The outcome for the team from Maldon, Essex, was a clear silver lining on a weekend when incidents involving their drivers also robbed them of potentially even greater rewards at the track where they scored their first series win three years earlier.
Surrey racer Archie Bullard showed excellent speed during official testing on Thursday and Friday, setting the third-best time by a Rookie-class driver in one of the faster sessions.
The 19-year-old’s weekend highlight was a superb tear through the field from 21st overall on the Race Three grid to 16th spot within just two laps of a race that was initially red-flagged due to an incident for another car.
Sadly, contact from a rival pitched him into a spin on the penultimate lap and forced an unplanned pitstop to have grass removed from his sidepod. He finished seventh of the Rookies as a result, having suffered incidents in the weekend’s other races.
His Saudi Arabian team-mate Jasser Iskander, who was a top-three Rookie finisher at the Silverstone season-opener, continued to enhance his own experience at Oulton Park.
Caught out by the steep gradient at his end of the starting grid, the reigning Saudi junior karting champion stalled at the beginning of the formation lap and had to start from the pitlane in last place in Race One.
After making progress to 21st overall and a top-five Rookie spot, a suspension issue caused him to spin and retire early on. He recovered to seventh and sixth in the Rookie classification on Monday.
South African Enzo Rujugiro enjoyed his strongest weekend yet in a GB4 car, recording his best result to date in 20th spot in Race Three.
The 15-year-old was ninth of the Rookies in the timed session twice finished fifth in the category across the three races after showing maturity and composure across the weekend.
The next round takes place at Donington Park on June 25-28.
Paul McNeilly, Team Principal, said: “I’m really pleased with the progress all three drivers have shown over the weekend. We’re talking about three rookies, so of course there are still some rough edges to smooth out, but that’s to be expected so early in their careers. When you think that we came here about six weeks ago and the lads were seven or eight seconds off the pace when we started testing and now they’re racing in mid-pack and very close to the best of the karting graduates, that’s something we can all be happy about. If we continue this trend through the year, we can be very optimistic of what’s to come.”
