Brands British F3: Jazeman Jaafar wins as title fight hots up

Malaysian Jaafar appeared to be sailing to victory early on, but King knuckled down and closed the gap to 0.7 seconds.

When Jaafar was delayed by backmarker Chris Vlok with a few laps remaining, King literally pushed his Carlin team-mate down the Brabham Straight.

But that was as close as it got, and Jaafar built a big lead in the closing stages, with King - who earned the point for fastest lap - in second place and slowing down with steering damage, which he thinks was caused by riding a kerb too hard.

Talking of the backmarkers and tap from King, Jaafar said: "There were no flags to be honest until we got onto the straight. I think Jordan had nowhere to go.

"I had fresher tyres at the start but they started to drop off and he capitalised. His race pace was impressive throughout."

Behind them, Nicholas Latifi completed a Carlin wipe-out of the podium in a lonely race for the Canadian.

There was action behind in the opening stages, as pre-race points leader Will Buller, title rival Antonio Giovinazzi and Felipe Guimaraes battled for fourth.

A rather optimistic move by Giovinazzi into Graham Hill Bend on the second lap put both the Italian and Buller off the track.

While Buller rejoined after a pitstop, Giovinazzi was out on the spot and King has now moved to the top of the points table with one round remaining at the Nurburgring.

That collision promoted Jann Mardenborough, who got elbowed down the order on the opening lap, and the Welshman set about catching Guimaraes, but he could not breach the Brazilian's defences.

Sean Gelael completed the leading six, comfortably ahead of Tatiana Calderon, Li Zhi Cong and the delayed Buller.

The National Class battle featured a clash at Druids early on between leader Sun Zheng, who went airborne, and Ed Jones.

Zheng was out, while the delayed Jones had to catch and repass Vlok before driving to his second class success of the weekend.

Results - 23 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car                   Time/Gap
 1.  Jazeman Jaafar      Carlin Dallara-VW        30m53.310s
 2.  Jordan King         Carlin Dallara-VW           +5.477s
 3.  Nicholas Latifi     Carlin Dallara-VW           +7.464s
 4.  Felipe Guimaraes    Fortec Dallara-Merc        +25.431s
 5.  Jann Mardenborough  Carlin Dallara-VW          +25.814s
 6.  Sean Gelael         Double R Dallara-Merc      +36.558s
 7.  Tatiana Calderon    Double R Dallara-Merc      +51.142s
 8.  Ed Jones            West-Tec Dallara-Toyota  +1m08.268s*
 9.  Cameron Twynham     West-Tec Dallara-Toyota      +1 lap*
10.  Peter Zhi Cong Li   Carlin Dallara-VW            +1 lap
11.  Chris Vlok          West-Tec Dallara-Toyota      +1 lap*
12.  Will Buller         Fortec Dallara-Merc          +1 lap

Retirements:

     Sun Zheng           CF Dallara-Mugen             2 laps*
     Antonio Giovinazzi  Double R Dallara-Merc         1 lap

* National Class