Carlin’s Ricky Collard has negotiated his second race victory of the weekend at Oulton Park as the third and final race of the BRDC British Formula Three weekend got underway with the Englishman on pole position. Taking a lights to flag victory Collard extended his lead in the championship and was joined on the podium by team mate Colton Herta who took third position and the fastest lap of the race. Ameya Vaidyanathan was back in the car today following a rebuild after a huge airborne crash on Saturday – the Indian racer took the flag in 18th position.

During what had been a relatively processional reverse grid race this morning Championship leader Collard had continued to his strong form set the quickest race lap of the weekend ensuring that he would line up on pole position this afternoon while team mate Herta set second fastest to line up and form a Carlin front row lock-out. Vaidyanathan, who suffered a nasty airborne accident on Saturday, started the race in 17th.

As the lights went out, Collard made sure to hold his advantage at the front however Herta was unfortunate to lose position to Douglas Motorsport driver Thomas Randle who took second position from the American. The top three began to pull a strong gap over the next few laps as the race began to settle in to a rhythm and Herta started to contemplate his next move in order to regain his starting position. Vaidyanathan, whose car had required a rebuild from the team on Sunday, was running in 18th as he looked to put the events of the weekend behind him.

In the battle up ahead, Herta was beginning to close in on Randle while Collard was pulling a good gap in the lead as he continued to set purple sectors – once again showing his speed around the Cheshire circuit. However as had been the case with the second race of the weekend, overtaking proved to be few and far between and although Herta was incredibly close to Randle ahead, in reality he was unable to make a move stick and came home to finish strongly on the podium – taking third position.

However at the front it was another great showing from Collard who took his second victory of the weekend and his third in the 2016 British F3 Championship further extending and cementing his lead in the standings to 37 points ahead of second placed Randle.

Collard said of his weekend, “I am very grateful for the opportunity to be here and I want to thank everyone involved in making this happen. Everything seems to clicking and the team have been done a fantastic job again this weekend. I hope that we can continue this momentum towards the end of the season. Next up is Silverstone, the home of the BRDC. I’ve only driven the Grand Prix Circuit once and that was as part of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award so hopefully I can draw upon that experience and I am very excited for it.”

Herta who took a podium said, “You can’t be mad when you are on the podium. It is good for the team and it is good points. It is always great to run around the classic British tracks where there is no room for error and it’s fun to come back and get on the podium, whilst running against some of the best drivers on the scene.”

Meanwhile Vaidyanathan had impressively jumped back in to his car and returned to racing soon after his scary moment on Saturday. He spoke of getting back in the car this morning, “The racing today wasn’t too bad but it was important to get some mileage under my belt. Physically it has been tough but I knew it would get easier with the more laps I ran. Cornering at high-speed was a little hard as my arms were a little sore but I am very happy with the protection I got in the crash and happy to be back on track today.”