{"id":1525,"date":"2022-06-25T19:34:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T18:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiaformula4.com\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2022-06-25T19:34:07","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T18:34:07","slug":"dunne-races-clear-to-victory-in-reverse-grid-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/dunne-races-clear-to-victory-in-reverse-grid-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Dunne races clear to victory in reverse grid contest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Hitech GP&#8217;s Alex Dunne ended a tricky day on the top step of the podium after storming clear to win the partially reversed second ROKiT F4 British Championship certified by FIA race of the weekend at Croft.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-06-25-at-6.51.03-PM-2-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1526 lazyload\" width=\"1065\" height=\"709\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1065px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1065\/709;\" \/><figcaption>Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Irishman lined up second, but his task was made easier by an unfortunate stall for JHR&#8217;s Georgi Dimitrov, the British-Bulgarian racer failing to get away, handing Dunne a clear road ahead down to Clervaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From there, he went unchallenged en route to victory, stretching his legs to record a seventh win of the 2022 season by just over 4 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was close to stalling myself, to be honest,\u201d admitted Dunne. \u201cI was quite lucky. I wasn\u2019t sure how the race was going to go, with the problems we had in qualifying and race one. I wasn\u2019t sure if we were going to be back to the way we were and possibly drive away, or if it would be a tough race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m glad we managed to get some good points and salvage something from the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The battle behind Dunne, however, was nothing short of gripping. His Hitech GP team-mate Oliver Stewart, chasing a first podium, defended valiantly for almost the entire race distance ahead of Loake and a charging Gray, up from eighth on the grid to fourth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It all ended in heartbreak, however, a problem with the car just a few laps from home causing the Scot to slow on the main straight, with both Loake and Gray moving past to occupy the second and third steps on the podium respectively.  Gray tried to force an error, but had to settle for third, the pair just a second apart at the chequered flag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think he [Stewart] had an issue coming through Sunny Out, it seemed like a gearbox issue from what I could see,\u201d says Loake. \u201cI think it\u2019s about time we got some luck this year, we\u2019ll take what we can get and I\u2019m quite happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gray went on to say, \u201cWe\u2019ve conserved our better tyres for tomorrow, and Joseph had his better ones. I sort of had the advantage towards the start, just raw pace, but his tyres helped him out towards the end\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neate rounded out a strong day with a somewhat fortuitous fourth place, the Brit taking full advantage of a collision between Ugo Ugochukwu and Eduardo Coseteng (Hitech) at the hairpin to move through and break clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Noah Lisle (JHR) similarly profited, the Australian taking fifth and a first win in the Rookie Cup. Louis Sharp was left facing the wrong way after contact at the hairpin at the end of the opening lap but recovered in style to rise from 13<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;to sixth and maintain his recent run of form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coseteng also recovered strongly, the Filipino making his way back through to register seventh, the points scorers rounded out by Virtuosi Racing\u2019s Edward Pearson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Guinchard was ninth with a damaged front wing after the contact with Sharp, with Joel Pearson (Chris Dittmann Racing) and Adam Fitzgerald (Argenti) the only two other drivers to finish on the lead lap. Daniel Mavlyutov (Hitech), Ugochukwu and Stewart were the last classified finishers, with Dimitrov and Michael Shin (Virtuosi) retiring, the latter with suspension damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Results from the race still remain provisional, view them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsl-timing.com\/file\/?f=TOCA\/2022\/222503rc2bf4.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hitech GP&#8217;s Alex Dunne ended a tricky day on the top step of the podium after storming clear to win the partially reversed second ROKiT F4 British Championship certified by FIA race of the weekend at Croft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiaformula4.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}