Ticktum Takes Championship Lead after Strong Silverstone Showing

Joe Ellis looks at this weekends FIA European F3 Championship round from Silverstone in which, once again, three different drivers took victories with home driver Dan Ticktum taking the points lead.

Behind him, various dramas for his championship rivals handed the Red-Bull junior an 18-point lead in the standings heading to Misano next weekend as he picked up his 4th win of 2018.

Race One

That race win came in race one as he started 3rd but made his way to 2nd past Guan Yu Zhou at Luffield on lap one behind Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz. The Frenchman led for the vast majority of the race from pole position but with 5 minutes to go, he couldn’t do anything to defend a last minute dive down the inside from Ticktum at Stowe and had to settle for 2nd behind the Motopark driver.

The big talking point from race one was Prema’s puncture woes. First, Mick Schumacher retired from 4th on the road having only been racing for 10 minutes. Zhou was next to suffer issues as his left rear went down with just a few minutes left with Ralf Aron also having a puncture leading him into a spin at Stowe which brought out the full course yellow.

When the FCY was withdrawn, the 3rd placed driver Jonathan Aberdein was slow to get up to speed and dropped down to 5th as Enaam Ahmed and Juri Vips found a way past to finish 3rd and 4th respectively. Then championship leader Marcus Armstrong crossed the line in 6th to lose the lead to Ticktum.

Race Two

Race two saw a first ever pole in single-seaters for Swiss driver Fabio Scherer with Schumacher starting 2nd looking to make amends for an unfortunate race one retirement. And amends he made as he jumped Scherer off the line to take the lead into turn 1 as Ticktum was involved in the typical argy-bargy of the first few corners to drop out of the points.

The pace of the Motopark team was clear to see this weekend as Ticktum produces a great drive to get as high as seventh on the road but he was later put back to eighth having exceeded track limits in another Stowe pass on Fenestraz.

Vips was also fast throughout the race and eventually found his way past Scherer for 2nd which is where he ended up finishing as he couldn’t catch Schumacher who took his 2nd win of the season with relative ease. Scherer had mechanical issues which led to his retirement with less than 10 minutes to go handing Aberdein with his first podium in the class, ahead of Ahmed and Armstrong.

Race Three

Race three saw Motopark teammates Vips and Aberdein on the front row but they were split by Fenestraz off the line as Aberdein dropped to 3rd. Armstrong collided with teammate Schumacher at turn one putting the Kiwi out of the race immediately with broken suspension. The same fate landed Aron out the race as he had contact with Sebastian Fernandez at Vale putting both cars out.

The rest of the race, however, was uneventful as drivers struggled to stay close enough through the high-speed sections to execute any overtakes and as a result, Vips took a lights to flag victory to move up to 3rd in the championship behind Ticktum and Armstrong, with Fenestraz and Aberdein taking their 2nd podiums of the weekend in 2nd and 3rd.

Elsewhere, Ahmed rounded out a strong weekend with a fourth place as Schumacher defended from Ticktum throughout the race to force just a sixth place out of the championship leader in a race, both his rivals failed to finish.

With 3 points finishes for Ticktum, the championship has opened up somewhat meaning Armstrong and Aron need to score big points at Misano to keep the Brit in their sights.