British F4’s pre-season testing days came to an end last week at Brands Hatch. Feeder Series looks at how the drivers fared in pre-season testing and spoke to Deagen Fairclough, Yuanpu Cui, Zack Scoular and Nina Gademan ahead of the season opener at Donington Park this weekend.

By Gavin Guthrie

British F4 enters its tenth year with a new team, new drivers and an international round for the first time, as the series forgoes usual appearances at Oulton Park and Croft in favour of a trip to Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

With much to learn for even the most experienced drivers on the grid, testing has been crucial this winter. Drivers spent a total of nine days at Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Snetterton and Knockhill to give themselves a solid foundation before the series kicks off in a week’s time.

Fairclough sets the bar high

Returning to the series after taking third in the drivers’ standings in his first F4 season last year, Deagen Fairclough made the switch from JHR Developments to 2023 teams’ championship runners-up Hitech GP. As the highest-placed driver in last year’s championship on the 2024 grid, the 18-year-old faces high expectations as he prepares for a title challenge.

So far Fairclough has exceeded these expectations, topping six of the nine official test days ahead of the season opener at Donington Park and finishing in the top six on the other three days.

Speaking to Feeder Series at the series’ media day on 5 April, the Hitech driver expressed his outlook on his performance and challenges for the season ahead.

“Showing some strong pace so far through pre-season testing. Hoping to carry it on into the first round – well, into this year, really! It’s looking like we’re going to have a strong year. I’m gunning for that title, so I can’t really ask for anything [more].”

“There’s always people that are strong. … Obviously the second-year drivers – James Higgins, my teammates [Mika Abrahams and Reza Seewooruthun] – are looking quite quick so far as well, so it’s all to play for.”

Rodin Motorsport’s Higgins, who recently spoke with Feeder Series about his preparation coming into the season, will, like Fairclough, be returning for his second full season in the series, having taken two wins and a further four podiums on his way to sixth in the standings last year.

Rookie Cui shows strong pace

After a strong career in karting that earned him a spot in the Mercedes Junior Team, Chinese driver Yuanpu Cui has made the step up into single-seaters for 2024. As part of his preparation for a full campaign in British F4, the 16-year-old started the year in F4 UAE with Xcel Motorsport, picking up points at the penultimate event of the season in Yas Marina.

Though his results were modest, his time in F4 UAE, along with some private test sessions last year, have proved their worth coming into pre-season testing, in which Argenti driver Cui was a regular feature in the top 10, even topping the 20 March test day at Brands Hatch.

Off the back of these promising displays of pace, Cui spoke to Feeder Series about his targets for the year ahead.

“We’ve got lots of second-year drivers this year, so obviously it’s going to be slightly harder than usual. I’m still trying to get my maximum out of the car and working with the team quite hard. We’re looking quite strong pace-wise,” he said.

“Our aim is to get some podiums [and] hopefully some race wins if it’s possible. Everybody’s chasing these.”

Xcel Motorsport make a strong start

With six years in F4 UAE under their belt and the experience of running such drivers as Matteo Nannini, Dilano van ’t Hoff and Pepe Martí, Emirati team Xcel Motorsport have expanded their single-seater division into Europe to compete in British F4 after a prior expansion into F4 UAE parent series Formula Regional Middle East over the winter.

The new outfit brings with them Zack Scoular, an Emirati-licenced driver of Australian and New Zealand nationality who has been with the team for seven years throughout his karting career and, most recently, a campaign in F4 UAE.

Though one might reasonably consider coming to a new country to compete in an incredibly close-fought championship with a team new to the series to be a risky move, Scoular felt it to be the right decision to continue with Xcel.

“I’ve been with them since I was nine years old. I’m now sixteen. So I’ve built a strong relationship with everyone in the team. I know everyone in the team very well. Over the past few years, I haven’t seen a reason to move, and I still haven’t seen that reason.

“[Paul Hardy], the team manager, is the same team manager I’ve had for a long time now, which I think helps a lot. It’s good to have that connection,” he said.

“Obviously, we’ve had a lot to learn over the past few weeks, but we’ve been making really good progress. We were fast out the box, so it’s looking pretty positive.”

Though missing several of the later tests may set them back, Scoular and Xcel managed to clock in times within a few tenths of the top drivers at Rodin and Hitech, the two most likely teams’ cup contenders, at Silverstone.

The women on the 2024 grid

The 2024 season will feature four female drivers on the grid, the highest number in series history. Chloe Chong, Nina Gademan and Ella Lloyd will make their series debuts, while Abbi Pulling makes a return to the series after a curtailed sophomore campaign in 2021.

Lloyd, who spent the last two years in Ginettas, entered her first single-seater races in the final two rounds of the Formula Winter Series over the winter. Gademan will be making her single-seater debut having previously competed in the Dutch PTC Cup and the 24 Hours of Zolder. The 20-year-old has also gained a significant online following as an e-sports content creator and is known to many as Nina Pothof, her former name.

Speaking to Feeder Series, Gademan explained some of the difficulties she found while making the switch.

“With the touring car, I was on the limit. I could find the limit in three laps and now [I’ve already done] ten testings and I’m still not on the limit of this car because it’s so hard. You cannot really compare it.”

This steep learning curve can be seen in the testing results. At the end of the first test day at Silverstone on 5 March, Gademan’s fastest lap was 1.7 seconds off the best time of the day, placing her 19th of the 21 drivers taking part in the day’s running. However, as the first round draws closer, the Dutch driver has closed the gap to the front, regularly ending days of testing squarely in the midfield.

The most eye-catching performances of the four, however, belonged to Rodin Motorsport’s Abbi Pulling. At 21 years old and with four years of single-seater racing already under her belt, Pulling enters 2024 as the most experienced driver on the grid.

The decision to prioritise her concurrent F1 Academy campaign means the Briton will not be able to attend every round or test, but a reduced testing schedule was not enough to keep Pulling away from frontrunning pace. She finished second at the March Snetterton test and was often in the front half of the field.  

The season kicks off this Saturday with qualifying and race one at Donington Park, all on the BTCC support package.

Header photo credit: Nikolas Taylor / Thru The Lens Media