Arden Motorsport continued to display positive progress despite enduring a testing weekend of British F4 action at Croft last weekend [10-11 October].

Double race winner Alex Connor had his most difficult meeting of the season at the 2.1-mile Darlington circuit, qualifying in eighth position and making up one place in the opening encounter to collect valuable points in seventh.

The 16-year-old then made immediate progress in the second contest, running in fourth before an unfortunate incident as the safety car was called resulted in a retirement.

Roman Bilinski enjoyed his best ever qualifying result in fourth, converting his second row start into a top five result come the chequered flag after a defensive masterclass to fend off championship leader Luke Browning.

A strong start in the second encounter was unfortunately short lived after an incident at the opening corner ended his impressively consistent run of eight consecutive points finishes, but the Ginetta graduate retains his seventh position in the Drivers’ standings heading to Snetterton.

Frederick Lubin also achieved a career-best qualifying result with sixth position as the best of the Rookie Cup runners, revelling in mixed conditions to translate the starting position into his fifth class victory of the season, and again equalling his best race result of fourth position.

The YRDA-backed racer collected further points in the final encounter after battling through to seventh overall and second in class, a result that leaves him with a shot at the category honours with six races remaining in the 2020 campaign.

The Red Arrows will return to British F4 action next weekend [24-25 October] at Snetterton with a return to the usual triple-header format.

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‍Arden British F4 Team Manager Gary Ward:

“It certainly wasn’t a straightforward weekend for us here at Croft but there’s still plenty of positives to take forward for the whole team.

“Everyone is really happy to see how much progress both Roman and Frederick are making at each round, and that showed this weekend with their qualifying and race one performances.

“It was definitely a character-building weekend for Alex, but we know he’ll bounce back and will be really keen to get back on the top step of the podium as we head into the business end of the season.”

Alex Connor (#27):

“It was a tough weekend at Croft, with a difficult qualifying and mistakes on my behalf costing me good results and vital championship points.

“Race one was about bringing home a points finish from eighth on the grid and we managed that, but unfortunately race two we were caught out by the safety car while battling for the podium positions.

“We’ll reset now and focus on the next two rounds.”

Roman Bilinski (#55):

“There was lots of ‘if only’ at Croft – the weekend started off really well with our best ever qualifying result and we managed a top five in race one, but unfortunately the second race didn’t go to plan.

“I’m looking forward to Snetterton now and really looking forward to racing on this long and complicated track.”

Frederick Lubin (#78):

“I really enjoyed Croft. Our pace on Friday was pretty fast and in the wet it was quick too. I got some good points and some solid results.

“I learnt a lot on Sunday managing the car which had a little issue and I am very confident going into Snetterton.

“Snetterton is cool. It’s got a great combination of high and slow speed corners. Our pace seems OK there so I’m looking forward to it.”