PERFECT START FOR ESTERSON AND FOSTER IN THE HEATS
Whatever decision the National Court makes in respect of the result of the
Grand Final, the eventual WHT winner started their weekend with a perfect Saturday, with both Max Esterson and Joey Foster claiming pole position and victory in their heats.
Esterson had perhaps the toughest heat draw, but also the most resounding margin in qualifying – he was 0.8 seconds faster than South African Andrew Rackstraw’s Kevin Mills Racing Spectrum. They were closer than that into Copse for the first time, though, making contact and spinning to allow Team USA Scholarship Ray GR17 driver William Ferguson into a temporary lead. While Rackstraw had to make a big effort to climb back to an eventual fourth, Esterson had retaken the lead by Becketts on the second lap – despite dropping to 12th – and claimed heat two spoils. Michael Moyers was second in his first race in the Simon Hadfield Motorsport Medina, up from fourth on the grid. As conditions deteriorated, Brandon Mccaughan fell out of third when he dropped his Oldfield Motorsport Van Diemen at Luffield on the penultimate lap, promoting Ferguson.
Foster had Tom Mills alongside him on the heat three grid, but it was Cameron Jackson’s 32-year-old Van Diemen RF90 that was the thorn in the side of the modern Firman. Jackson momentarily took the lead at Copse on lap two, and for a slightly longer period after driving around the outside of Foster at Luffield on lap five, but his hopes of a third stint in front were dashed by a red flag. Mills and Ben Mitchell (Wayne Poole Racing
Van Diemen JL16) were within striking distance of the lead, too.
The first heat was the most entertaining of the four, and also contained the biggest flashpoint. Julian van der Watt won in his Mygale SJ01 after passing Shawn Rashid’s Ammonite Motorsport Ray GR18 on the final run through Woodcote.
Combe champion Felix Fisher was running fourth in the TM Racing Ray
GR05 when he spun after contact at Brooklands. Chris Middlehurst claimed that he found Fisher’s car “stopped” on the exit of the corner, while Fisher said Middlehurst “wiped [him] out”. Fisher was thus condemned to the Last Chance race – which he won after overcoming the B-M Racing Medina of Megan Gilkes – but he didn’t make much more impression thereafter.
Another heat one victim was David Mcarthur, who spun his Medina at Brooklands on the opening lap after being left “nowhere to go” by the polesitting Elliott Budzinski. Suspension damage ensued when he was clattered into by Sam Street’s Swift, which was having its own incident. Unable to have his planned lie-in on Sunday, Mcarthur will have wished he’d stayed in bed when he was eliminated from the Progression race after a clash at the second corner. That race was won by ex-british Touring Car racer Mike Epps, whose Border Reivers Ray GR18 caught fire on his FF1600 debut in the heat.
After charging through the first repechage race, he soon crashed out of the
Last Chance bash.
Josh Fisher won the final Saturday heat, but only after on-track winner
Rory Smith picked up a 5s track-limits penalty. The B-M Racing driver was thus classified behind Luke Cooper’s
Swift Cooper SC20 and Andre Lafond’s Team Dolan Van Diemen BD22.
tour meant he was unable to mount a proper attack into Brooklands for the last time, and Esterson crossed the line half a second clear after what he described as a “stressful” race. It initially looked like the American had joined an elite club of drivers, alongside Foster and Niall Murray, to win the Festival and the Hayes in the same year before proceedings in race control intervened.
“It was a fantastic race – and that’s why I’m here,” said Foster. “The track evolved through the race. My car got a bit more front-end positive and I made a couple of mistakes. I needed a couple more laps
[to pass Esterson].”
Eastwell, meanwhile, was delighted to take his first podium at an event where he has suffered misfortune in the past.
“If you’re going to come second to anyone, Max and Joey are both class acts,” he added.
With Esterson’s provisional penalty, Eastwell was promoted to second and that brought Wayne Poole Racing’s Josh Fisher (Van Diemen RF99) into the top three for a fourth time. On his sole outing of the year, Fisher had been right in contention in the middle phase of the race before slipping back a little in the final couple of laps. “I was hoping they were going to take each other off!” he said of the trio battling ahead. “We made some changes to the car for the final and put new tyres on the back to try and give a bit more traction. But it took more laps than I thought for them to come in.”
