Joseph Loake shocked many at Oulton Park when he took two pole positions and his first victory in his debut weekend in GB3. With only two rounds left on the calendar, the JHR Developments driver has ventured to the top step of the podium three times, positioning himself as a realistic championship contender. Feeder Series spoke with Loake to understand more about the workings behind his maiden GB3 season and who he is behind the helmet.

By George Brabner

Currently only 14 points off championship leader Callum Voisin, Loake’s performances at  round six of the GB3 season at Brands Hatch cemented his position as a title favourite heading into the final two rounds of the year. 

Victory in race one from pole position was his first win since Silverstone four months earlier, an important boost after a challenging string of rounds that saw him on the podium just once before heading to the Kent circuit. 

“Brands Hatch, we were able to reset ourselves and put ourselves back at the front, which is where we wanted to be from the start of the year,” Loake told Feeder Series.

“The main thing was to make sure that we were at the front because I knew that Brands, even at the start of the year, I knew Brands would be one of my stronger circuits, and I think compared to my teammates, it’s been where I’ve stood out a little bit more than what I have done anywhere else.”

Whilst Loake and Voisin have traded race victories, Alex Dunne has lost ground in the championship. Beached in the gravel after contact with Matthew Rees in race one, the Irishman was heavily out-scored by his two closest rivals at Brands Hatch.

“We’ve got to be careful and keep an eye behind us, but at the moment, unless anything goes wrong for me and Callum, it is a two-horse race now to the end of the season,” Loake said.

“Time will tell as to whether we can win this championship, but I feel confident and I do think that myself and the team, as a package, are the strongest on the grid this year. If we put that to good effect, then we can definitely win this year.”

A rocky run-up

Loake might have burst onto the GB3 scene, but rewinding to 2022, his sophomore British F4 campaign was turbulent, only coming into his own as the season drew to a close at Silverstone and Brands Hatch. 

“As a team, we just couldn’t get the car right, it just wasn’t there for the first half of the year, and in the second half of the year, I don’t think I was fit enough, if I’m honest, in F4. Maybe the last two rounds the fitness was there when I actually properly started working on it and training as much as I needed to,” Loake explained.

“But I think, to be honest, I was quite lazy in F4. I think I needed to do a lot more work than what I did, and I think that was part of the reason why we had such a poor season.

“I spent half the year not even training and that straight away said to me halfway through the year, I was like ‘What am I doing?’ We’re putting all this money and stuff and for me to not put any effort into it and to not even try and make the most out of myself. I’m just wasting my time,” he said.

“I don’t know how much talent I have, I haven’t been able to prove it in any higher categories, but I absolutely wasn’t making the most out of it, and I think you’ve got to put the work alongside the talent to be able to make anything of it.”

Learning from his mistakes

Convincingly outscored by eventual champion Dunne in British F4 last year, one could have predicted a similar stack-up as the pair graduated to GB3. Yet, Loake has flipped his on-track performances. 

With the support of JHR Developments and a network of coaches and trainers through School of Send, the work only began as the 2022 season concluded.

“I just needed to make sure that I was [physically] capable of [racing in GB3], and those guys [at School of Send], even though they were always full of criticism – because they have to be, that is their job – they were always with an arm around the shoulder as well and just making sure that I was in the right mindset and just making sure I knew what I needed to do at all times.

“I never once over the six-month period from when the season ended to when the season started, I never once was like ‘I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to improve, I don’t know where my weaknesses are’ because I knew before I even tried to start working on them,” Loake said.

“I think a lot of my maturity has come from JHR. I put a lot of my success this season down to JHR and School of Send because when JHR took me on when I was this tubby 15-year-old kid that had just won Fiesta Juniors, the amount of faith that they put in me that I could be something.

“I think Steve [Hunter, team principal at JHR Developments] knew that there was some kind of potential there that I could go and do something and he just backed me the whole way, and he put people around me, tried to give me the best possible opportunities I could do. And it’s safe to say he has. That’s why I’m here today and doing what I love and doing well in GB3 as well.” 

Keeping his head held high

The 2023 GB3 season opener saw Loake and JHR Developments emerge as surprise front-runners. Outperforming title favourites Voisin, Rees and Max Esterson in dry conditions whilst also having the upper hand on his old British F4 rival Dunne, Loake’s GB3 debut turned heads. 

Having inherited another two race wins at Silverstone in May, momentum was on his side until Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps crushed a honeymoon phase in the series. A touch off the pace at Snetterton and hampered by illness at Silverstone in July, a string of difficult rounds evoked questions about what was behind his own success in rounds one and two. 

“It’s always tricky when you’ve had such a good first two rounds to then all of a sudden be miles down and struggling for pace quite a bit. It is frustrating, and you start to wonder why that happened, and you start to question so many different things. 

