Hugh Barter's masterclass dominates Chennai's F4 night street circuit
“The track was really cool to drive, probably one of my favourite tracks to drive. My aim for the race was just to get my head down and give my best,” said Barter, speaking to the media after the first race.
Abhay Mohan, Ruhaan Alva (L) and Hugh Barter (C) atop the podium after the first race
CHENNAI: The two-day racing action at the Chennai Formula Racing Circuit officially came to a close with Hugh Barter dominating the first race of the Indian F4 Championship, crossing the line with a gigantic lead of seven seconds. On the other hand, Raoul Hyman and Gabriela Jilkova bagged a truckload of points for Goa Aces by finishing one-two at the Indian Racing League (IRL) race one here on Sunday.
With the teams getting just over two hours of track time on Saturday, the drivers running around the paddock expressed a few concerns regarding lower grip and dust on the circuit. Even though continuous driving on Day Two made things easier, it was not a smooth race.
After qualifying was done, Hugh Barter took pole position by a margin of 1.54 seconds. Thereon, it was a cakewalk for the Australian-Japanese driver in the first race as he got off to a flier in the start of the race and protected his lead for a few metres before the safety car came out even before the end of lap one. It was the same case as the Formula LGB race which also saw a safety car in the first lap.
Z Mohammed went off the track to trigger the safety car, but that didn’t deter the plans of Barter who still kept his cool and stretched his lead over five seconds halfway through the race.
But another incident involving Jaden Pariat and Divy Nandan on lap nine triggered a red flag which meant the race came to a halt with Barter, Ruhaan Alva and Abhay Mohan completing the top three.
“The track was really cool to drive, probably one of my favourite tracks to drive. My aim for the race was just to get my head down and give my best,” said Barter, speaking to the media after the first race.
He mentioned that turn 5, 10 and 12 were some of the places on the track which were easy to overtake. But in the second race he started to plumb last as he made a mistake on qualifying 2 going wide in turn 1.
In the second F4 race, he gained eight places within just two laps in all the turns he had mentioned were easy for him and by the end of lap four, he was in the top five. He was easily gaining about a second per lap and on course for a podium finish. But he took a chance to go ahead of Ruhaan which cost him a couple of places but despite that he showed grit and finished the race in fifth position.