Chris Dittmann Racing endured a frustrating start to the Wera Tools F4 British Championship Certified by FIA season at Donington Park, despite all four of the team’s drivers showing promise across the three races.

Ultimately, a tough qualifying session on Saturday gave the team an uphill battle, however each time the CDR cars rose to the challenge to make some impressive progress across the races.

During pre-event testing the quartet of Tommy Harfield, Henry Mercier, Piotr Orzechowski and Daniella Sutton all showed great potential, highlighted by Harfield setting the fourth fastest time of the opening session.

However, the weekend itself posed a different challenge with just a single second covering the top 24 of the 31-car field during an ultra-tight qualifying. This meant that even the slightest errors would be punished harshly, with all four drivers struggling to hook up the ideal lap and finding themselves further back than expected. Still, with three races across the weekend, the chances to move forward remained.

The first race of any season is always a learning curve, but it’s also an opportunity to take advantage of the mistakes of those around you. Harfield did exactly that with a superb display of overtaking in the opener, scything his way through the field to gain a total of 13 places.

Starting 24th, Harfield showed the sort of racecraft that made him a winner last term, staying clear of trouble and picking his moments perfectly to rise to the fringes of the top 10, narrowly missing out on his first points of the campaign.

That set the tone for an overall impressive team performance with all four cars gaining places. Orzechowski nearly matched Harfield’s overtaking tally, gaining seven places himself to finish 19th. Mercier survived a scary brush on his left-front wheel to battle on to 16th, with a superb pass on Leon Hedfors catching the eye. Sutton kept things clean to finish 25th, five spots up on her debut qualifying performance.

Harfield again put on an eye-catching overtaking display in race two on Sunday morning, taking his weekend overtaking tally to a mighty 27. With the reversed grid also offering championship points for overtaking, Harfield opened his account in style, scoring the biggest bonus score available.

While the race suffered multiple disruptions – including a lap-one red flag and two safety car periods, Harfield still managed to pick his way through to finish 11th. Mercier almost followed him through too, rising from 21st on the grid to 14th as once again all four CDR cars made up ground on race day. Orzechowski racked up seven passes of his own on the way to 21st, an achievement Sutton matched on her way to 23rd.

While his first two starts were electric, Harfield was denied the chance to make much progress in the finale when he was caught in a multi-car tangle at Hollywood on the opening lap. The incident also delayed Mercier, dropping him as low as 27th at one stage, but a determined performance from the American would help him recover back to 18th to lead the line for the team. It fell to Orzechowski to rack up the overtakes this time, gaining seven places from his grid slot, while Sutton closed out her weekend by racking up plenty of mileage and experience on her way to 25th.

Chris Dittmann said: “It’s been a frustrating weekend where our qualifying performance hasn’t quite been where it should have been, which put us on the back foot across the entire weekend. However, I was pleased with the efforts of all the drivers across the races. Every one of them pushed forward, which shows we have a strong foundation to build from in the races.

 When the championship is a tight as this even the smallest mistakes get punished harshly, and we’ve learned from that this weekend. But there has absolutely been highlights, particularly Tommy’s performances in the first two races. If there were championship points for overtaking in every round he’d have a bagful already. He just got unlucky in a pinch point in race three. Otherwise, all of the drivers this weekend worked hard and improved as the races went on, so the potential for some strong results across this season is definitely there, we just need to put in some extra work to make sure we’re in a position to maximise our opportunities.”