Max Esterson scored a key victory in early November. He started from pole on a classic circuit, led from start to finish and won by just under three tenths of a second. Later that night, he learned that Verstappen had just won a crucial race in Mexico.
Esterson became the fourth American driver to win the prestigious Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone that day. The 21st edition of an intense junior single-seater competition came a week after the equally competitive Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, in which Esterson took second place after starting 13th. It was a major achievement at the 50th Festival, where former F1 drivers Roberto Moreno and Jan Magnussen were also competing.
On the eve of the event, I asked both Roberto and Jan about the value of winning at that level. Moreno ended up crying, telling the guests at the BRSCC celebration dinner about the tester contract he got with Lotus as a result of winning the Festival; It gave him oxygen to build his career in Europe. Magnussen also welcomed the applause for winning the event in 1992, after his year at the national championship did not translate into a title.
Winning important junior events can be critical to a career; it worked for Mark Webber already Jenson Button, the only Festival winner to become Formula 1 world champion. Conor Daly, the son of former F1 driver Derek, won the Walter Hayes in 2008 and is a regular for the IndyCar, while Josef Newgarden he won the Kent Festival in 2008 and is now a double IndyCar champion.
But seeing an American win in a key European youth category and then make it to F1 is rare. Alexander Rossi he reached a slightly higher level in Europe before racing in GP3 and GP2 and starting five races for Marussia in 2015. He is now another of his country’s oval, mixed track and street track competitors.
Rossi’s brief stint in F1 with the Marussia team in 2015 marked the last time an American raced in the top flight.
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Scott Speed he was the last American driver to do a full season in F1 thanks to his being chosen by Red Bull’s young driver program, which specifically sought to promote American drivers. The endorsement enabled him to compete in British Formula 3, European Formula Renault and GP2, a sequence that gave him a high level of preparation for his grand prix debut in 2006.
Red Bull’s eye on America then ended, but perhaps we’re about to see a resurgence of teams targeting American talent now that F1’s popularity is growing across the country.
Max Esterson could be one of those being watched, a driver whose opportunities have been boosted thanks to the Team USA scholarship program. Created by Jeremy Shaw, a British motorsports journalist and commentator who has been in America for more than 35 years, the show supported Conor Daly and Newgarden, as well as Jimmy Vasser Y Bryan Herta at the time. Shaw has his own take on pilot development.
“Without going through the ranks of Europe, it is really difficult to get into a Formula 1 car,” he told me a few days after the plans to Michael Andretti to ride the winner of the IndyCar, Colton Herta, an Alfa Romeo were cut short. “It would have been terribly difficult for Colton to be competitive; he did junior ranks in Europe but he didn’t have the funding to move up to the higher levels (F3 and F2) and that’s where you learn a lot more.”
So what about someone like Max Esterson who gets a chance to do the full sequence of European prep?
“If a young driver is associated with an F1 team in one of their junior programs, then it’s great, they are going to have a lot more resources,” he says. “But if they aren’t, they’re wasting their time and money. Now that a lot more people in America know about Formula 1, maybe F1 teams will start paying a little more attention to young American drivers.”
Logan Sargeant made his first F1 test with Williams at the Abu Dhabi rookie test at the end of the season.
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
McLaren is a team that can look in that direction. It is partially financed by North American investors, in addition to being part of an IndyCar team that has the Mexican as one of its pilots. Pato O’Ward, who did a test with the McLaren Formula 1 after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and then pledged to do “everything possible” to reach the top flight. To the CEO of McLaren, Zak BrownSurely you would like to see an IndyCar driver rise to the top.
But Shaw believes that F1 teams may have already lost a talent that could have been the perfect fit, a driver who finished second in the Walter Hayes Trophy in 2016 and won the US FF2000 and Indy Lights titles in all three years. following.
“Oliver Askew is someone who has been missed because Oliver is a huge, hulking talent, and he doesn’t have a lot of experience,” says Shaw of the newly signed Andretti driver in Formula E. “Even when he got to IndyCar he just had three years in single-seaters, one year at each level. If he were given the training and mileage he needed, in my opinion he could do it. “
The emision of Drive to Survive On Netflix and the Miami Grand Prix are two elements that are increasing the fever for F1 in the United States, but imagine the stir that would be created with an American winner in the category. Formula 1 could go even higher, much to the joy of Liberty, the company that owns the championship and of American origin. So perhaps Max Esterson’s success at Walter Hayes couldn’t have come at a better time.
Esterson showed his talent by winning the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone
Photo by: Steve Jones
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