Despite a disrupted event at Silverstone due to weather conditions, Nina Gademan showed good speed in a variety of conditions, narrowly missing out on her first top-10 in the series and displayed improved qualifying performance.
Fortec Motorsport driver Nina Gademan achieved a best result of 16th in the British F4 Championship at Silverstone, while displaying top-10 performance in changeable conditions. Gademan qualified inside the top-15 on the National circuit and finished a dry race one in 16th position. After running inside the top-10 in race two, a late-race spin led to a 17th place result with the final race of the weekend cancelled due to adverse weather conditions.
Fresh off her sensational debut in F1 Academy at her home track of Zandvoort where she finished inside the top-5 as a Wild Card entry, Gademan returned to the British F4 Championship looking to continue this strong form.
“It felt great to get back in the British F4 car this weekend especially as the brakes are a bit better than in the F1 Academy car.", she expplained.
Nina also secured her season’s best British F4 Championship finish at Knockhill and was aiming to score her maiden top-10 of the season as the drivers returned to Silverstone. Having previously competed on the Grand Prix circuit, the young racers would now tackle the National layout where the slipstream effect would prove powerful during the races.
Prior to the weekend, the drivers took part in two pre-event test sessions with Thursday’s running exclusively reserved for the British F4 Championship machines. Gademan ended the opening day of testing in 19th position, but just a little over half a second away from the fastest time. In Friday’s pair of sessions, Nina continued her consistency by also setting the 19th quickest lap and was looking ahead to a closely contested qualifying session.
Qualifying took place on Saturday morning with the Fortec Motorsports driver targeting her best starting spot of the season. Gademan made significant improvements in the latter half of the session and this allowed her to set her fastest time of the week so far. This resulted in a strong 14th place qualifying effort, her second highest result of the season to date, while missing out on reverse grid pole by less than one tenth of a second.
The grid for the opening race of the weekend was based on the second fastest times from qualifying with Gademan starting from 17th on the grid. Rain had fallen prior to the start of the race, however the drivers fitted the slick tyres on the partially damp track.
Nina held her position after the first lap before coming under attack from Bart Harrison. Harrison had started at the rear of the field after a grid penalty and moved ahead on lap two, before Gademan re-passed the Chris Dittman Racing driver on lap three.
Gademan’s pace in the early stages of the race was strong and this allowed her to catch Chloe Chong before shaping for a move. As Nina looked for a way through, Leo Robinson overtook both Gademan and Chong with the Dutch driver remaining behind the JHR Developments racer.
Nonetheless, she remained in 17th position as Zack Scoular visited the pits, with Alex Ninovic also visiting his crew to promote Gademan to 16th. During the middle portion of the race, Nina continued to apply pressure to Chong but was unable to find a way through and therefore ended race one of the weekend in 16th position, sixth in the Rookie Cup.
Race two of the weekend took place on Sunday morning with cold and wet conditions at Silverstone. The grid was formed from the drivers fastest laps in qualifying with the top-12 reversed and therefore Gademan started from 14th.
As the race got underway, a number of cars at the front of the field stalled and were collected by others, therefore necessitating an early red flag with the Fortec Motorsport driver escaping undamaged.
The race resumed behind the safety car with a revised duration of 15 minutes, however this was reduced further as the drivers acclimatised to conditions. As the racing got underway, the race was immediately red flagged once again due to the conditions deemed unsuitable for racing and therefore race two of the weekend from Silverstone was initially rescheduled to later in the day.
The third scheduled race of the weekend took place on Sunday afternoon with the grid formed from the drivers fastest times in qualifying. Gademan was set to line up from 14th, however she was promoted to 12th as the cars of Thomas Bearman and Rowan Campbell-Pilling were unable to be fixed following the earlier incident. Track conditions were still wet, although marginally better than earlier in the day. Nonetheless, the race began behind the safety car due to the conditions.
As the green flag was displayed, an incident ahead between Leo Robinson and Matus Ryba promoted Gademan into the top-10, while a spin for Alex Ninovic saw Nina claim ninth position. Now running in her highest position of the season, the Fortec Motorsport driver was enjoying the tough conditions as the safety car was deployed to retrieve Ninovic’s Rodin Motorsport machine.
The race resumed on lap nine with Gademan doing well to initially hold off teammate Alex Berg. Two laps later, Berg was able to make his way through with Yuhao Fu now beginning to close in on the Dutch driver. Gademan’s pace was still strong as she challenged for a position inside the top-10, however Fu made the overtake on lap 14.
Now running in 11th position, Gademan was still set for one of her best results in the British F4 Championship until contact with Leo Robinson at Luffield on the final lap saw the Fortec Motorsport machine spin. Gademan was able to rejoin and took the checkered flag in 17th position which was an unfortunate end to a promising race.
The rescheduled second race was set to take place at the end of the day, however due to heavy rain falling once again, it was eventually cancelled for safety reasons. Despite a disrupted event due to weather conditions, Gademan showed good speed in a variety of conditions, narrowly missing out on her first top-10 in the series.
"We were struggling all weekend with the setup and the pace in general, but I think we made quite a bit of progress for qualifying as we finished P14 which I think was a good step by the team", Gademan summarized. "We just need to do some work on the setup in the wet, which it is looking like for testing at Brands Hatch, so we’ll do what we can to get the maximum out of it for the final weekend.”
Nina will now be looking ahead to the final round of the British F4 Championship which takes place at Brands Hatch on the weekend of 5th/6th October.
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