Johnathan Hoggard closed to within 28 points of the BRDC British F3 Championship summit after storming to a pair of wins at Donington Park over the weekend.
The Weston Hills star topped the podium for Fortec Motorsports in races one and three at the Leicestershire circuit, but ended up stranded in the gravel at the exit of the Old Hairpin in race two and failed to finish.
The weekend started superbly for South Holland speedster Hoggard, who claimed pole positions in races one (by 0.062secs) and three (by 0.091secs) after excelling in qualifying.
He made a good start from the front in race one and fended off a first corner challenge from Kaylen Frederick.
The Fortec driver held a lead of 1.4 seconds at the end of lap one as Ayrton Simmons found his way past Frederick.
The Chris Dittmann Racing ace closed the gap, but was unable to pass Hoggard – who took the chequered flag (after a safety car) some 0.6secs clear of his rival, with Kiern Jewiss third.
Speaking after race one, Hoggard told www.britishf3.com: “It may have looked a bit easier than it was. It was a case of managing the gap to Ayrton behind me.
“When he pushed on a bit and got closer I put my head down and pushed a bit harder as well.
“When he dropped away it was a case of just managing the gap and relaxing a little bit but not too much so that I didn’t make a mistake and go off. It was quite a challenging race with the safety car restart as well, making sure I got the jump on them, but all in all it was a good race.
“Frederick was alongside me at the start but I don’t think it was too much of an issue because I don’t think you can get around the outside of Redgate unless I ended up braking early, which I wasn’t going to do in that position.
“It may not have been the best of starts, but it was enough.”
Lanan Racing’s Josh Mason claimed victory in the second race of the weekend, with Pavan Ravishankar (Double R Racing) second and Hoggard’s Fortec team-mate Manuel Maldonado third.
Hoggard’s demise occurred on lap eight as he and Simmons, running in 11th and 12th places respectively, were embroiled in a scrap through the Craner Curves before he exited the track.
However, Hoggard claimed his second win of the weekend with a superb drive in the final race of the weekend.
He controlled the race from lights to flag to take the win four seconds clear of Douglas Motorsport’s Ulysse De Pauw, with Sasakorn Chaimongkol third for Hillspeed.
The Fortec ace now has series leader Clement Novalak in his sights ahead of the next round at Spa in Belgium on July 20/21.
After his second win of the weekend, Hoggard told www.britishf3.com: “It’s been a really good weekend apart from race two – not finishing there was quite disappointing and it was good points thrown away, but there was nothing I could really do about it.
“We just had to control what we could control and have a good race three like we did in race one, so this makes up for it.
“It was quite cold on track this time so I struggled a little with getting the heat in the tyres on the formation lap so it was a case of building it up on lap one and lap two and then we managed to get a pretty decent gap.
“It’s really close at the top in the championship, race two didn’t help with me not scoring points.
“It always seems to be like two steps forward and one step back, so it’s always quite frustrating thinking about what is going on in the championship, but we’ve come away with quite a few race wins so I think that’s a big positive. With so many points available for a win it helps reduce the gap.
“I’m really looking forward to Spa now and really enjoy it. We had a good test day in the winter and I loved it, so I’m hoping for a good weekend.
“Two wins this weekend and hopefully more of the same at Spa.”
To complete his amazing weekend, Hoggard once again landed the Sunoco Fastest British F3 driver of the weekend award, placing him top of the challenge table.
