Rory Smith takes lights-to-flag heat four win at the WHT

Photo: Ida Wood

B-M Racing’s Rory Smith led home Chris Middlehurst and Nolan Allaer in the final Walter Hayes Trophy heat at Silverstone.

Reigning Formula Ford Festival winner Smith gained a clear lead from pole at the start while Middlehurst fended off Allaer and Julian Van der Watt for second. Allear ran wide on the exit of Copse and got sideways but held on to third. 

Defending WHT winner Joey Foster gained one place at the start but then slid wide at Becketts and slipped from fifth to seventh.

The Don Hardman Racing driver was soon back up to sixth before taking fifth from Lewis Fox on lap four, while Smith was pursued at the front by Team Dolan’s Middlehurst and Ammonite Motorsport’s Allaer in the race’s first half.

Smith extended his advantage to almost 0.9s by lap seven, with the gap pegged back to 0.744s on the final lap. Allaer finished a further 0.7s behind Middlehurst in third, with Van Der Watt fending off Foster for fourth.

Fox was almost three seconds further behind in sixth, while Adam Higgins ran in a lonely seventh for most of the eight-lap contest. Ben Cox was eighth ahead of Richard Tarling and Adam Quartermaine.

Joe Ahrens and Richard Higgins also made the semi-finals, while Nathan Tupper and Tom Radburn collided on the last lap while contesting the final automatic berth, promoting James Colborn to 13th.

Race result (8 laps)