Esmee Hawkey has come out on top in last weekend’s Carerra Cup GB at Oulton Park (June 28-30), taking out first place in class and achieving the Driver of the Weekend award.
Hawkey was feeling strong and positive in the lead-up to the race, with promising testing times for the 2.1-mile circuit which placed her in pole position for her class.
After a shaky start to the race one, Esmee needed to fight against the odds to make up her position and have a strong change in race 2.
“I had a rubbish start to race one, so I had to get past a few cars before I started fighting with Karl Leonard for the Pro-Am lead. Towards the end of the race sadly I got taken out by Jack McCarthy which put me to the back of the field. I caught back up but there wasn’t enough time to pass before the chequered flag,” Hawkey said.
“This put me at the back on Sunday and I raced for my life. I went from 16th to ninth overall, which around Oulton Park is a big task as its one of the hardest circuits to overtake on. It was one of the best races I’ve had in my career; I loved every minute of it. It was great to get the class win and to be awarded Driver of the Weekend as well was the cherry on top.”
Hawkey has been training harder than ever, with her participation in the highly-anticipated W Series this season, and that really showed over the weekend where she kept a cool head and drove a measured race despite high temperatures.
““It is important that you can withstand the heat as it puts a strain on your mental capacity. I’ve done so much training not only for Carrera Cup but also driving around Europe in the W Series where it has also been very hot. The Carrera Cup car gets hotter than the single seater but because my physical fitness is so high it helped me to concentrate for the duration of the race and I didn’t make any silly mistakes.””
But Hawkey has had very little time for celebration this week. She has gone straight back to the drawing board, preparing to race at the 1.4-mile Norisring street circuit in Germany for round four of the W Series.
“I’m looking forward to the Norisring – I haven’t been there before, but a lot of people haven’t either. There are just four corners with two hairpins, but I am strong in those so I’m hoping to have good pace. I’m in a good mood for this one and hopefully we can continue the run. I did a little prep on the sim at Misano and think I did the quickest time out of all of the drivers, so I’m feeling positive.”