Since its inaugural season in 2015, several big names in motorsport have kick-started their careers winning races in the British F4 championship.
Future F1 drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Jack Doohan. IndyCar racers Colton Herta and Linus Lundqvist. All of them first tasted single-seater success in the series.
But even with the pedigree of all those names, not a single one of them was able to achieve what Deagen Fairclough managed to in this year’s championship.
Over the course of this season, the 18-year-old has not just set records, but obliterated them. Heading into 2024, Jamie Caroline and McLaren junior Alex Dunne jointly held the record for the most race wins in the championship’s history with 11 victories. This year alone, Fairclough won 14.
But simply being on the grid to begin with was a massive achievement for Fairclough. When he reached the end of his karting career, his ultimate dream of racing in Formula 1 appeared to have died with it. His working-class parents couldn’t simply pull money out of thin air to help fund him into a drive in Formula 4 or another single-seater category. However, they still managed to find him an opportunity to race – albeit in the underappreciated Junior Saloon Car Championship, a far cry from the road to Formula 1.
Then came a unique opportunity. Fairclough won a simracing competition organised by British F4 title sponsors ROKiT on Assetto Corsa, winning a fully-funded seat for the 2023 championship. Racing with the JHR Developments team, Fairclough immediately proved he deserved to be on the grid. He ended his rookie season comfortably third in the championship, taking three victories in the final ten races.
His obvious talent led ROKiT to decide to support him beyond that first season. Moving to Hitech for this season, Fairclough was untouchable. Fourteen victories, seven pole positions, 579.5 points. Sealing the title with more than a round to spare, Fairclough ended the season last weekend at Brands Hatch, now statistically the most successful British F4 driver in history. Not bad for a driver who had been racing a Ford Fiesta less than two years prior.
“I’ve had so many people say it’s not possible to get to F1,” Fairclough tells RaceFans, mere minutes after climbing out of his car at Brands Hatch after winning his 13th victory of the season.
“My mum and dad – they’ve always said ‘throw that dream out the window and let’s target something more achievable’. So when I was racing Ford Fiestas, the top goal was targeting to be a GT3 driver, an LMP2 driver or a touring car driver. And I just watched F1 so much and I saw the F4s on the ToCA weekends and I just really wanted to make that step into open wheel racing. But I didn’t know how to do it, because the financial jump is just incredible. So unexpected.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
It’s a given that every young driver in the single-seater pyramid has a passion for racing. But what strikes you about Fairclough is how he wears his passion on his sleeve. The genuine joy of driving oozes out of him – not like so many peers who becoming inhibited by years of PR training. And after a record-setting year, Fairclough is openly setting his sights on a target even his own parents feared would be out of his reach.
“I always had this gut feeling,” he says. “I’m able to speak things into the universe, I feel.
“I’m a very true believer in ‘if you can see it, then you can do it’. People say, ‘do you see yourself winning the championship in F1? Do you see yourself holding that trophy?’ – I do. I constantly think about trying to make it to F1. It has helped, obviously, this season – getting that British F4 championship title. Like the likes of Lando Norris, he’s obviously made it to F1. Oscar Piastri has been in British F4 -there’s so many F1 drivers. So now I’m on that ladder, I’m in the region of where drivers have made it to F1. Obviously they’ve got that financial backing. It kind of gives you that extra motivation and push that you can do it.”
Although he spent the majority of his British F4 season out front, there’s still been plenty for him to learn, after all. But while so many older drivers struggle to ever learn how to control their emotions and handle the frustrations that often come in motorsport, Fairclough is very forthcoming that he’s had to work on his own mindset over the course of the year. Especially following an early-season clash with rival Alex Ninovic.
“I beat myself up so much,” he admits, with surprising honesty. “I get really angry if I have a mistake on the circuit or anything can really trigger me very quickly. It can affect my results. I can overdrive, then I’m making too many mistakes.
“I think this year, everyone at Hitech helped me to kind of get that out of my head. Very early on, I was really angry. Me and Alex were having such a close battle. He kind of squeezed me off the circuit but I would have done the exact same thing. So I got really annoyed because I felt like I should have won that race. But I think just my mindset and mentality really has progressed a lot this season.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Off the track, simracing is still a major part of Fairclough’s life. Although he won his real world F4 seat on Assetto Corsa, Fairclough admits he’s more of an iRacing guy. He’s even competed in the same splits as Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso and even a test session alongside Max Verstappen. Unsurprisingly, given Fairclough’s success, ROKiT say they are eager to bring back their Rising Star competition to offer more opportunities for drivers who might never have the chance to race otherwise.
“All of these grids at the moment are not paying for themselves,” observes ROKiT’s chairman Jonathan Kendrick. “It’s very rich families. So that doesn’t seem very fair, because you could get some really talented drivers – like Deagen – who will never get anywhere because they never got the opportunity.”
Kendrick says the second edition of the competition will be much more open and fairer than the first. It will be an international contest, rather than limited to the UK, with entrants separated by the hardware they have available, to avoid giving a disadvantage to those who can’t afford high-end rigs and direct drive wheels. The winner will be decided with a judging panel, rather than based on the results of a single final, which could be decided by an incident that denies a deserving winner their golden opportunity.
“We wanted to democratise motor racing, to some degree,” Kendrick says “ROKiT Racing Star was born to democratise a little bit as much as we could. And ROKiT Racing Star version two will be even better.”
But for Fairclough, his time in F4 should now have come to its end. However, asked what his next step will be, he admits that where he goes from here currently remains uncertain.
“We are not too sure,” he says. “We all need to have a sit down.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“Obviously, we’d like to follow Louis Sharp’s route where he won British F4 and then get into FIA F3. Then win FIA F3 and then, from there just get higher up. Yeah, we need to have sit down and have a discussion of those connections.”
Although he remains just a teenager, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that three other teenagers have already participated in Formula 1 this season: Oliver Bearman, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar. Two of those have been confirmed on the grand prix grid for 2025, while the third could end up as an F2 champion at the end of the season.
Obviously, those three drivers come from vastly different backgrounds as Fairclough and each one has enjoyed significant support from one of the three of the biggest teams in Formula 1. Despite everything he’s achieved in a single-seater so far, does Fairclough fear that there is effectively a limit to how high he can rise in his career?
“There’s always a glass wall that’s always trying to crush you down and you’ve always got to push it back off,” he observes, frankly. “Obviously I’m just on the back foot for the moment.
“They were able to, straight out of karting, get into F4 as soon as possible. They’d have been testing at 14, 15-years-old. They’ve done so many championships in one year and then they were so ready to move on to the next year where they’re like 16 into F3 then F2 at 17 and then getting into F1.
“It’s a little bit gutting, but you see Oscar Piastri, if you think in five years’ time, I’ll be 22. He got into it at 22-years-old. Obviously that F2 to F1 jump, you have to have that publicity, you have to have a lot about you to have a team choose you as a driver. So I’m just pushing as hard as I can. If I gave it 95%, then it’s a bit pointless and I would understand why I couldn’t get to F1. But if I’m putting so much in, then there’s no excuse really.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Other motorsport
Browse all motorsport articles
