Ricciardo takes crushing Brands win
British Formula 3 champion Daniel Ricciardo underlined his superiority in the series by dominating the penultimate race of the season at Brands Hatch this morning
The Red Bull-backed Australian converted his fifth pole position of the season into win number six with consummate ease. The Carlin driver crushed the opposition with blistering speed, driving away from his rivals by up to a second per lap at times.
He sliced more than six tenths of a second from 2008 champion Jaime Alguersuari's Grand Prix circuit lap record and took victory by 15.531s from Carlin team-mate Max Chilton - the largest winning margin of the season.
The start of the race was delayed when Chilton's front brakes caught fire on the grid, but once the officials had decided there was no need to employ the fire truck and the smoke died down, the pack were able to complete another green flag lap before getting underway without incident.
Chilton spent most of his race with mirrors full of Fortec's Riki Christodoulou, who completed the podium with his strongest drive since scoring a maiden win at Snetterton in July.
This pair were chased home by invitation entry Marcus Ericsson (Double R), who stayed glued to Christodoulou's gearbox in the first half of the race before his pace fell away slightly in the latter stages and he settled for a safe fourth.
The trio enjoyed half a second per lap advantage over the rest of the field, headed by Hitech Racing's Walter Grubmuller. The Austrian made an excellent start from row four to jump Double R team-mates Carlos Huertas and Daisuke Nakajima, before settling down to a lonely run to fifth.
Huertas went on to complete the top six, while Nakajima retired to the pits with a slipping clutch. Carlin's Henry Arundel shadowed Huertas for the entire 22 laps, but could not find a way past the Colombian and settled for seventh.
Adriano Buzaid benefited from Carlin's Philip Major binning his Dallara in the Paddock Hill gravel and T-Sport team-mate Wayne Boyd pitting for a new front wing to take a comfortable eighth, while Fortec's fast-starting National Class champion Daniel McKenzie rose from 17th on the grid to take class honours in ninth overall.
Pos Driver Team Car Time/Gap 1. Daniel Ricciardo Carlin D/V 28m47.041s 2. Max Chilton Carlin D/V + 15.531s 3. Riki Christodoulou Fortec D/M + 16.135s 4. Marcus Ericsson Double R D/M + 17.890s 5. Walter Grubmuller Hitech D/M + 28.861s 6. Carlos Huertas Double R D/M + 30.246s 7. Henry Arundel Carlin D/V + 30.542s 8. Adriano Buzaid T-Sport D/V + 36.912s 9. Daniel McKenzie Fortec D/H + 55.307s 10. Hywel Lloyd CF D/H + 57.945s 11. Gabriel Dias T-Sport D/H + 58.588s 12. Victor Garcia Fortec D/M + 1m01.708s 13. Jay Bridger Litespeed M/H + 1m05.608s 14. Joe Ghanem Carlin D/H + 1 lap 15. Wayne Boyd T-Sport D/V + 1 lap 16. Qinghua Ma West-Tec D/H + 2 laps Retirements: Victor Correa Litespeed S/H 14 laps Philip Major Carlin D/V 3 laps Maxim Snegirev West-Tec D/H 1 lap Daisuke Nakajima Double R D/M 0 laps
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