Dempsey penalty hands WHT heat three victory to Murray

Photo: Ida Wood

Niall Murray won the third Walter Hayes Trophy heat after Jordan Dempsey was penalised 15 seconds for track limits abuse.

Race control delivered the decision as an “accumulative penalty for exceeding track limits” rather than issuing a five-second penalty followed by a 10s penalty, and the decision only cost Dempsey six places.

B-M Racing driver Dempsey had pipped Team Dolan’s Murray to pole by 0.032s, but Murray made the better start and led before the opening corner as they quickly escaped the rest of the field.

At Brooklands, B-M’s Tom McArthur went down the inside of Vertical Racing’s Ian Campbell for third, with Callum Grant and Julian Van der Watt following them.

On lap two, Murray created a gap of his own while McArthur challenged Dempsey down the Wellington Straight. The top two were back together a lap later, but it took until lap five for action between the pair as Dempsey looked to Murray’s outside at Brooklands.

Exiting Woodcote they were side-by-side two laps in a row, and Dempsey got alongside again into Maggotts on lap six of eight but Murray was later on the brakes to stay ahead.

They ran side-by-side down to Brooklands where Murray had the inside line and the lead, and next time around a slide for Murray exiting Becketts meant Dempsey could look to the outside at Brooklands again after interlocking wheels briefly.

On the final lap Dempsey attacked into Maggotts, and they were wheel-to-wheel again down the Wellington Straight. This time Dempsey carried enough speed, and had enough grip, on the outside to pull off a pass in a great move that (provisionally) earned him victory.

“Really, really harsh [decision]. I might have been off one wheel a couple of laps, but that was about it. Just frustrating,” Dempsey told Formula Scout.

“I was working with Niall. We’ve both been here a few times so we know not to be silly. Then when I’ve seen the gap, we started fighting then and I came out on top. But unfortunately the clerk of the course had other words.

“We should be good [for the semi-final]. We had good pace there. Our car was really, really good.”

Murray mentioned an unexpected factor in the lead fight: “[It was dry everywhere] until the last lap. It started raining, which surprised me. Down here and into Becketts, it actually got very, very slippy. You couldn’t really see it on the visor, but just got very slippy.

“So far, so good. At the start we were working together a bit, not really battling, getting a bit of a gap. We knew we had the pace on the rest of them.”

McArthur was 2.193s behind, and was fighting with Campbell until the last lap when the latter was gapped by several more seconds and only held off Grant in a photo finish by 0.121s.

Van der Watt lost several places on lap six and finished 10th, which still granted automatic qualification to the semi-finals. The last driver to take one of those spots was Oldfield Motorsport’s Brandon McCaughan, who also had a 15s penalty but still secured the all-important 13th place.

Heat 3 results (8 laps)