MATTY WINS F4 WINTER SERIES TITLE

After a solid opening day on Saturday, Matty secured the 2013 BRDC F4 Winter Series crown in fine style on Sunday.

Facing a realistic challenge from for the crown from Jake Cook, Sennan Fielding, Will Palmer and Falco Wauer, Matty was hopeful of a strong day’s racing, having held two fresh sets of slick tyres back for use on the final day.

A track damp from overnight drizzle threatened to render that benefit inert as the cars lined up in the pit-lane for the day’s qualifying session.

Sending Matty out from the garage on wets, the Douglas Motorsport team made a snap decision to wheel him back to the pit change to slicks, after seeing HHC Motorsport drivers Fielding and Palmer wearing the dry weather rubber in the queue at pit exit.

With grid position proving so crucial on Saturday around the 1.2mile circuit, it was a big gamble that could have left Matty stranded down the order and on the back foot in the title battle.

Initially the wet tyres were the way to go with Falco Wauer the early front runner, but by the midway point in the session, the call was looking inspired.

With seven minutes remaining, Matty began to take charge of the session, eventually setting a 46.922s to take his third pole of the Winter Championship.

With the first part of the job complete, Matty headed into race three fearing his hard work in qualifying would be undone by a damp grid slot. It was a fear that would prove unfounded.

After making another clean getaway, Matty led the field through turn one and immediately began to build up an advantage and ease the pressure exerted by the chasing pack.

By lap seven, the gap sat at just over a second and Matty looked in control, however, on one of those mornings, Mother Nature threw another hard-ball with a heavy rain shower.

Leading the field, Matty was at the mercy of ever changing conditions, with no reference point available to him to know how the breaking areas into corners had changed since the previous tour.

Rising to the task, he handled the situation with aplomb, mastering the tricky conditions and continuing to build his lead over his pursuers.

Before backing off in the final few laps, Matty had grown the lead to 5.2 seconds before settling for a 4.2 second margin of victory which, with dropped scores to be applied, was enough to secure the championship, barring disqualification from race four.

Simply needed to finish the race to be assured of the title, Matty started fourth but was pushed down to seventh on the first lap.

Whilst not what he was hoping for, it was of little consequence, however simply cruising to the flag is not in Matty’s nature and, when an opportunity to take sixth from Wauer presented itself on lap 13, an audacious move around the outside of Druids allowed Matty to sign off in style.