- Double delight for the Daventry team at Silverstone
- Nikolas Taylor the team’s star with a pair of victories
- Elias Adestam denied podium finish in dramatic third race
Fortec Motorsport bagged a brace of victories in the latest three races of the 2022 GB4 Championship partnered by BRDC at Silverstone GP circuit last weekend (7/8 May) thanks to Nikolas Taylor who moved the team’s win total to three.
Fortec Motorsport’s Taylor entered confident of returning to winning ways after showing impressive pace in the opening two events, while Elias Adestam and Jessica Edgar also entered with silverware to their names after impressive drives at Snetterton and Oulton Park.
After a winning start at Snetterton, Anglo-Malaysian teenager Nikolas Taylor lay down a significant marker over two days of testing at the 3.66-mile Silverstone GP circuit in Northampton as he topped the times throughout Thursday, heading into qualifying hopeful of more of the same.
Despite a best result of third for the opening race courtesy of Taylor, his second-fastest effort was enough to put the Fortec car on pole position for the weekend’s second race, with Adestam lining up sixth for race one and Edgar ninth in the team’s third car.
The fight was on when the opening race got underway on Saturday afternoon, as Taylor jumped a place by turn one to move up into second, giving chase to title rival Alex Walker. The Fortec car was soon nosing ahead after Taylor got a great exit onto the Hamilton straight, stealing the lead into Village.
Taylor’s fight was not over however as he resisted pressure from Walker in the second half of the race, although he emphatically held his cool to grab the team’s second GB4 victory by just under a second. Adestam also enjoyed a superb first lap, making up two places around the outside of the mightily fast Copse corner to move into fourth. The 16-year-old Swede chased the top three all the way to the flag, but could not quite find a way by Max Marzorati to make it two Fortec cars on the podium, Edgar finishing 11th.
From pole position in the second race on Sunday morning the following day, Taylor had to fight back after slipping to third place on the opening lap. Taking back second within the lap he soon caught leader Walker at the Village Loop, but contact between the two dropped him back to fourth place.
Following a safety car restart, Taylor fought back once again by climbing up to second around the outside of several cars, finally finding his way by Tom Mills with a bold pass around the outside at Copse corner to grab the lead. It would be the winning move, Taylor adding Fortec’s third win of the season while Adestam recovered brilliantly from a stall at the start to carve his way back through to sixth place.
Edgar finished inside the top 10 and was the highest-placed Fortec car on the grid, starting from fourth. Unfortunately, her car was left stationary on the grid as the field swarmed around her, although she did recover to 10th place. Taylor was also unlucky enough to lose his front wing at Club in a three-abreast squeeze on lap one, leaving Adestam to take up the fight from seventh.
The Swedish driver made up ground, and soon found himself on the back of the battle for the podium. He would make a move stick around the outside of Stowe corner, but it was adjudged illegal by use of the run-off on the corner exit and a post-race time penalty dropped him back to fifth.
Fortec Motorsport move into the lead of the Teams’ Championship after a double victory at Silverstone, and will next be in action in three weeks’ time to defend that as the series heads to Donington Park on 28/29 May.
Oliver Dutton, Team Manager said:
“It’s been a fantastic weekend for us in GB4, and we’re absolutely delighted to have come away with a double win and the points lead in the Teams Championship. Nikolas has been fast all week and fully deserved his two victories, and he will no doubt be able to add more this season. Elias was right in the mix for another podium at the end of the weekend and Jess has shown more promising speed, so we’ll look forward to Donington aiming for more success.”
#8 Elias Adestam
“We had good pace in testing and in pre-season here, so we had high hopes. It’s a shame that we didn’t finish the weekend with a podium after I ran wide battling for third place, but the most important thing is that we had the speed, which showed in race two after we had to fight from the back of the grid.”
#17 Jessica Edgar
“I think we had good couple of test days on Thursday and Friday. Qualifying was okay but I could have maybe done a bit better; then in the races I struggled for a bit of pace, but you have ups and downs and I think Donington will go well. I have nothing to lose so we’ll give it everything.”
#66 Nikolas Taylor
“It has been a very good weekend for us. The opening two races were certainly very exciting from my point of view, which makes the last race a bit disappointing. In race two, after the safety car, we were really fast and I was able to make moves to get back up to the lead. We had good pace all week and then in the first race, and the slipstream was pretty strong which helped me.”
