PRESS RELEASE – Race One – Round 4 at Sandown.

 

The fourth round of the CAMS Jayco Australian Formula Four Championship was off to a dramatic start with multiple incidents in Race 1 leading to a massive shake up of the finishing order.

Toolforce Racing driver Jimmy Vernon had qualified third and made a blinding start to take second place behind Jordan Lloyd.

Unfortunately luck was not on his side and Jimmy was involved in one of the early track incidents.

“It was looking like a really good race. I made a few little mistakes and Jordan Love actually caught up to me, he was sitting in third.
“We were having a few really close little battles there. Unfortunately we made contact into turn one and that turned me around and my car stalled and long story short, I was at the back of the field.”

Some off-track excursions from Zane Goddard and Harry Hayek led to the safety car being called.

Tom Grech was the next to have his race hopes dashed. The IQ Option Racing driver had driven the wheels off to third place after Jimmy was taken out but the restart saw contact with team mate Will Brown that relegated him to the back of the pack.

Tom was a bit subdued after such a promising start to the race, “Race one was pretty wild, a lot of cars going everywhere on their opening laps so just lucky I sort of kept out of the mess and then the safety car came out.

‘We got up to third at one stage and on the restart I unfortunately got turned around. It wasn’t our race unfortunately finished down the end so hopefully we will be in a good spot for the next one. “

After the restart incident with Tom, two-time Rookie of the Round winner Will Brown was running third behind Jordan Lloyd and Jordan Love. Thomas Randle came through the two AGI Sport drivers to take the second spot with Will then overtaking Jordan to claim third place.

Will was happy with his pace, “The car feels good, we were moving forward in that one, just didn’t have the pace of probably Tom Randle and Jordan Lloyd so we will try and work at that.”

Jordan Love also kept his car clean to finish fourth after tracking second for a few laps. However his incident with Jimmy cost him a 5 second penalty and he was lucky to retain his fourth place finish.

The young Western Australian was happy to be finding some pace and thinks there’s more to come, “The car is feeling a bit nervous so I think we will end up making a few changes. I think there is a lot more in my driving so if we can find something there we should be good for race 2.

‘Obviously reverse grid for top six so we will be starting up there, I’ll be looking for some good racing and it should be interesting”.

Will Brown copped a 30 second penalty for his contact with Tom Grech which sent him to eighth place in the final results.

The shake-up means Formula 4 Australia’s first female driver Caitlin Wood will now start the Race 2 reverse grid on pole having ended in sixth place.
Caitlin was given a leg into the series by a number of Jayco caravan dealers getting behind the young Formula Ford racer to get her on the grid.

Caitlin was excited to be racing, “It was all through Jayco and their willingness to support me at Sandown and through AGI as well for supplying the car and everything like that. A massive, massive thanks to Jayco for getting me here really”.

Caitlin will now start Race 2 from the front row after bringing the Jayco car home unscathed, “ I stayed out of trouble, there was a lot of carnage out there that race.

‘Would have been nice to get a bit more speed, still struggling with a few things but it was quite good, I’m happy where we finished”.

Stewards will be keeping a close eye on driving standards when the Top Six reverse grid gets underway on Saturday afternoon.