Team BRM’s Josh Denton has won his second career CAMS Jayco Australian Formula 4 Championship race win in Race Two today at Sandown Raceway. Coincidentally, Denton also claimed his first race win in Race Two and Sandown last year.

The field was first led by pole position sitter Jordan Mazzaroli, with Denton who starting from second – after the top five finishers from Race One were reversed. “Started off P2 and got a decent start for once and managed to drive away. I unfortunately fell back to second on the first lap but I was able to peg that back before the safety car,” Denton said. “I messed up the safety car and didn’t go to plan after that. But we managed to come home with a win.”

Denton lead for half of the opening lap, until teammate Liam Lawson made a move at Dandenong Road stick to take the lead. The two traded positions a lap later, with Denton duplicating Lawson’s efforts to retake the race lead. “That was kind of sketchy I guess because i wasn’t really sure what Nick was going to do,” Denton continued. “I was sort of looking to do what I did last year, go up on the back of him and pass him at the next corner. But I was so happy with the way that move was pulled off. I managed to give him plenty of racing room, which was good.”

The Safety Car made an appearance on lap four, after Zak Best’s AGI Sport was stranded at turn one. Lawson reclaimed the lead from Denton at the restart, before Race One winner Nick Rowe was inspired to perform the same Dandenong Road manoeuvre to lead the race. Rowe led until the Safety Car appeared yet again to retrieve the stranded Cameron Shields at turn three. Denton resumed racing with some inspired moves on Liam Lawson at the restart on lap ten, before reclaiming the race lead on lap 12 from Nick Rowe.

“This race we struggled a little more for pace. I couldn’t quite keep up with the leaders, and then Nick made a mistake going into braking at turn 9 and wend wide and that gave me the opportunity to go past,” Lawson said. “Another really really close race and we’ll push on for the next one. I’m starting P1 for the next one. We’ll give it our best shot and we’ll see where we end up.”

Lawson, Rowe and Suhle replicated their Race One battle in identical circumstances on the final lap – this time Lawson made the move on the inside stick and finished second ahead of Ryan Suhle. “Well we didn’t quite have the pace we wanted on cold tyres but we worked our way forward and the safety cars helped us a little bit to close that gap,” Suhle said. “We obviously made the same move as previously; we were a little less bold this time. But instead of locking up and almost going into the gravel we made it happen this time. I was stoked.”

JRD’s Jordan Mazzaroli was the second best placed Burson Auto Parts rookie in seventh, and briefly enjoyed a thrilling scrap with Zagame Autosport’s Tyler Everingham who climbed to fifth place ahead of Team BRM’s Simon Fallon. Zane Morse was the third best rookie in eighth, with Aaron Love and Harley Haber rounding out the final two points positions.

Today’s third and final race for Round One is due to start at 2:30pm this afternoon.

 

Provisional Race Two Results

1^st – Josh Denton, BRM, –

2^nd – Liam Lawson, BRM, Gap: 2.0617

3^rd – Ryan Suhle, Zagame, Gap: 2.4631

4^th – Nick Rowe, AGI, Gap: 2.5825

5^th – Tyler Everingham, Zagame, Gap: 6.2447

6^th – Simon Fallon, BRM, Gap: 8.3438

7^th – Jordan Mazzaroli, JRD, Gap: 8.6042

8^th – Zane Morse, BRM, Gap: 9.3388

9^th – Aaron Love, BRM, Gap: 11.1591

10^th – Harley Haber, AGI, Gap: 14.0411

11^th – Sage Murdoch, AGI, DNF

12^th – Cameron Shields, BRM, DNF

13^th – Zak Best, AGI, DNF