Louis Foster stays at top of British F4 standings at Thruxton
A challenging weekend of peaks and troughs for Vansdirect sponsored Louis Foster in the British F4 championship saw the Double R Racing driver battle adversity to scoop further points and silverware to keep his place at the top of the championship standings. Vansdirect reveals all!
Race Weekend Three - Thruxton
After a fantastic start to his British F4 Championship campaign which saw him take a 15 point lead at the second race weekend at Donington Park, Louis Foster headed to his home circuit of Thruxton.
Qualifying came down to the wire at Thruxton, with Louis snatching pole position right at the end of the session away from Zane Maloney.
Louis got qualifying off to a good start, by sitting second in the timesheets until the closing stages. However, Vansdirect sponsored racer was determined to better his lap time and on lap 10, his final flying lap, Louis set a frighteningly fast time of 1:13.479s to put himself ahead of Maloney by 0.076 seconds.
With Louis' time the fastest of the field - and the driver to clock the least amount of laps in the top four - the 15-year-old set his third pole position of the season.
Race One - A disappointing start to the weekend
Louis had a great initial start from first place on the grid but could do nothing to protect his lead as Luke Browning passed him. A safety car was then sent out on the second lap and stopped Louis from being able to retake the lead with the field being neutralised.
As the race restarted, the Vansdirect sponsored youngster did well to defend his place from the competition behind, and he ran in second until lap seven where he was overtaken by namesake Tommy Foster. As a result, Louis was forced into taking evasive action and went over the grass on the final chicane. Running off the track, Louis was then passed by a number of competitors as he did his best to limit the damage of the incident.
The same manoeuvre occurred just a short while later, meaning the race had taken an unfortunate turn for Louis and now in tenth place, he could do no more. Despite the disappointing result, Louis still picked up a championship point to help his challenge to remain at the top of the table, as well as setting the third fastest lap of the race.
Race Two - A excellent recovery
After a disappointing Saturday, Sunday started with race two. This race was all about recovering places for Foster who started 10th place on the grid following Saturday's events.
Louis made a fantastic overtake on Roberto Faria to move up to ninth during the opening lap of the race. Louis then made his way up to seventh position on lap five, with his thoughts now firmly on hunting down championship rival and Double R Racing team-mate Sebastian Alvarez.
The pair climbed through the order and they were absolutely flying. Making his way from 10th on the grid at the starting light, Louis crossed the finishing line twenty minutes later in 4th place.
The Vansdirect sponsored driver once again showed his phenomenal pace, as he surged through the field to just miss out on the podium but collected a strong haul of points in the process.
Race Three - Back on the podium
The final race at Thruxton proved to be a nail-biting final outing of the weekend, with Louis fighting throughout the race for a victory that had eluded him all weekend. Starting from the second row of the grid, Louis quickly overtook namesake Tommy Foster on lap nine to take second position.
By continuously setting the fastest laps for the remainder of the race, Louis came incredibly close to race leader Zane Maloney and despite his best efforts, he wasn't able to overtake the Carlin driver and crossed the line a mere 0.2 seconds behind Maloney to take second place and a thoroughly deserved podium.
After a weekend of varied emotions, Louis commented:
"We qualified well on Saturday and showed lots of promise, but unfortunately it just didn't go our way at certain points. Saturday's race was frustrating as I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time on a lot of occasions.
We bounced back in race two to move from P10 to P4 and could have maybe made it on to the podium if I wanted to take the risk but I decided to just bag the points. If there'd have been another lap or so in the final race, I definitely would have had the chance to put in a good overtake on Maloney. But, at the end of the day, coming second in that race meant I'd done enough to still lead the championship standings after a challenging weekend."
I'm pleased with my performance on the whole - I came back well in race two to take fourth and race three was even better with that podium finish, overall giving us a strong haul of points from the weekend, which we can all be pleased with."
The Vansdirect sponsored driver now leads the championship standings by five points, as he prepares for Croft in four week's time on June 15/16.
Images courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Photography
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