Chadwick makes History as Kjaergaard Returns to Top Step

Jamie Chadwick made history at Brands Hatch, becoming the first woman to take a victory in the BRDC British Formula 3 championship.

Chadwick won the second race of the weekend, despite taking the chequered flag second, when Pavan Ravishankar was handed a 10 second penalty for jumping the start.

An early safety car meant Ravishankar had no chance to extend his lead enough to secure the victory, meaning second on the road would always become a victory after the chequered flag, but that didn’t stop Chadwick attempting to take the glory on track.

She spent most of the race glued to the back of Ravishankar’s car, though a late challenge from Krish Mahadik meant she had to focus on the driver behind her in the closing stages of the race. Ravishankar finished just over a second ahead of the Douglas Motorsport driver, but dropped back to 10th on the corrected timings.

Chadwick finished half a second ahead of Mahadik to take victory in just her second podium finish of the championship. Kush Maini, a further 0.3s behind, completed the podium.

Chadwick wasn’t the only Jamie celebrating at Brands Hatch.

Championship newcomer Jamie Caroline was looking to build on his strong Formula 3 debut at Spa. He took pole for the opening race of the weekend, and a storming start put him almost two seconds ahead of Linus Lundqvist after the opening lap.

The Carlin driver’s lead grew throughout the first half of the race and, though Lundqvist put in fastest laps in an attempt to close the gap, Caroline finished 2.9s ahead of the championship leader.

Caroline’s winning streak wouldn’t continue to race two, where he started from the penultimate position on the revered grid. He was able to make up a handful of positions, but ran wide and dropped down the order early on. The Brit continued to circulate for a handful of laps, but opted to come into the pits to save his tyres after eight laps.

Throughout the first two races, Linus Lundqvist had extended his championship lead over Nicolai Kjaergaard, but the Carlin driver was back to winning ways in race three.

Kjaergaard started from pole, with Lundqvist alongside him, but it was Caroline putting pressure on the Danish driver throughout the race.

The race one winner trimmed his team-mate’s lead to just 0.3s before Kjaergaard put together a string of fastest laps to pull away. Caroline cut the gap back to just 0.4s before the chequered flag, but the more experienced Carlin man gave him no opportunity to make a move for the lead.

After being passed early on, Lundqvist spent the remainder of the race running third. He closed the gap to the Carlin duo on a handful of occasions but couldn’t make it a three-way fight for the lead.

Third in the final race puts his championship advantage at 111 points heading into the final two rounds of the championship.

You can hear Jamie Chadwick’s Interview with Motorsport Radio Here.