Home News Middlehurst wins after feisty fight with Fisher in Walter Hayes heat two

Middlehurst wins after feisty fight with Fisher in Walter Hayes heat two

by Steve Whitfield

Photo: Ida Wood

Team Dolan’s Chris Middlehurst capitalised on a last-lap error from Luke Cooper to win the second Walter Hayes Trophy heat.

Cooper lined up on pole, but the Swift Cooper racer was beaten into Copse by fellow front-row starter Felix Fisher when proceedings got underway. Mann Motorsport’s Charlie Mann slipped to fifth behind Sema Racing’s Alex Ames, who made great progress from eighth.

Having moved past Cooper, Middlehurst tried to squeeze inside TM Racing’s Fisher for the lead at the end of lap one, but the space disappeared and he brushed the pitwall before slotting into second.

Middlehurst made another lead challenge approaching Brooklands for the second time, and also into Copse at the beginning of lap three, but Fisher defended the inside line both times to remain ahead.

The battle continued into the next corner at Becketts, with Fisher using the outside line this time to fend off Middlehurst, and Cooper then made it three-wide with the pair on the Wellington Straight.

Middlehurst failed in another bid to pass Fisher into Copse on lap four, as Ames and Mann closed in on the squabbling trio. Having started from ninth, Beastworx’s Adam Higgins soon made it a six-car lead train.

Fisher again resisted Middlehurst’s pressure on lap five before another three-wide scrap ensued into Brooklands on the next tour. Cooper wrestled second away from Middlehurst on the outside and then snuck up the inside of Fisher, who ran wide and slipped to third.

While Cooper remained ahead, Middlehurst held off Fisher for second into Brooklands for the penultimate time, but there was more drama to come on the final lap at that corner.

Middlehurst moved to the outside of Cooper on the Wellington Straight, and snatched the lead when his rival locked up and ran wide under braking. Cooper still held onto to second at the chequered flag ahead of Fisher, and Middlehurst won by 0.161 seconds.

“That was caused by damage onto the start-finish straight where he moved over on me. So that wasn’t anything to do with me, that’s them,” said Middlehurst. “Good race with me and Cooper. And Fisher, to be fair. He was just very defensive and moving over on me, we made contact a few times.”

“Car #1 has just been hitting me, relentlessly, every straight possible for the first four or five laps,” Fisher told Formula Scout.

“Bump drafting, nose right up into the gearbox and everything. It’s dangerous, and I don’t expect anything less from him because he is what he is. We’ll be looking at it for sure.”

Mann prevailed in a late battle for fourth with Higgins, while PWR1 Racing’s Jason Pribyl snatched sixth late on from Ames who was the highest finisher of the older machinery in his Van Diemen RF90.

Richard Tarling was almost five seconds further back in eighth in his Reynard 89FF, with Callum Grant’s family-run 1991 Van Diemen just 0.1s behind and Team Fox Racing’s Lewis Fox coming home 10th.

Jan Magnussen ran 14th on his Formula Ford return in a Duckhams-liveried Van Diemen RF78, but the Dane slowed with mechanical woes with two laps to go.

Heat 2 result (8 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Chris Middlehurst Team Dolan 8m24.419s
2 Luke Cooper Swift Cooper +0.161s
3 Felix Fisher TM Racing +0.426s
4 Charlie Mann Mann Motorsport +0.555s
5 Adam Higgins Beastworx +1.637s
6 Jason Pribyl PWR1 Racing +1.896s
7 Alex Ames Sema Racing +2.100s
8 Richard Tarling Midland Classic Restorations +6.869s
9 Callum Grant Nigel Grant Motorsport +6.922s
10 Lewis Fox Team Fox Racing +8.427s
11 Drew Cameron B-M Racing +8.648s
12 Pascal Monbaron John’s Racing Team +9.409s
13 Joseph Ahrens Enigma Motorsport +10.547s
14 Gaius Ghinn +15.966s
15 David Parks +16.007s
16 Nigel Dolan B-M Racing +17.586s
17 Sam Mitchell Wayne Poole Racing +17.892s
18 Neil Hunt +29.862s
19 Damian Ditchfield +37.324s
20 Alan Slater Swift Cooper +40.120s
Ret Jan Magnussen GT Motorsport
Fastest lap: Mann, 1m02.225s