Eighteen-year-old Australian racing driver Patrick Heuzenroeder today announces that he is to be supported in his 2024 campaign by former Formula 1 driver, multiple 24 Hours of Le Mans winner and multiple 12 Hours of Sebring winner, David Brabham, and by the highly regarded UK F1 comms and PR expert, Matt Bishop, Managing Director of Diagonal Comms.
Brabham Group is pleased to sign the young driver under the Group’s mentoring programme for the 2024 season. David Brabham will be working with Patrick Heuzenroeder over the course of the year to develop and guide him in becoming an elite driver as he participates in the 2024 GB3 Championship season and pursues the path towards F1. David has more than 30 years of racing experience and brings a wealth of knowledge and insight both on and off the track, which will give Patrick a solid foundation for a professional career in motorsport. David is, of course, a fellow Australian and the son of three-time F1 world champion and all-time-great Australian motor racing legend, Sir Jack Brabham. David was also Team Director for Motorsport UK’s British Elite Driver Programme (Team UK) for six years.
Diagonal Comms, the communications, PR, media, content and digital marketing agency founded by the experienced F1 and motorsport comms chief, Matt Bishop, will also advise and work with Patrick throughout the 2024 GB3 Championship season to develop his media and online presence. Diagonal Comms’ turn-key communications/PR and digital/social media engagement with Patrick will include media outreach, media training, social media management, content creation and digital marketing.
Patrick has enjoyed a meteoric rise since embarking on his motorsport career aged 13 following a chance visit to a karting circuit in Sydney. After racing karts in his homeland for the next three years, he progressed to cars when he competed in the 2022 NSW (New South Wales) Formula Ford Championship. Despite lying an excellent third in the championship standings with the season still in progress, Patrick took the brave decision to depart for the UK in pursuit of his dream of one day reaching F1.
Patrick’s talent was recognised by Ferrari in their 2022 Driver Academy Asia Pacific selection programme, in which he progressed to the final six from an initial line-up of 23 of the most talented young drivers in Asia, Oceania, and Australasia. Narrowly missing out on progressing to the world final in Italy only increased Patrick’s determination to pursue a career in single-seaters.
Aged just 16, Patrick made the 10,000-mile trip from his native Australia to the UK – to dedicate himself entirely to motorsport. After a rigorous winter testing programme, he joined the FIA Global Pathway with Argenti’s British Formula 4 team for 2023. Racing in one of the most competitive British F4 fields ever, Patrick developed quickly and impressed sufficiently in his rookie year to go on to take part in the final two rounds of the Formula 3 level GB3 Championship – the UK’s leading single-seater championship. Following a successful GB3 winter testing programme in which he showed impressive pace, Patrick has secured a full seat with reigning GB3 Teams’ championship winners JHR Developments for the 2024 GB3 Championship season, which starts at the historic and challenging Oulton Park circuit on 30 March 2024.
Patrick Heuzenroeder said:
“I am incredibly excited to be working with an Aussie racing legend of the stature of David Brabham. He is part of one of the world’s greatest motorsport dynasties, the Brabham family, and I am very fortunate to have him as my mentor. I intend to learn as much from him as I can, as fast as possible. I am also thrilled to be working with Matt Bishop and his team at Diagonal Comms. Their skills and experience can help raise my profile and create new opportunities that will take me to where I want to be. My ultimate goal is Formula 1, and I am determined to chase and realise that dream.
“My motto is ‘purpose, commitment, and resilience’, and those are all qualities that I have shown since I left my home in Australia at the age of 16 and travelled 10,000 miles to the UK to pursue a career at the highest level of motorsport. I have sacrificed everything to be here, I am obsessed with racing, and I am totally focused on improving every day so as to achieve my goals.
“I am looking forward to taking the next step this season in the GB3 Championship – a highly competitive eight-round series that races on some of the world’s most famous circuits. I will be up against some of the most talented young drivers on the planet, and you can be sure that one of us will go on to make it to F1. I am working tirelessly – both in the car and out of it – every day to make sure that it is me.”
David Brabham said:
“I very much look forward to working with Patrick Heuzenroeder over the course of the year as he competes in the very competitive British GB3 Championship. I know that the path to Formula 1 will be a challenging one, but Patrick has speed and a great attitude, and he wants to learn. He has all the attributes needed to succeed in motorsport.
“I am looking forward to sharing my experience with him, opening up my network, and supporting him at tests and races, to get him to F1. In addition, I have known Matt Bishop for many years, and I am delighted that Patrick will be working with Matt and his Diagonal Comms team.
“Patrick is an ambitious and driven young man and I would encourage everyone to get behind him, not only in Australia but also elsewhere. I look forward to supporting and mentoring him in 2024 and beyond.”
Matt Bishop (Managing Director, Diagonal Comms) said:
“I have worked with many excellent drivers in my motorsport career, including four Formula 1 world champions [Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel], and one of the aspects of that work that I have always enjoyed most is identifying young talents and helping them develop and thrive. When I was McLaren’s Comms Director [2008-2017] I was very involved in the team’s young driver development programme, working closely with gifted young drivers such as Kevin Magnussen, Stoffel Vandoorne, and Nyck de Vries, all of whom made it to F1.
“I am therefore absolutely delighted that Diagonal Comms will be working with a very exciting young talent, Patrick Heuzenroeder, from Australia. Patrick is only 18 but already we can say that we think he has what it takes to reach the highest level. Together with his mentor David Brabham, whom I have known for many years and whom I hold in very high regard, we will do our utmost to try to make sure he does just that.”
About Diagonal Comms
Founded in June 2023 on its principals’ unrivalled experience in general sport, motorsport and automotive, Diagonal Comms delivers strategic, sophisticated, authentic, effective, media-savvy, no-nonsense communications based on peerless expertise and a passionate commitment to understand, and deliver against, our clients’ challenges and objectives.
With a rich and varied 30-year career in top-tier motorsport, including extensive journalism experience, followed by senior leadership communications roles within McLaren’s and Aston Martin’s Formula One operations, Matt Bishop has carved out a reputation as an immensely capable strategist and communications expert, with considerable hands-on experience of crisis communications management.
He is also a passionate advocate and ambassador for diversity, equity, and inclusion, since he was one of the founders of W Series, the women-only single-seater racing championship, and is a founder ambassador of Racing Pride, which was established in association with Stonewall and seeks to support and further the rights and interests of LGBTQ+ people in motorsport generally.
For more information, please contact:
Matt Bishop, Managing Director, Diagonal Comms: matt.bishop@diagonalcomms.com
Joe Downes, Business Director, Diagonal Comms: joe.downes@diagonalcomms.com
Gerren Scapens, Account Executive, Diagonal Comms: gerren.scapens@diagonalcomms.com