Joshua Duerksen: A Race in my Words

Formula 2’s newest race winner Joshua Duerksen is the latest on the 2024 grid to also give us his favourite race in his own words.
Throwing it back to an F4 race around Hockenheim, the AIX Racing driver describes how he overcame a Qualifying setback and fought with some familiar names en route to a memorable victory around the historic venue.
“Favourite one? I have many. We’ve had so many, so let me go back through the years. Ok, I think I know which one I’ll pick. Hockenheim, 2020. It was in German F4. In Qualifying, my first two push laps weren’t really great.
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“I think I’d done some mistakes on the lap, so I was pretty far down in the Standings. We had one last lap, and I got Pole. My engineer was so stressed out because he saw what was going on around me and then when I put it on Pole, he was looking for my name and then saw it at the top of the board. It was crazy.
“Then, when we went into the race I started from Pole, but I remember Gabriele Minì, he was behind me the whole time, pushing me hard and I was on the limit every lap. It was so stressful, but I remember being on the same pace as him the whole race.
“He tried to overtake me at Turn 6 at the hairpin and we touched, his suspension got broken so he had to retire. My car had some damage, but I could continue. I was driving in a straight line but with the steering completely bent. The balance of the car changed so much, it was really different to how it was before and really difficult to drive.
“Luckily, I had a gap of around five seconds or so to Jak Crawford and Jonny Edgar, but because of the damage I had they were catching up so quick each lap. I remember being so stressed out with two or three laps to go.
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“Going onto the last lap they’d caught me and were right behind, and in the last turn they were trying to overtake. We crossed the line next to each other, and I only just got the win. It was crazy.
“I’d had so much pressure from Minì and then with the damage, having the feeling and seeing the guys catching me, winning by such a small margin was really crazy.
“It’s difficult to adjust, you’re in the race. If it was in Free Practice, you’d try some more stuff, see what worked but in the race you can’t do that if you’re in first. I think I took two or three laps to get it to where I wanted to be, because the balance was really everywhere.
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“It feels really strange though. On one side, the car is turning a lot and then on the opposite side, the car is hardly turning at all. It’s tough but luckily I could keep it until the end even with the damage.
“It was a feeling of relief but big emotion too. A lot of happiness and screaming on the radio. My voice was hurting the next day because I was so happy over the radio.”