Maini makes it five winners from five, after claiming Rockingham race two thriller!

Lanan Racing's Kush Maini came from fifth on the grid to win his first BRDC British F3 race in a thrilling race two at Rockingham, and making it five different race winners from the first five races of the year. Carlin's Nicolai Kjaergaard surged from 13th to claim second ahead of Linus Lundqvist, who secured third with a last lap move having started 10th, and with his second podium of the weekend, moves into a narrow championship lead.

Jamie Chadwick finished fourth on the road, but was handed a five second time penalty for exceeding track limits and dropped to 10th, promoting Krish Mahadik, race one winner Tom Gamble and Billy Monger to the top-six. Manuel Maldonado, Jordan Cane, Clement Novalak and Chadwick completed the top-10.

Sasakorn Chaimongkol started the race from pole, and made a decent start to lead the majority of the first lap from his fellow front row starter Chia Wing Hoong. However it was a tightly packed field behind, and Maini had already worked his way up to third half way around the first lap from fifth on the grid. He picked off Chia and then claimed the lead at Tarzan, stretching a gap of almost a second from Chaimongkol at the end of the first lap.

Starting from 13th on the grid after his first lap retirement yesterday, Kjaergaard was already impressing and was up to fifth at the end of the first tour. While Maini stretched a lead of almost three seconds at the front, it was the Danish driver who was also catching the eye, moving into second by the end of lap two, and passing Chadwick, Chia and Chaimongkol, who dropped to 11th.

Maini though was pumping in fastest lap after fastest lap, and constantly stretching his lead at the front, his fastest laps being enough to secure him pole for race three this afternoon, with track conditions much better today compared to the rain yesterday.

The Indian driver claimed the win by almost five seconds from Kjaergaard, but behind them, the race was anything but decided. Chia held his own towards the front for a handful of laps, but eventually drifted back to finish 14th, one place ahead of pole man Chaimongkol.

As the faster drivers climbed through from the back, it was Chadwick who looked on course to claim third though she was holding a queue of drivers behind, which included Lundqvist, who started 10th, Mahadik who started eighth, Gamble who started 11th and Monger, who fought up from 12th. Lundqvist tried on several occasions to force a move, notably on the approach to the Deene hairpin on lap 11, though he finally forced his way onto the podium by going around the outside of the hairpin on the last lap to claim the inside line for Yentwood. By this point though, Chadwick had picked up a five second penalty, and with the chasing pack so close behind her, plummeted down the order as the classification was settled at the flag.

Mahadik in fourth held off Tom Gamble by just 0.309s, with Monger just 0.240s further back, all three demonstrating combative but clean racing ability. Cane meanwhile was pushed down the order a little in the opening stages, but battled away to claim eighth, 0.798s behind Maldonado, who started seventh and finished seventh, hovering around that position for the majority of the race despite being well and truly in the thick of the action. Novalak backed up his overtaking abilities demonstrated at Oulton Park by finishing inside the top-10 here, having started 15th, and classified 0.102s ahead of Chadwick.

The podium trio were presented with their trophies at the end of the race by BRDC member Robin Liddell.

The final race of the season starts at 15.25, with Kush Maini starting on pole. Full updates and live timing will be available on the BRDC British F3 website.

Post race amend:

The driver of car 23 (Billy Monger) was given a three second penalty for contravening regulation C1.1.5. The three second penalty puts Monger seventh in the results and promotes Maldonado to sixth. The updated result is shown below.

BRDC British F3 Championship, Rockingham race one result:

1. Tom Gamble, Fortec Motorsports, 12 laps
2. Linus Lundqvist, Double R Racing, +2.318s
3. Jordan Cane, Douglas Motorsport, +8.929s
4. Krish Mahadik, Double R Racing, +15.442s
5. Manuel Maldonado, Fortec Motorsports, +22.500s
6. Sun Yue Yang, Carlin, +23.810s
7. Kush Maini, Lanan Racing, +24.721s
8. Jusuf Owega, Hillspeed, +24.967s
9. Jamie Chadwick, Douglas Motorsport, +31.840s
10. Chia Wing Hoong, Chris Dittmann Racing, +32.975s
11. Pavan Ravishankar, Double R Racing, +48.421s
12. Ben Hurst, Hillspeed, +1m02.869s
13. Sasakorn Chaimongkol, +1m03.481s
14. Billy Monger, Carlin, +1 lap
DNF. Josh Mason, Lanan Racing, 10 laps
DNF. Clement Novalak, Carlin, 1 lap
DNF. Arvin Esmaeili, Douglas Motorsport, 0 laps
DNF. Nicolai Kjaergaard, Carlin, 0 laps
DNS. Tristan Charpentier, Fortec Motorsports

BRDC British F3, Rockingham race two result:

1. Kush Maini, Lanan Racing, 14 laps
2. Nicolai Kjaergaard, Carlin, +4.910s
3. Linus Lundqvist, Double R Racing, +14.433s
4. Krish Mahadik, Double R Racing, +16.136s
5. Tom Gamble, Fortec Motorsports, +16.445s
6. Manuel Maldonado, Fortec Motorsports, +19.056s
7. Billy Monger, Carlin, +19.685s
8. Jordan Cane, Douglas Motorsport, +19.854s
9. Clement Novalak, Carlin, +20.876s
10. Jamie Chadwick, Douglas Motorsport, +20.978s
11. Sun Yue Yang, Carlin, +21.756s
12. Tristan Charpentier, Fortec Motorsports, +24.576s
13. Arvin Esmaeili, Douglas Motorsport, +29.720s
14. Chia Wing Hoong, Chris Dittmann Racing, +30.474s
15. Sasakorn Chaimongkol, Hillspeed, +30.670s
16. Jusuf Owega, Hillspeed, +36.931s
17. Pavan Ravishankar, Double R Racing, +42.088s
18. Josh Mason, Lanan Racing, +44.253s
19. Ben Hurst, Hillspeed, +1m02.422s

The amended final result is shown below.

BRDC British F3 Championship, Rockingham race three result:

1. Linus Lundqvist, Double R Racing, 14 laps
2. Nicolai Kjaergaard, Carlin, +0.260s
3. Kush Maini, Lanan Racing, +0.638s
4. Manuel Maldonado, Fortec Motorsports, +4.073s
5. Jordan Cane, Douglas Motorsport, +4.462s
6. Krish Mahadik, Double R Racing, +6.295s
7. Sun Yue Yang, Carlin, +6.901s
8. Sasakorn Chaimongkol, Hillspeed, +7.216s
9. Josh Mason, Lanan Racing, +9.563s
10. Ben Hurst, Hillspeed, +11.788s

DNF. Billy Monger, Carlin, 12 laps
DNF. Jusuf Owega, Hillspeed, 7 laps
DNF. Jamie Chadwick, Douglas Motorsport, 0 laps
DNF. Arvin Esmaeili, Douglas Motorsport, 0 laps
DNF. Pavan Ravishankar, Double R Racing, 0 laps
DNS. Tristan Charpentier, Fortec Motorsports

DQ. Tom Gamble, Fortec Motorsports
DQ. Clement Novalak, Carlin
DQ. Chia Wing Hoong, Chris Dittmann Racing