Ten up for Jamie Caroline and Pirtek Racing at Knockhill

Uncategorised,Racing

Pirtek Racing’s rising star Jamie Caroline maintained his impressive lead in the F4 British Championship Certified by FIA – powered by Ford after storming to a tenth victory of the season at Knockhill.

Having broken the record for wins in a season last time out at Snetterton, Jamie made the trip to Scotland in confident mood, with hopes high of another strong weekend at the wheel of his Carlin-run car.

The rapid teenager secured fifth place on the grid after a closely fought qualifying session that saw the top eight drivers covered by just three tenths of a second.

Making up two places on the opening lap, Jamie moved into second spot with a fine move up the inside of Alex Quinn at the Hairpin on lap eight and would then maintain his position through to the flag; posting the fastest lap en-route to his tenth podium of the year.

The second race of the weekend later on Saturday afternoon was the twelfth round of the year that had been rescheduled from Oulton Park, with Jamie lining up on pole position.

Having maintained his lead when the lights went out, Jamie simply drove away from the pack behind and had established a lead of nearly ten seconds before the deployment of the Safety Car eradicated his advantage.

Pulling away again on the restart, Jamie controlled the race – and again set fastest lap – as he picked up his tenth victory of an already record-breaking campaign.

The grid for race three on Sunday morning saw Jamie line up in sixth but he would slip back to eighth after being forced wide on the opening lap.

Recovering well, Jamie would fight back to take sixth at the finish, outscoring his closest rival in the standings in the process.

Starting the fourth race of the weekend from row two, Jamie found himself losing places at the start due to a slipping clutch and was then forced to deal with the problem for the remainder of the race.

Despite that, he managed to set a series of quick laps and battled hard to a fifth place finish that leaves him 45.5 points clear in the title race.

“Although we could have picked up more wins this weekend, I’ve come away from it with a decent haul of points, which was the main aim,” he said. “We had the pace in the car to win race one but it was tough from where we were on the grid, and from the front in race two, I was keen to really drive home how good the car was.

“Even when the field closed up behind the Safety Car, I was confident that I would be able to stay out front and to get win number ten was fantastic.

“Although race three was a bit messy, I outscored my main rivals in the championship battle and whilst we could have fought for the win again in race four, it’s hard to complain too much about a top five finish considering that I had to manage a an issue with the clutch throughout the race.

“Having scored well here, I’ll look to do the same at Rockingham and keep my title challenge on track.”

Pirtek is Europe’s number one provider of hydraulic solutions and mobile hose replacement, with over 170 centres supported by over 700 mobile service workshops throughout Europe; offering solutions to a number of business sectors, including the automotive industry.