Formula 4 British Championship

Christian Mansell has extended his lead at the head the Rookie Cup as part of the 2020 Formula 4 British Championship.

The Novocastrian failed to finish the opening race of the weekend at Silverstone before rebounding to claim seventh and sixth in the two encounters that followed.

Retirement from the opening affair came while battling with fellow rookie Frederick Lubin with neither seeing the chequered flag that was ultimately taken first by Alex Connor.

Mansell then claimed seventh in Race 2, won by Zak O’Sullivan, while Lubin slipped behind Abbi Pulling to come home ninth.

Luke Browning had crossed the line first ahead of O’Sullivan, but a time penalty for exceeding track limits relegated him to fifth.

Casper Stevenson won the final race of the weekend with Mansell improving one spot on his Race 2 result to sixth.

Rookie Cup rival Lubin could do no better than ninth, opening the gap between the two in that competition to 32 points.

Teams now have a weekend off before heading to Croft for Rounds 19 and 20 on October 10-11.

FIA Formula 2 Championship

A frightening crash in Sunday’s Sprint Race at Sochi overshadowed a solid performance from Mick Schumacher that saw him extend his Formula 2 Championship advantage.

The German youngster won the opening race of the weekend in Russia on Saturday and then claimed third in the Sprint Race to extend his title advantage by 14 points.

Yuki Tsunoda led the Feature Race for 19 of its 23 laps before Schumacher put a move on the Red Bull youngster on the exit of Turn 2.

The final podium place was claimed by Callum Ilott who fended off Luca Ghiotto in a photo finish at the line.

Ghiotto was then involved in a terrifying crash with Jack Aitken on Lap 7 of the Sprint Race, the pair touching wheels before firing into the barriers at Turn 3.

Both penetrated the first row of defence, Ghiotto’s car catching fire once the Italian had climbed free.

Neither was injured in the incident though officials red flagged the race, which did not restart and attracted only half points as a result.

Guanyu Zhou was therefore the winner with Nikita Mazepin second and Schumacher third.

The first of two consecutive events in Bahrain is scheduled for November 27-29, with the season then concluding the following weekend.

Moto2, Moto3

Luca Marini has extended his Moto2 championship lead with victory over Sam Lowes in Catalunya.

Marini (Sky VR46 Kalex) qualified on pole and led the field away, while Lowes (EG 0,0 Marc VDS Kalex) dropped to sixth from a front row start.

The Briton hardly held back as he mounted his recovery and had caught Marini by the halfway mark of the 22-lap encounter.

He made his move on Lap 16 at Turn 1 but could not shake the Italian, who turned the tables with the same pass on Lap 21.

Marini went on to win by almost a second ahead of Lowes and now leads the championship by 20 points over Enea Bastianini (Italtrans Kalex), who ended up sixth.

Remy Gardner (Onexox TKKR SAG Kalex) started and finished 16th after serving a long lap penalty, and is now 12th in the championship.

The Australian had qualified 10th-fastest but was put back six positions due to crashing in a yellow flag zone in practice, and also had to contend with a faulty rear tyre during the race.

In Moto3, Darryn Binder (CIP Green Power KTM) took a breakthrough win courtesy of a final lap pass.

Albert Arenas (Gaviota Aspar KTM) lost the championship lead to Ai Ogura (Honda Team Asia), who finished 11th, after the Spaniard was taken out by John McPhee (Petronas Sprinta Honda).

Next up is the French Grand Prix at Le Mans on October 9-11.