“Maybe it was just luck that I won at the first two rounds, maybe it didn’t quite go to plan for whatever reason and even maybe I’m not good enough to be able to keep up those sort of performances for the rest of the year.

“It was so, so tricky, especially from Spa, to then Snetterton after that and then Silverstone. It just never seemed to really get any better… I just had to make sure I didn’t I didn’t let my head drop, had to make sure I was focused and putting in as much effort as I can, not just at the track but away from it as well, and I almost just went back to that pre-season phase again of ‘Let’s just try and make the most of this. I don’t know what’ll happen, but we’ll just do the best we could.’”

Developing his approach

Having resisted a potentially worsening downward spiral at Brands Hatch, Loake has now got to maximise every opportunity he can find to outscore Voisin as the GB3 season approaches its climax, his Rodin Carlin rival now with an extra spring in his step after taking his first victory of the season during round six.

Loake is therefore having to think carefully about when to best apply himself.

“If you’d asked me a round ago [what my approach is], it would have been race by race, but there’s only two rounds left now so we have to get the most out of every race we can,” he said.

“One of my main weaknesses that I had in F4 was always I didn’t know when to be aggressive and when to not be, so I would be aggressive 100% of the time and that resulted in quite a few accidents of myself over the two years… That was all part of the learning process.

“I think I don’t necessarily look at the championship and go ‘I’m here, I need to score such and such points and therefore this is what the risk is,’ I’m more looking at each situation I’m in, and I’m like ‘Can I do that?’, and if the odds are probably yes, then I’ll do it, and I won’t think twice about it. 

“I think you’ve seen over the course of this year I’ve made a few pretty good moves, Silverstone [round two] being a good example of that, and I think something that I’ve developed quite a bit this year is my creativity.”

Revelling in the moment

Whilst the pressure is mounting on Loake to overcome championship leader Voisin as the races tick past, he is just as radiant as he has always been in the paddock. Never lacking energy, it’s hard not to smile when in the presence of the driver from Macclesfield. 

Within JHR Developments, it’s a persona he looks to maintain.

“One of the main things that I learned over my time with JHR, and obviously I’ve been with them for quite a long time now, one of the main things is to make sure that everyone’s uplifted, and everyone’s in a positive mood, and everyone wants to try and improve themselves. That’s where a lot of [my energy] comes from and I think I’ve managed to do that quite well. 

“It’s taken me a few years to understand ways of wording things and stuff like that to be able to put people in the mood that they need to be and to perform at their best, but at the end of the day, everyone needs uplifting, and I feel like if I can be that bouncy, happy guy in the paddock, it just brings a smile to people’s faces and makes people want to be there and makes people enjoy it. 

“With motorsport, we’re all so lucky to be where we are, whether some people realise it or not, and at some point you won’t be there anymore, whether you want to be or not, and you have to enjoy it because, otherwise, what’s the point of being there,” Loake said.

“You also have to see the comments that I get on Instagram and TikTok and things like that. People comment saying that it is their absolute dream to be where I am, things like that, and when you put it that way and realise that you’re in a situation that some people could only ever dream of being in, it really puts it into perspective.

“It is really special to know that I’ve got this opportunity, and I want to make the most of it.”

A peek into the future

Plummeting back down to the here and now, the cruel reality for drivers is that nothing is ever guaranteed and your future is often outside of your control. For Loake, his hands are tied when it comes to his next steps. Whilst he targets a seat in FIA Formula 3, a lack of budget means that upward movement looks unlikely in his current situation. 

A lot can change between now and round one of the 2024 F3 season in February, though. Notably, Loake is one of four finalists in the running for the 2023 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award, which gifts the winner £200,000 and a Formula 1 test drive with the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, and the last two GB3 champions have been picked up by the Williams Driver Academy. 

Therefore, a lot rides on his performances over the next two rounds.

“The money side of things just isn’t anywhere near doable for us unless we get some big sponsorship or picked up by an F1 academy, things like that,” Loake explained.

“The main thing is to make sure that we finish off this season as best we can. My best opportunity and best chance of getting to F3 is to win GB3 and win the Young Driver of the Year award, and like I said before, I’m not going to give up until there is absolutely zero chance, and as of right now, there’s still a chance of F3. 

“I don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t try. I may as well give it my best shot, and like I said, there’s a lot of people that would dream to even have an opportunity to try it so I’ll give my best, and if we can win GB3 win the Young Driver of the Year award, it’ll put us in a good place for an F3 seat next year.

“But, in the meantime, I’ve just got to make sure I focus on fitness. I’ve got to get myself physically ready, mentally ready for F3 even if I don’t race there and just hope that I can find a seat that we can afford and be able to make the most of it.”

Header photo credit: Jakob Ebrey