Aussie scores McLaren development drive
Harry Hayek from Sydney will join young drivers from the UK, USA and the Czech Republic in the programme that places young drivers behind the wheel of a McLaren 570S GT4 in the British GT Championship.
From an initial group of 18, Hayek made the final four after an intense two-day programme that included drive time on track at the Snetteron circuit, assessing the participant’s understanding of data analysis and telemetry, their ability to work with the McLaren engineering team and how they took on feedback from driver coaches.
Away from the track, the driver’s physical fitness, mental fitness and competence in media interviews was also assessed, assisted by Driver Development Programme partners, with ongoing support from these partners through the 2020 British GT Championship season.
A relative latecomer to motorsport, 21-year-old Hayek started karting when he was 14, then moved to the Australian Formula 4 Championship. Scoring four podiums in his debut year in F4, Hayek backed up with seven more in 2016, as well as two race wins in a Mygale M14 entered by Team BRM.
In 2017, Hayek competed in New Zealand’s Castrol Toyota Racing Series, as well as British F3, but a serious accident in practice for Round 3 of that championship left him with fractured vertebrae and put him out of action for months.
In his first race back from that accident, Hayek raced a VE Commodore in Round 4 of the 2018 Kumho Tyres Super3 Series, but the effects of medication for a kidney disease, unrelated to his accident, made racing impossible and he spent a year away from the track.
With his kidney issues in remission in 2019, Hayek returned to racing for a second time, firstly at the Phillip Island round of the Australian Formula 4 Championship, where he scored two podiums, then the Townsville round of the Toyota 86 Racing Series.
A plan to race Supercars evolved into GT racing, which led the Sydney-based real estate agent to the try outs for the McLaren Driver Development Programme in November.
Driver pairings are yet to be confirmed, but Hayek and the other three drivers will share two McLaren 570S GTs run by Tolman Motorsport in the 2020 British GT Championship, which gets underway at Oulton Park in April.
Follow Hayek’s progress at https://www.britishgt.com/
