Driver Academy report: Points, podiums and passes aplenty for our young stars

The Hungarian weekend was a busy one for Williams Racing, with every member of the Williams Driver Academy out on track. There were points for some, podiums for others, and passes aplenty for one particular racer.

Here's how the Academy fared.

The championship lead atop the W Series standings has grown to 75 points for Jamie Chadwick after she recovered from a P5 start to reach the podium and extend her silverware-winning ways to 13 consecutive rounds.

Jamie's awe-inspiring run of victories in 2022 sadly ended, but the double champion put in a trio of Turn 1 overtakes in her Saturday drive to P2.

Jamie's confidence in braking on the downhill run to the first corner saw her take two places in the opening two laps in drying conditions before passing her 2019 championship rival, Beitske Visser, in a well-executed late-braking move as the race reached half distance.

In the end, our Academy driver ran out of laps to mount a challenge on eventual winner Alice Powell, but was pragmatic about her winning streak coming to an end:

"I'm happy to have come from fifth. It's not an easy track to overtake, so, fortunately, the mixed conditions helped me.

“I'm happy with the points, happy with the race, and I can't be too disappointed that Alice has taken that [the winning streak] from me here; she's probably the most deserving, so it is what it is."

Misfortune befell Logan Sargeant in Hungary and our American rookie's decent P5 qualifying performance sadly only translated to a solitary point over the weekend.

A tale of two first-lap, Turn 1 incidents limited how effective Logan could be at the Hungaroring.

In the Sprint Race, contact from the championship leader Felipe Drugovich broke Logan's front wing to make it two successive race retirements after his French pit stop failure.

In the Feature Race, the busy midfield pushed Logan onto the outside of the first corner, dropping him down the order during the opening lap.

A spirited late fight back through the field on the alternate strategy allowed Logan to recover to P10 and grab a point, and he finished just half a second behind Drugovich.

Logan remains P3 in the standings, with F2 joining F1 for the triple-header after the summer break for plenty of point-scoring possibilities.

A disappointing qualifying session for Roy Nissany, where he took P21, meant opportunities were always going to be limited for the Israeli driver in Hungary.

Roy finished P19 in the Sprint Race and P18 in the Feature Race after picking up a penalty on Sunday. He'll be looking forward to returning to action in Spa-Francorchamps, where he's taken top ten finishes in all of his previous F2 Feature Races.

Zak O'Sullivan's P22 starting position for both his races meant the odds of reaching the points would have seemed slim on Saturday evening after finishing P19 in the Sprint.

However, Sunday's changeable weather opened up possibilities, and our teenager happily took advantage during the Feature Race.

No driver across Formula 1, 2, 3 or W Series this weekend overtook as many cars as Zak managed in F3 on Sunday morning.

After progressing to P17 in just one lap, a bold call to switch from wet tyres to dries in the final throes of the race paid off.

Due to the limited number of mechanics in F3, tyre changes take a long time, and teams rarely use them. Zak's pit stop, however, allowed the Williams Academy racer to lap some 10 seconds faster than the race leaders and soar from the back of the 30-car field with five laps remaining.

Zak set Fastest Lap after Fastest Lap, overtook two-dozen competitors, finished P4, and rapidly closed in on a podium finish. He would have won the race with one more lap of racing in a commanding display of his overtaking prowess.

Some championship momentum is swinging towards Ollie Gray in British F4 after a weekend racing at Knockhill. Ollie has closed the gap to the championship leader Alex Dunne to 41 points after a double-podium in Scotland.

Gray happily inherited a podium place from his teammate Ugo Ugochukwu in Race 1 after an error by the sister Carlin driver left P3 up for grabs. There was a P5 finish, just behind Dunne in the reverse-grid Race 2, too, with none of the championship hopefuls taking silverware.

Race 3 proved Ollie's most fruitful time at the Knockhill track. Ollie began in P3, but Dunne struggled to get off the line from the front row and allowed the Williams Academy driver to reach P2 behind Ugochukwu.

Dunne picked up damage on the first lap and suffered a point-less race while Ollie cruised to P2 to make a significant dent in the Irishman's championship lead.

Formula 2 and 3 join F1 in switching off for most of August in the summer break. Logan, Roy, and Zak will return to action at Spa-Francorchamps over 27-28 August.

Jamie and W Series, meanwhile, will return on 2 October for the championship's first Asian race in Singapore.

However, there's no summer break for British F4, and Ollie will be racing at Snetterton over 13-14 of August as he continues to close in on P1 in the standings.