Joseph Loake sits atop the GB3 Championship standings as a field of 25 young F1 aspirants heads to the home of the British Grand Prix this Coronation weekend (6-7 May).
The 18-year-old was hugely impressive at the season opener at Oulton Park on Easter weekend, claiming a double pole position, victory in race one and a podium to follow it up. The British F4 graduate, driving for JHR Developments, holds a slender five-point margin to Arden VRD’s race two winner James Hedley. To cap off a strong start to the season, Loake was the fastest driver at last week’s test day on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit.
Loake and Hedley hold a decent margin to Rodin Carlin’s Callum Voisin, who took two podiums in the first two races in Cheshire but was wiped out of the third, while an accomplished GB3 debut for Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Michael Shin, including two top-five finishes, means the South Korean flies high in fourth early on, just a point away from GB3 returnee Voisin.
Matthew Rees was teammate Loake’s closest challenger in qualifying and took a best result of second with Douglas Motorsport’s Tymek Kucharczyk sitting sixth having shown good speed after graduating from Spanish F4.
Reigning British F4 champion Alex Dunne is Hitech’s next challenger, ahead of Fortec’s Max Esterson, with both eyeing a first podium of the season. Elite’s Ayato Iwasaki already has a trophy to his name courtesy of third in the final Oulton Park contest, while Esterson’s teammate and GB4 graduate Jarrod Waberski has shown the pace to also challenge for the podium. The South African completes the current top-10 heading to Silverstone.
Waberski is equal on points with Rodin Carlin’s Costa Toparis, the Australian sitting five points clear of JHR’s David Morales with Hillspeed’s race three winner Daniel Mavlyutov next up.
Hitech’s Red Bull and Honda junior Souta Arao was rapid in qualifying at Oulton Park, and will likely climb up the standings at Silverstone. The Japanese driver is a couple of points ahead of Fortec’s Edward Pearson, another to leave Oulton Park with a trophy, with Arden VRD’s North Americans Nico Christodoulou and Noah Ping just behind.
Zak Taylor was a top-10 finisher at Silverstone last year and will aim to be in the mix for Chris Dittmann Racing, he’s a point ahead of Rodin Carlin’s John Bennett and Elite’s Oliver Stewart.
Hillspeed’s Gerrard Xie ended a difficult Oulton Park event with eighth, while Taylor’s teammate Arthur Rogeon was impressive on his car racing debut at the season opener, and with a change of luck will bank a bigger haul at Silverstone.
The 25-driver entry for this weekend is completed by Douglas Motorsport duo Shawn Rashid and Lucas Staico, and Elite’s McKenzy Cresswell, who endured a trying weekend in Cheshire, but was well under Silverstone GB3 lap record pace in pre-season testing in March.
WEEKEND TIMETABLE
The event starts with testing across Thursday and Friday, with qualifying on Saturday signalling the start of the main race event, and the session deciding the starting order for the first two races.
Saturday 6 May
10.40-11.00 – Qualifying
14.52-15.12 – Race one
Sunday 7 May
11.11-11.29 – Race two
16.54-17.12 – Race three
Live timing is available at www.gb-3.net/live-timing throughout the four days, with live streaming of all three race shows added to the same link on Saturday and Sunday.
Joseph Loake: Coming off the back of a very strong debut weekend I am looking forward to building on our pace that we have shown so far. Now we have seen everyone’s all-out pace we know where we sit and I think it’s safe to say that we can now start to set slightly higher expectations than we maybe could have before Oulton.
“Silverstone is an amazing venue to race at and I’m looking forward to seeing what our pace will be like at such a different style of circuit!”
McKenzy Cresswell: “I’m looking forward to this weekend at Silverstone. After a write off of a weekend at Oulton, I’m looking to grab as many points as possible and get our championship campaign up and running. We have had good pace there as a team in testing, and Elite managed to get a pole and a win there last year, so we are looking to replicate that.”
GB3 Championship, partnered by the BRDC, Silverstone entry list:
#2, Nico Christodoulou, Arden VRD
#3, Noah Ping, Arden VRD
#4, James Hedley, Arden VRD
#5, Matthew Rees, JHR Developments
#7. Tymek Kucharczyk, Douglas Motorsport
#9, Zak Taylor, Chris Dittmann Racing
#11, Lucas Staico, Douglas Motorsport
#15, Ayato Iwasaki, Elite Motorsport
#16, McKenzy Cresswell, Elite Motorsport
#17, Oliver Stewart, Elite Motorsport
#18, Arthur Rogeon, Chris Dittmann Racing
#20, Jarrod Waberski, Fortec Motorsport
#21, Souta Arao, Hitech Pulse-Eight
#22, Alex Dunne, Hitech Pulse-Eight
#23, Michael Shin, Hitech Pulse-Eight
#27, John Bennett, Rodin Carlin
#32, Shawn Rashid, Douglas Motorsport
#35, Callum Voisin, Rodin Carlin
#39, Gerrard Xie, Hillspeed
#41, Edward Pearson, Fortec Motorsport
#42, Max Esterson, Fortec Motorsport
#43, Costa Toparis, Rodin Carlin
#77, David Morales, JHR Developments
#84, Joseph Loake, JHR Developments
#99, Daniel Mavlyutov, Hillspeed
The results from race two at Oulton Park remain provisional, with further investigations taking place at Silverstone this weekend.
03 May 2023
