Melbourne's Sandown Park hosted the fourth round of the CAMS Jayco Australian Formula 4 Championship last weekend, with Melbourne based 19-year-old Thomas Randle going into the weekend on what was effectively his 'home' circuit. Based just 20-minutes from the venue, Randle came into the weekend fresh from winning his first Formula 4 championship round and was confident of a strong showing on a circuit he knows well.
QUALIFYING
The historic Sandown Park layout has many different surfaces and is also one of the bumpiest on the calendar, which challenged all of the Formula 4 teams from the outset. Thomas hitted the top of the timing screens early. Unfortunately his car suffered a fuel pressure issue just when he didn't need it and right when drivers started to improve their times late in the session. Thomas could do nothing to respond, finishing the all-important session in an unrepresentative ninth place.
RACE 1 (Grid set by first qualifying session times) Start: 9th Finish: 2nd
Undeterred, Thomas was ready for the fight and charged passed four cars on the opening lap, before the safety car period. On the restart, the action was all but over from Thomas, narrowly avoiding contact with a spinning car in front, and going on to overtake two more cars to record an excellent second place finish after 13 racing laps. If not for spending three laps behind the Safety Car, Thomas may well have challenged for the lead.
RACE 2 (Grid the reverse top six from R1 result) Start: 5th Finish: 2nd
Race 2 was held on Saturday afternoon in warm and blustery conditions and Thomas again made up early positions, moving into third place after lap one. Thereafter enjoying a spirited battle for second place with Jordan Love, which Thomas ultimately won on lap four. With his sights set on race and championship leader Jordan Lloyd, Thomas put his head down in an attempt to reduce the margin to the lead, but the cars were as good as equally matched and second place was the best he could muster when the chequered flag was displayed after just 11 laps.
RACE 3 (Grid set by second fastest qualifying lap) Start: 9th Finish: 4th
Again faced with the challenge of having to climb through the pack from a low starting position, a slower than desired start made life difficult on the opening lap. After battling for five laps to find a way through the mid pack squabble, Thomas actually passed two cars in the one lap to move into fourth position on lap six. That though was as far as he would climb, with warmer temperatures on the day and a car that was less than perfect in the handling department, Thomas was destined to spend the remaining 10 laps of the race fruitlessly trying to find a way by Jimmy Vernon's Mygale - with fourth place the best he could manage.
CHAMPIONSHIP
Thomas maintains his second place in the championship, 70 points behind Jordan Lloyd with three rounds remaining and more than 240 points still on offer. Thomas Randle: “Not the weekend we were looking for but the team bounced back well after the Friday crash. We had pretty good pace in the first two races but missed the set-up for the final event, which hurt my speed and made life difficult. There are still plenty of races left and plenty of points, so we will just have to keep pushing hard to maximise every opportunity."
NEXT RACE
Round 5 of the seven round CAMS Jayco Australian Formula 4 Championship will be held on the streets of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast during the weekend of October 23-25.