Osborne’s crazy Oulton Mini weekend as Bearman takes first British F4 win

Jamie Osborne had been utterly dominant during the opening two weekends of the Mini Challenge season, but a problem-filled Saturday at Oulton Park gave others the chance to shine.

Osborne enjoyed a colossal 64-point lead heading to Cheshire, although that advantage was in danger of being wiped out after fuel system problems plagued his qualifying. His NAPA Mini had just returned to the track when the session was red-flagged, leaving Osborne without a time and starting from the back.

The misery continued into race one. Osborne inadvertently lined up in the incorrect grid slot after a couple of drivers pitted for wets amid increasing rain. That netted him a 10-second penalty, but he was also involved in a couple of scrapes before getting stuck in sixth gear, all resulting in him being classified 16th.

Instead, double Civic Cup champion Max Edmundson was the star. Front-row starters Tom Ovenden (Excelr8 Motorsport) and Lewis Selby (NAPA) were battling for the lead at Old Hall on lap three and a flying Edmundson sensed an opportunity. The Pro Alloys Racing driver pounced around the outside of Cascades to grab first place in a brilliant move and went on to take his maiden Mini win.

“I’ve finally got it after three rounds,” said Edmundson, who had faced a few engine issues during the opening events. “They were battling at Turn 1 and Lewis got pushed wide. At Cascades I got an overlap on Tom and the dry line looked quite wide there. But you’re the crash test dummy when you’re leading.”

After Edmundson’s elation on Saturday, Osborne was overjoyed to bounce back on Sunday – as he nearly won from 16th on the grid! He gained nine places on the opening lap alone as the rain put in another appearance. Osborne was up to second by the time of a mid-race safety car, triggered by contact between Edmundson and Marlo Cordell at Knickerbrook that left the latter stranded, while Selby had grabbed the lead from Ovenden with a better run up Clay Hill.

Osborne was all over the rear of his team-mate upon the resumption but could not quite find a way through, Selby holding on by 0.223s.

“I didn’t think I was going to get that high up but, as soon as it started raining, my confidence shot through the roof,” enthused Osborne. “I thought, ‘I’m just going to go for it – everybody’s going to be nervous.’ Lewis had some great defending but to make up from what happened yesterday, it was really good.”

Ovenden slipped to fourth behind Josh Porter but still trimmed Osborne’s advantage to 44 on a weekend that could have been far more damaging for the points leader.

Bradshaw three inches from perfection in Porsche Sprint Challenge GB

“I was three inches from perfection,” said Tom Bradshaw after a dominant Porsche Sprint Challenge GB weekend at his local Oulton Park track.

The Toro Verde driver looked right at home and had he not fractionally overstepped the mark on race one’s grid, he would have been celebrating a hat-trick. But Bradshaw was still delighted to have moved into the points lead after being the class of the field, despite only 0.035 seconds separating the top four in qualifying.

No-one got close to Bradshaw in the opener, and he even maintained the lead despite skating off at Hislop’s when a rain shower suddenly arrived. “When it starts raining, you’ve got grip, you’ve got grip and then it’s like someone’s flicked a switch,” he said. “This place bites when you get it wrong.”

But Samuel Harvey (Xentek Motorsport) and Jacob Tofts (Graves Motorsport) in second and third were also bitten at the same corner and later came to blows at Lodge, delaying them both. This meant Joe Marshall was the one to profit upon Bradshaw’s “harsh” penalty, the Team Parker racer finally scoring his first 2025 success.

There were no such problems for Bradshaw in the other two races as he cantered to a pair of wins with Harvey and Tofts second and third each time. Third in the opener was the highlight of erstwhile table-topper Toby Trice’s weekend and the Clean Racing driver has now fallen eight points adrift of Bradshaw, even despite that three-inch error.

Bearman bags maiden British F4 win as McLaughlin reclaims points lead

Bearman profited from rivals’ errors to win race three

Photo by: JEP

Thomas Bearman scored his maiden car racing victory after triumphing in slightly bizarre circumstances in the British Formula 4 finale at Oulton Park.

The younger brother of Haas F1 ace Ollie was circulating in fourth when a sudden downpour at Lodge left the top three of Fionn McLaughlin, Martin Molnar and Ary Bansal skating off. Molnar was shocked by the sudden change of conditions, saying it was the first lap of the race it had not seemingly been drizzling, while Bearman just about stayed on track himself. With Bansal spinning with broken suspension after clipping McLaughlin in the gravel, the safety car was called. The race was then red-flagged amid more widespread rain and attempts to restart were embarrassingly curtailed. All of this left Hitech pilot Bearman celebrating.

“In my interview right before the race, I was asked what my goals were for the rest of the season and I said I want to win,” smiled Bearman, delighted at achieving that target so soon. “The conditions were treacherous on the slicks, it was so slippery and I just had to keep the guys behind.”

New points leader McLaughlin had earlier prevailed in the dull opener, which featured a depleted field after a startline pile-up at the first attempt, while Jimmy Piszcyk (Rodin) returned to winning ways in the reversed-grid middle race.

Despite his Lodge off, McLaughlin still left Oulton as new F4 table topper

Photo by: JEP