Chilton wins finale at Brands
British Formula 3 veteran Max Chilton scored his first outright victory in single-seater racing by taking the final race of the season at Brands Hatch this afternoon
Although he had taken maximum points and first among the British championship contenders by finishing third behind guest racers Jules Bianchi and Sam Bird in Portugal a week earlier, Chilton's Brands success marked his maiden on-the-road F3 win.
The Carlin driver made an excellent getaway from the outside of the front row to out-drag team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, who fell back to fourth on the run to the first corner.
From there the race was Chilton's to lose, but he had the pace to build a small cushion over his pursuers.
He constructed a 4s gap, only to see it wiped out when the safety car was deployed for four laps to clear the smashed car of Max Snegirev at Westfield and the stranded car of his West-Tec team-mate Ma Quing Hua, who failed to get off the line.
Chilton backed the field up on the run through the final bend and sprinted away well at the restart. From there he simply reeled off the laps to break his duck - collecting the spoils of victory for the first time in three years of trying.
Fortec's Riki Christodoulou trailed Chilton home again, this time to take second place, while invitation entry Marcus Ericsson completed the podium for Double R, just ahead of series champion Ricciardo.
This quartet all lapped within 0.2-0.4s of each other and no one else was able to lap in the 1m18s bracket at any point during the race.
Thus Carlin's Henry Arundel finished a distant fifth after making a good start to jump Double R's Daisuke Nakajima and briefly challenge Ricciardo. However, he may face a time penalty after coming under investigation for a jumped start.
Hitech Racing's Walter Grubmuller rounded out the top six, while Nakajima resisted the close attentions of T-Sport's Wayne Boyd to take seventh.
Boyd's T-Sport team-mate Adriano Buzaid and Double R's Carlos Huertas completed the top 10, some 5s further back, while Gabriel Dias (T-Sport) finished his debut season on a high by taking the National Class honours in 12th overall behind Fortec's Victor Garcia.
Pos Driver Team Car Time/Gap 1. Max Chilton Carlin D/V 31m16.848s 2. Riki Christodoulou Fortec D/M + 0.967s 3. Marcus Ericsson Double R D/M + 2.552s 4. Daniel Ricciardo Carlin D/V + 3.576s 5. Henry Arundel Carlin D/V + 14.887s 6. Walter Grubmuller Hitech D/M + 15.303s 7. Daisuke Nakajima Double R D/M + 15.794s 8. Wayne Boyd T-Sport D/V + 16.462s 9. Adriano Buzaid T-Sport D/V + 21.750s 10. Carlos Huertas Double R D/M + 22.003s 11. Victor Garcia Fortec D/M + 22.522s 12. Gabriel Dias T-Sport D/H + 30.613s 13. Jay Bridger Litespeed M/H + 31.073s 14. Philip Major Carlin D/V + 31.642s 15. Daniel McKenzie Fortec D/H + 41.465s 16. Joe Ghanem Carlin D/H + 59.614s 17. Victor Correa Litespeed S/H + 1m02.655s Retirements: Maxim Snegirev West-Tec D/H 4 laps Qinghua Ma West-Tec D/H 0 laps Hywel Lloyd CF D/H 0 laps
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