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Abbi Creates British F4 History with Brands Hatch Victory

Abbi Pulling took her maiden win in the F4 British Championship with a lights-to-flag win in Race 2 at Brands Hatch Indy.

Fresh off her clean-sweep of victories at F1 Academy in Miami, Abbi returned to her British F4 duties with RODIN Motorsport at Brands Hatch Indy.

Following two promising practice sessions, where Abbi was P3 and P4 on the timesheets respectively, Qualifying was more of a struggle in a super tight field - with Abbi suffering with understeer and ending the session 11th quickest overall and 9th quickest on second-best times.

Just over a tenth separating P4-P12 showed how close it was around the 1.944km short circuit.

Abbi would start P9 for Race 1 and made a good start - gaining 2 positions and moving into P7, shortly before the Safety Car was called following an opening lap collision.

The race resumed on Lap 6, with Abbi challenging teammate Jack Sherwood for P6 as the race progressed towards half distance.

Position remained stagnant throughout the race, as Abbi fended off the attention of Mercedes-AMG Junior Yuanpu Cui to secure P7 at the chequered flag.

Race 2 saw Abbi start from pole position for the partially reversed-grid race.

She made a great start to retain the lead and immediately pull out a gap to her challengers behind - which was soon wiped out due to another early Safety Car.

Racing resumed on Lap 7 and Abbi immediately set about extending her advantage out front, pulling out a 2-second lead by Lap 10.

Reminiscent of her performance in Miami, Abbi would continue to stretch her advantage, securing the fastest lap in the process - on her way to taking her first British F4 victory by 5 seconds over her nearest rival.

The third and final race of the weekend saw Abbi start from P11. She made a good start to move up to P9 at the end of the opening lap and straight into the points paying positions.

Abbi would soon move into P8, after clever positioning behind a 3-car battle saw her pass Zack Scoular to move further up the order.

The middle of the race would see her stuck in a train of cars fighting for P6, pushing hard to make more progress up the field on the notoriously difficult circuit to overtake on.

In the closing laps, a clash ahead elevated Abbi to P7, which soon became P6 at the chequered flag, once track-limit penalties were applied at the end of the race.


Abbi Pulling:

"The weekend started off great - being very fast in FP1 and FP2, being inside the top 4 in both sessions. Qualifying was unfortunate after we made some changes that didn't really pay off. These put us in the wrong setup window and struggling to switch the tyres on - which put us back in the pack for the races."

"We dug deep though and kept our chins up in Race 1, starting P9 and despite most of the race being under safety car, we finished P7 for some solid points."

"We reverted back to the setup from Free Practice and our pace was back! Getting a great start off the line to hold the lead, then aced the Safety Car restart to the Race by 5-seconds, with fastest lap which was unexpected - but we showed the pace that our RODIN Motorsport car had and that was awesome!"

"Race 3 I started from P11 and got a very good launch to make ground on the first lap - ended up making good progress to finish P6, which was a good comeback."
"Going into Snetterton, the aim is to avoid any Qualifying setbacks and convert the good pace we had in pre-season testing, with the aim of getting some more victories."

"It was great to be the first female to win in British F4, firstly for myself to get that win itself - but my goal is to be a winner in the main races as well."
"I want to prove that I can beat anyone, regardless of the category I am competing in - which can hopefully inspire many more women to join the sport and do the same!"


Following the action at Brands Hatch Indy, Abbi will be back racing in British F4 once again in just two weeks time -at Snetterton on the 25-26 May.

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