YOUNG DRIVER OF THE YEAR

Aston Martin has announced that Joseph Loake is the 2023 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award winner. The 18-yearold Briton from Macclesfield was awarded the most prestigious honour in junior motorsport during the gala Autosport Awards ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, on London’s Park Lane, on Sunday 3 December.

Loake, who was a GB3 Championship race winner and consistent front-runner in 2023, earns a test in an Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team car on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. He also received a cheque for £200,000 on the night plus a full membership to the BRDC.

To win the Award, Loake had to outshine three other outstanding finalists in what was considered one of the most closely contested shoot-outs in the Award’s history. Taylor Barnard (19), runner-up in the Formula Regional Middle East Championship and a race winner in the 2023 FIA F3 Championship, Macau GP Formula 4 winner Arvid Lindblad

(16) who was third in the Italian F4 Championship, and GB3 champion Callum Voisin (17), all excelled in an intensive two-day shoot-out on Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit.

“I honestly can’t believe I’ve won the award,” said Loake afterwards, who becomes the 34th winner, and the fourth since Aston Martin became the principal partner of the initiative. “This is the best thing I have received in my life. Thank you to everyone for helping me and sticking by me.

“This has topped o£ an incredible season for me, I wasn’t expecting it. It felt like I’d done a good job during the assessment and I think I stood out in the