Douglas Motorsport enjoyed a superb weekend at the opening rounds of the newly rebranded British F3 Championship at Snetterton in Norfolk over the weekend.
Having showed well in official testing, confidence was high ahead of the season opener but a red flag interrupted qualifying session worked against us. Thomas Randle lined up seventh for race one, just one place ahead of team mate Enaam Ahmed. In the opening race, Randle climbed as far as fifth before contact sent him off the circuit, relegating him to the back of the grid for race two. Ahmed, however, climbed to third to take his first podium finish of the weekend.
In race two, Ahmed came home in second place grabbing another healthy dose of championship points whilst team mate Randle charged to ninth from 20th on the grid, and could possibly have finished as high as fifth were it not for a 3 lap safety car intervention mid race.
A cracking start from the outside of the front row catapulted Ahmed into the lead for race three and he drove a controlled race to take his first win and third podium of the weekend. Randle once again made impressive progress, climbing to fifth by the flag.
Enaam Ahmed, Douglas Motorsport “I am really, really happy to progress from third in race one, second in race two and now winner in race three. It was not an easy race but I controlled the gap fairly well. I’d really like to say thanks to Douglas Motorsport and my parents, Wayne (Douglas) and Marcus (engineer) as they’ve given me a really good car and I love driving it. I’m really happy. Toby and Lando were giving me a run for my money and it was hard to keep them behind as I hit a bollard down the straight and I thought that I might have broken my front wing for a second. I’m happy to get my first win in race three. I’ve gone quite well at Brands Hatch in the past so now I’m really looking forward to that weekend.”
Thomas Randle, Douglas Motorsport. “We had a lot of pace going into the round but the opening qualifying and race didn’t go our way. However we were able to bounce back from it on Monday with ninth and fifth and still showing a lot of pace, so I’ve already got my sights set on Brands Hatch. Big congratulations to Enaam on scoring his first win in British F3.”
Wayne Douglas, Team Principal, Douglas Motorsport: “It’s great to come away leading the 2016 F3 series, but the weekend could have been even better! We tested very strongly before the event and were confident of achieving good results. Enaam drove superbly to score three podiums and deservedly leads the points standings but Thomas had a tougher weekend- he will hit back soon though!”
