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Championship leader Will Palmer looking to extend championship lead at Snetterton

Will Palmer heads to Snetterton this weekend (11/12 July) as championship leader in the Duo BRDC Formula 4 Championship, following a dominant weekend last time out at Silverstone. The 18-year-old claimed two wins across the meeting and will be looking to extend his advantage in the standings across rounds 10, 11 and 12 at the Norfolk circuit.

Snetterton is a circuit Palmer knows well and enjoys, having taken two wins at the track in the 2014 main championship before adding a further three victories on the 2.97-mile 300 circuit in the 2014 Winter Series on the way to claiming the title.

Palmer, who hails from Southwater, regained the lead of the country's leading junior single-seater championship at Silverstone with a number of commanding performances across the meeting to leave his rivals trailing in his wake. He dominated qualifying to claim pole position with a lap nearly an entire second quicker than second-placed man, and Palmer's HHC Motorsport team-mate, Harri Newey.

As the lights went out to signal the start of race one, Palmer swept away from the grid and comfortably led into turn one. His team-mate Newey was relegated down the order, having made a tardy getaway, and Ecurie Ecosse Young Driver Ciaran Haggerty moved into second place. Palmer got his head down and opened up his advantage, putting in a series of fastest laps which culminated in him setting a new BRDC F4 lap record around the 3.660-mile Grand Prix track.

As he began the last lap, Palmer had created a gap of over five seconds and took the chequered flag the next time around easily ahead of Haggerty and third-placed Jordan Albert.

A damp circuit greeted the BRDC Formula 4 field for race two, with Palmer starting eighth by virtue of his opening race victory. A strong start saw him make up one position before he jumped up to sixth on lap two. He then benefitted from a mistake by Jordan Albert to pass the Sean Walkinshaw Racing man and debutant Omar Ismail to claim a spot in the top-three. The hard-charging Rodrigo Fonseca relegated Palmer back down to fourth, with the Mexican eventually claiming victory having started 15^th on the grid. Palmer was dropped to fifth by Tom Jackson on the penultimate lap before regaining fourth by the end of the race as Argentine Hernan Fallas spun on the final tour.

Race three followed a similar patter to race one for the young Brit as he led away from pole position, having started at the front of the field due to his fastest lap in Saturday's first race. He faced initial pressure in the first few corners from Ciaran Haggerty and Jordan Albert but soon found his rhythm and opened up a gap of 1.923s by the end of lap one. He remained untroubled throughout the race while a number of tight battles behind saw Harri Newey, son of legendary Formula One designer Adrian, emerge in second with Lanan Racing's Fonseca third. After 10 laps, Palmer took the chequered flag over eight seconds clear of Newey to claim the maximum 35 points from the race.

He now leads the championship on 193 points, 12 points clear of Rodrigo Fonseca in second. Manxman Chris Mealin, who led the standings heading into the Silverstone weekend, is now third on 162 points with Tom Jackson and Jordan Albert rounding out the top-five.

You can follow all the action from Snetterton through updates and live timing on the official Formula 4 website.

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