Novalak took the championship title after race two of the weekend’s three races having claimed a total of two wins and eight podiums during the course of the 2019 season, demonstrating fantastic consistency and race craft. Novalak’s teammates Kaylen Frederick and Lucas Petersson, both race winners this season, finished their campaigns in ninth and 13th respectively.
The 2019 season has been a competitive affair with a total 13 different winners from 24 races demonstrating the depth of talent in British F3 field. Carlin’s trio all claimed victories at some point over the course of the year confirming the Farnham team’s pace in the British championship.
As the season finale got underway at the Donington Park Circuit, a total of four drivers were still mathematically capable of taking the title, but it was Novalak who held the points advantage. Realistically it came down to a two-way fight between himself and Jonathan Hoggard and after the opening race of the weekend it was Hoggard who had taken first blood with a race one victory.
With the points still mounted heavily in Novalak’s favour as the field entered race two, the tensions mounted. Championship contenders Novalak and Hoggard ran wheel to wheel and came together before running off track. Novalak was able to continue and finished the race in 12th ahead of Hoggard with a sufficient point advantage to take the title with one race still to go.
2019 BRDC British Formula Three Champion Novalak said, “I am over the moon with the result! It’s been an amazing journey with the team this year and I couldn’t be happier with where we finished. That last few days have been quite stressful. Even though you come in with a big cushion in the points, it was still a case of doing everything we could to get the championship done and maybe have the pressure off for the last race, and that’s what we did. All in all, I’m really happy.”
Trevor Carlin added, “Clement has done a fantastic job this season. He made the decision to stay on and do BRDC British F3 again in 2019 with only one goal – to win the championship. That can be a risky strategy for drivers; to commit to another season where only taking the title is good enough. Clem has really matured both on and off the track this season and shown a lot of commitment to his racing. His performances in the full reverse grid races have really demonstrated his race craft. He’s got his head down and passed numerous cars every weekend. Not only has that helped him win the title, it’s also a great skill his learnt for the future. I think we’ll really see him blossom now he has the confidence that comes from winning a title.”
Reflecting on his 2019 season, Frederick said, “The two race wins this year show we had the pace to do well, just a couple of times when it mattered to have that pace, we didn’t have it and other people did. So those were setbacks which didn’t help. Then there were a couple of races where I made mistakes and so might have not finished the race, which affected our points. But the wins and the podiums show that we can do it, it’s just consistency that we need for the future.”
Petersson added, “It took us a little whilst to find a comfortable set up for me and for qualifying we still weren’t 100% confident. But for the races we had a good set up and I had good race pace. It’s unfortunate it took a while to get there, but Mike, Dan and I, we work as a team, so we started low together and we finished on a high together. Towards the end of the season we’ve been in the mid-pack battling for the top position which shows good progression. Overall, a good season.”
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