Dakota Dickerson: Tight Racing

Two weeks after competing in Pirelli World Challenge, I was back at Circuit of the Americas for the F4 U.S. Championship races with Kiwi Motorsport, so I felt very comfortable and confident with some valuable knowledge of the track. We had good pace for the first two practice sessions and then gained a very good draft in qualifying to post the second fastest lap, which put us on the front row for Race 1.


I again used the draft to my advantage in the first race to overtake the leader on the back straight. This turned out to be a very valuable move as we had two full-course caution periods that would bring us to last eight minutes of our 30-minute race. We had a good, hard battle at the restart but I had to make do with fourth at the finish. Because of that, I never put a good lap together which meant we had to line up 10th for Race 2. This would be our worst starting position this year but I was confident we could make our way back up through the field. We were doing just that, making a few good passes to get us up to seventh when a school bus drove onto the track – during the race! The officials immediately red-flagged the race and brought us back the pits, leaving enough time for a restart with about 10 minutes remaining.

I was able to make up one more position before the checkered flag to finish sixth. More importantly, my best lap ensured a starting position on the front row for the final race and led to a great battle among the top four drivers. Fellow Team USA Scholarship driver Kyle Kirkwood also was among the mix. We would again finish fourth, just outside the podium, so it wasn’t the weekend we had hoped for but we are still sixth in the points table – despite contesting only nine of the 18 races held so far – and less than 10 points away from third, so the team and I are working hard to have a great showing at the final rounds of the F4 Championship next month.

If you want to see how the F4 United States Championship is helping young drivers transition to cars, SAFEisFAST.com recently published an excellent short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHtcsw9sDw) that features me, Kyle and some other F4 drivers and personnel.

Again, I can't thank the Team USA Scholarship and all those involved for continuing to play a tremendous role in my career.

All the best,
Dakota