Masters Champion Hamish Leighton Clinches Title at Penultimate Round for Stoke Foiling

The Masters' Australian Drivers' Championship — open to competitors aged 40 and above — has been one of the genuine sub-plots of every ADC season since the AASA era began. In 2025, it had its own race for the title, and Hamish Leighton of Stoke Foiling won it with authority.

Leighton clinched the Masters' crown at the penultimate round of the 2025 season — with a race to spare — ending the year with a title that he'd been building toward all season. Running the full six-round calendar, he was the model of consistency in the Masters' class: present at every event, extracting solid points regardless of the main-class drama unfolding around him.

The Masters' classification adds a compelling layer to the ADC's narrative. These are drivers who, in many cases, have decades of racing experience behind them — whether in club racing, touring cars, or other open-wheel categories — and are now competing in one of the most technically demanding spec-car categories in the country. The Hyper Racer X1's combination of aerodynamic sophistication and high power-to-weight ratio rewards experience as much as outright speed.

Leighton's title also shines a light on the Stoke Foiling team, which has built its ADC program with quiet professionalism. While the headline battles for the overall championship have attracted most attention, the Masters' fight has provided a consistently entertaining sub-narrative throughout the season.

Leighton enters 2026 as defending Masters' champion, with the same Stoke Foiling team around him and the experience of a full title campaign in his pocket.