Mills survived his gravelly moment, despite getting a collection of stones in his footwell that made the final laps tricky, but still picked off Lucas Romanek (Oldfield Van Diemen JL13) to take fifth across the line – which became fourth post-race, frustrated given he felt he had the pace to win.
Further back, South Africans Julian van der Watt and Robert Wolk had a thrilling battle in their Mygales to be best of the rest, before dropping back late on. Instead, it was 2020 Festival winner Rory Smith (B-M Racing Medina) who ended up seventh.
Wolk finished eighth at the head of an incredible train of nine cars that took the flag separated by just five seconds. This also included best Team USA Scholar Elliott Budzinski (Ammonite Ray GR18) and two-time winner Michael Moyers, debuting Simon Hadfield Motorsport’s new modified Medina, which completed the top 10.
While we know where these drivers finished, it is still unclear whether Esterson or Foster will be the eventual winner. The pair were the standout drivers of the event, each qualifying on pole and topping their heat and semi-final, and would therefore be deserving victors. But we now have to wait for the final chapter of the 2022 Walter Hayes Trophy to play out in the courtroom.
While the Grand Final was, for the most part, quite a cagey affair, some of the best racing of the weekend came in the semi-final contests. These followed the theme of the event with wins for Joey Foster and Max Esterson – but they had to work for those triumphs.
Foster briefly lost the lead at the start of the first semi-final to fellow front-row man
Julian van der Watt but powered back ahead approaching Becketts. Further back, contact sent Ben Mitchell spearing hard into the barriers exiting Copse and that ended the Van Diemen JL16 driver’s event after he was on the podium last year. He was not the only frontrunner dropping out of contention on the first lap – Shawn Rashid spun his Ray at Brooklands and could only recover to 24th.
Meanwhile, Tom Mills was on a charge, picking off Tom Mcarthur and van der Watt with brilliant dives on the inside into Brooklands on successive tours. He then reeled in leader Foster and was right on the Firman’s gearbox with two laps to go. Mills twice attempted a move at Luffield, coming incredibly close to contact, but Foster just held on, with van der Watt a solitary third. Lucas Romanek was fourth after Elliott Budzinski and Cam Jackson tangled at Brooklands.
Just like Foster, Esterson – the second semi-final’s polesitter – lost his lead at the start. The race had to be restarted after Ivor Mccullough, Rob Wainwright and Gaius Ghinn collided when the lights went out, but each time Esterson lost out to Josh Fisher. “I just struggled off the line with wheelspin – Josh had so much traction,” said Esterson. “The first lap I was pretty close to making a move but I didn’t want to risk anything.”
Behind, fourth-place starter Luke Cooper was in strife. After backing out of a move for second on the inside at Copse, he was sandwiched approaching Becketts, with the ensuing contact leaving him with damaged steering and a fall to an eventual 13th. “To make the final is a miracle – I shouldn’t have finished the race,” said Cooper of the damage he sustained, bemoaning the misfortune on a weekend where he “had so much pace”, and he eventually ended the final 14th. Team USA driver William Ferguson was also involved and spun at Becketts, leaving him unable to make the final.
Back at the front, Fisher continued to lead either side of a brief safety-car period to retrieve Miles Griffiths’s Ray from the Copse gravel, but was under intense pressure from Esterson. The Ammonite driver attempted a move down the inside of Brooklands on lap five of 10 but ran wide, and that allowed Fisher to power back ahead into Luffield.
The pair were at it again the following tour but, this time, Esterson judged his move perfectly and pulled a second clear by the flag, while Fisher used his first wheel-to-wheel racing experience with Esterson to understand the Festival winner’s strengths and weaknesses.
Rory Smith completed the podium after emerging unscathed from a Brooklands tangle with Andrew Rackstraw, while
Michael Eastwell fought up to fourth on his recovery from his Saturday heat drama.