Pirtek Racing’s rising star Jamie Caroline enjoyed his best weekend of the season to date with a double podium finish in the latest rounds of the F4 British Championship certified by FIA – powered by Ford at Oulton Park.
The teenager went into the weekend seeking to build on a second podium finish of the campaign last time out at Thruxton, but well aware of the vastly different challenge provided by the picturesque Cheshire circuit.
A tightly-fought qualifying session saw Jamie pick up the best starting slot of his single-seater career to date, with his Jamun Racing-run lining up fourth on the grid for the first race of the weekend.
Moving ahead of Alex Quinn at the start, Jamie then became embroiled in a race long battle with Petru Florescu; posting the fastest lap en-route to a third place finish.
Hopes of a similar result would come to an early end in race two when a clutch issue on the opening lap forced Jamie back into the pits to retire, with his team then working to replace the part in time for the final race of the weekend.
Once again starting from fourth on the grid, Jamie launched the distinctively-liveried Pirtek car off the line to take third going into turn one and the reigning Ginetta Junior Championship would once again prove to be the only man capable of taking the fight to the race-winning Carlin team as he picked up a second podium of the year.
Despite the race two DNF, the 30 points from the meeting marked Jamie’s highest weekend score to date and leaves him eighth in the championship standings.
“It’s good that we were the only driver who was really able to take the challenge to the Carlin men this weekend in both qualifying and the races,” he reflected. “Oulton Park is a circuit where it is was always going to be harder to overtake compared to the first three rounds, but I managed to make up a place in two of the races and it was just unfortunate that we had a mechanical failure in the other.
“To come away from the weekend with two more podiums is pleasing on one hand, but on the other, I hoped to be able to challenge for my first win of the year this weekend and am slightly disappointed that I didn’t manage to achieve it.
“However, it’s good points on the board and I’m looking forward to fighting at the front again when we go to Croft in a few weeks.”
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