver Gray (Carlin) both forced to retire after making contact at Redgate, causing a broken wing and right-rear puncture respectively.
The final race of the weekend from Donington Park is due to get underway at 15:20 BST, live on ITV4.
