Following the likes of his countryman Alex Partyshev in FRECA, Yaroslav Veselaho is making his debut in single-seaters at 18 years of age. However, he doesn’t come from the traditional karting background but… from drifting. Feeder Series talked to him on the final day of French F4 testing at Le Mans on 23 March.

By Perceval Wolff

Championship-winning campaigns in 2020 in Ukraine’s Bitlook Pro-Am Drift and RTR Drift Attack and an 18th-place finish in the 2022 Drift Masters European Championship are clearly not the traditional accomplishments of a young driver on the verge of joining an FIA–certified F4 series.

But that’s exactly the path Yaroslav Yeselaho, known as Yaroslav Tresh in his drifting career, took on his way to the French F4 Championship, in which he will race in 2023.

“It’s completely different for sure!” he said. “The highest level in drift you can possibly get is the one that I was. The best drift championship is Drift Masters European Championship, and I was competing in it for the past year. But then I realized drift is not at the highest level it could possibly be. I love motorsport in general, so I wanted something more.

“I looked F4, I looked F3. I didn’t know at all the drivers in these categories. After F4, if you get to FRECA, or F3, or F2 … the level will be something like three times more than drift. I wanted a bigger challenge.”

Some drifting flashbacks

Thanks to the Winfield Racing School, Veselaho has been able to do several testing days in the Mygale M21-F4, helping him adapt to single-seaters.

“The adaptation is going pretty good. Sometimes, I get some snaps of oversteer so the car is sliding… and I’m used to the car sliding! Sometimes I forget that I don’t need to slide. And I continue to slide telling myself, ‘Oh! What am I doing? I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do!’ he told Feeder Series.

“[My drifting experience] won’t help me to go fast, but if I have a snap, I will definitely be more able to catch the car back. It makes me more confident with the car.”

Representing Ukraine first

There are very few Ukrainian drivers currently on the feeder series ladder. While far from his family, the Winfield protégé wants to represent his country as well as he can.

“The situation in Ukraine is still horrible. My father and my mother are still in Ukraine. Sometimes, I see my mother but that’s not very often, and I haven’t been there since the war started…”

“First and foremost, I would say I’m supporting my country and then myself. For me, in these hard moments, to support my country, it’s much more important to me than just having my little personal career. If I support myself first, of course I may get some fans, et cetera, but it is much more important for me to represent whole Ukraine.”

Veselaho will make his single-seater debut when the French F4 season starts in just under two weeks at Nogaro on 8 April.

Header photo credit: Perceval Wolff