How Esterson passed the audition at Petit Le Mans

IMSA's Petit Le Mans title finale produced a new sportscar sensation, and it came as a total shock to many.

With his Formula 2 season coming to an abrupt end after a point-less maiden season, Max Esterson was on the lookout for new opportunities and the rare chance to drive an LMDh hypercar came up.

His No.85 JDC Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 – the only customer hypercar in IMSA – ended up laps down and out of contention after it was hit by the No.25 BMW at the infamous Turn 10 left-hander at the end of the back straight. The No.25 was penalized and the No.85's race went downhill from there.

But that was after Esterson had leapt into the top four early on, doing three consecutive stints on the same set of right-side tires and all while lapping within tenths of the Porsche 963 factory drivers and his teammates, in his first race in a car that has a roof on, or at night without proper floodlights!

“There's probably not a much more difficult audition,” laughs Esterson, who did race at Road Atlanta in Formula Ford and got a short test in the 963 ahead of Petit Le Mans.

“It's not the easiest track to jump into…” You can say that again, Max!

The JDC Miller team is a fraction of the size and resources compared to the factory team and it hasn’t been an easy year. Its best finish was sixth at Daytona, when Porsche Penske Motorsport managed to win the first four races of the season.

Esterson also had some tough acts to follow. Other drivers stepping into that car this year have included Formula E champion Pascal Wehrlein and PPM’s Le Mans 24 Hours reserve driver and Porsche factory regular Nico Mueller.

Esterson’s best lap was just 0.183s slower than the JDC car’s fastest at Petit set by 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Neel Jani – and Esterson's average lap time from the race was better. At Daytona, Wehrlein’s best was 1.085s off Gianmaria Bruni (admittedly, Daytona’s a longer lap) and Mueller was 0.115s off Tijmen van der Helm's fastest at Sebring.

Mueller was the fastest in the car recently at Indianapolis, but he’s hardly a fair comparison for Esterson as Porsche’s Le Mans reserve with previous sportscar and 963 experience.

A fastest lap in a car is also not a perfect way to analyze a driver doing a 10-hour race, but it does point to the immediate level of performance.

“I think I made the most of it,” was Esterson’s somewhat understated take on the opportunity.

“[The response to his performance has] been really good.

“I think people saw that I was kind of doing this randomly after such a bad year in F2, and really, JDC hasn't had the strongest year either. Obviously, they're a super small team compared to the rest of the hypercar teams, but they do a good job for how small they are.

“So I think anything other than running at the back was a bonus, probably, for most people. To run in the top five on pace was very good.

“And I think people were surprised, considering how F2 went.”

Esterson was happy with his qualifying lap but the pace wasn’t as expected as he started 12th, and he reckoned people must have thought he’d “drop like a rock” from his fourth place because of that lack of qualifying pace. But the performance in the race was much better.

Not only was this a new car for Esterson, obviously all the usual sportscar intricacies needed to be dealt with. Overtaking lapped traffic on “probably the hardest track for traffic, at least in the U.S.”, being consistent across the stint, dealing with double and treble stints on tires and all while up against drivers match-fit with many having a full year or IMSA racing under their belts. 

There’s also the fact that each car behaves differently in traffic depending on which driver is in the car, even from pro to pro, but especially from pro to amateur. Esterson reckon he’d done well with this, but would like to have a couple of moves he attempted back in hindsight!

It didn’t take long for the various TV and radio outlets covering the event to make a fuss of Esterson and his performance.

It came at a really opportune time for him. The 23-year-old from New York appears to have let go of his dream to race in F1, but even this performance at Petit Le Mans doesn’t guarantee anything such is the way the market works.

“I think endurance racing, or just like sportscar racing in general, I think it makes the most sense in terms of trying to make a career,” he says. 

“I'm in the process of trying to figure that all out, because there's so many different options to look at and figure out which is the best is tricky, but I think it makes the most sense in terms of cost and trying to make a career out of it.

“I'd love to at least do Daytona or something. I'd love to drive hypercar, but it's crazy expensive, obviously, so I don't know how it's possible unless there's a big sponsor or some sort of manufacturer deal. 

“I'd love to do endurance racing, even GT3 is a lot of fun. I've tested a little bit.

“Anything in IMSA would be cool or WEC, or whatever.”

Like Esterson says, he’s in the process of working all this out. But as far as auditions go, to take his phrase, I think he made the most of it.