Emily Linscott was recently at Brands Hatch for the Ginetta media day, having a test in a Ginetta Junior car. She may race one next season or maybe even later this year.
We’ve not featured Emily before so we thought we’d give you the story so far.
Emily started racing karts on January 28th 2016 when she and a friend went to Brentwood Karting Development School. She progressed rapidly, with Peter Simms, the Development School manager advising that she should go into the main Brentwood Karting Academy, arguably the toughest academy in the UK). She joined the following week and immediately shone, showing her natural speed and prowess in a very tough competition.
She was mentored further by Dan Lee, the main man at the academy, who takes a great interest in the drivers who reach their doors. With the competition there at the time being some of the toughest they’ve ever had, it proved to be a perfect place to learn her craft. In just her first full season, Emily finished a creditable 9th place out of some 60 + drivers, whilst only being pipped to the fastest lap of the season in the last round by Jack Goldsmith, multiple Brentwood Champion. At the final non-championship round, The All Star Cup, the parents of all the drivers voted for the driver that had the best attitude and that had most inspired them, their children and been inspirational to others during the season; Emily was proudly voted as the winner of this award, which she’d didn’t even realise she’d be in the running for.
Emily then chose to move on from Brentwood to race further afield and to test her new owner-driver Junior Subaru kart too. She visited and raced on no less than 24 circuits in the UK, which has obviously helped her ability greatly, to learn new tracks fast. This was most evident when she went to Lydd Kart circuit for the first time, immediately breaking their lap record, and breaking it a further 6 times in succession thereafter, reducing the lap time by over 7 tenths of a second.
Sodi World Series racing was also now something she’d joined in with, but sadly coming half way through the season, she wasn’t in a position to fight for the overall title, however, with numerous heat wins and finals podiums, she managed to complete the year ranked 14th in the UK.
Another series she opted for to help her learn as the Bayford Meadows Junior Club Championship. Once again, she started this series late by missing the first round through not even knowing the Championship existed. She managed to finish 2nd in her first race and then took podium positions in every round thereafter to win the championship on her first attempt. The Series Director said, “her winning this championship was even more impressive when you realise this was the toughest competition they’d had in a long while”.
Her Junior Subaru testing was shaping up too, practicing at Lydd Circuit and Bayford Meadows in Kent, and decided to enter a couple of races to get an idea of where she’s at. She managed ‘Driver of the Day’ at Lydd and earned a fine 4th place overall in her first Junior Subaru race there.
Moving on to the Official Junior Subaru Championship for some big grid competition, she entered three races at Bayford Meadows, where she earned top novice in one race and earned herself her first Official Junior Subaru class podium, still as a novice.
She’d now decided that she wanted to go into car racing, specifically Ginetta Juniors. We visited Snetterton BTCC weekend and met some of the teams and then her focus started to fall into place; this was where she wanted to be as soon as she could possibly get there.
More latterly, Emily was scouted by one of the big international racing teams in Formula 4, GP3 & GP2. Arden Motorsport, based in Banbury, Oxford, contacted Emily’s parents advising them of their interest in their daughters’ meteoric rise through the ranks, offering them all the opportunity to visit their headquarters for a guided tour around their facility, to discuss Emily’s plans for the future and to drive their state of the art race simulator. Emily’s parents said, “we were pleasantly surprised to get a call of this nature so early on. Emily’s done so well in her first year and grown so much, not only in her driving but her attitude and work ethic too; it’s quite amazing that a team of this calibre have taken an interest in our little girl’s future”. They said, “Emily clearly has a talent for driving, but not just that; she’s bright, she has a great work ethic and she’s enthusiastic; frankly, she’s the Golden Goose! We’d like her to become part of our Young Racing Driver Academy”.
Emily has now been signed to the YRDA for 2017, one of just 15 young kart drivers worldwide. She’s already completed her first training session with the team at the world-famous St George’ Park facility, where the England national football team train. As part of the YRDA, she has been given a training schedule, a nutrition plan and everything she does in racing, testing and training is monitored and reported on. She has already begun testing a Ginetta Junior GT car with the option of testing the Formula 4 car later in the year once she’s satisfactorily completed the simulator programme at Arden.
Emily said, “I’m very proud to be part of such an amazing team, I can’t believe it. I’m hoping to race this year but want to make sure my speed and track knowledge is right before jumping in, it’s a big step and I don’t want to go in too early. I’m out testing with my the Ginetta Junior car with a view to possibly racing in the last three rounds of the championship to gain some valuable race experience, before taking on the whole of the 2018 season. It’s got to be right or there’s no point.”
Emily’s school, St Clere’s, in Stamford-Le-Hope, Essex, have put her on their ‘Gifted and Talented’ programme, which really helps when she needs time off to test in the cars. They also recommended her to receive an award for ‘Achievement in Motorsport and Inspiration to other Young Adults’. She was awarded this prestigious award by The Jack Petchey Foundation earlier on this month at a formal award ceremony evening.
At Buckmore Park’s season finale in November, they hosted the Junior Star Pupil award, where drivers were entered by invitation only. The two independent judges who have no prior knowledge of the drivers involved; Paul Janes, multiple kart champion and now MD of top British kart team, Ambition Motorsport and Josh Webster, a former multiple kart champion in Britain and Europe and more recently GP3 driver and 2014 Porsche Carrera Cup Champion, had the daunting and arduous task of choosing the winner from the best of the best. They looked at all aspects that go towards making a successful racing driver; preparation, sportsmanship, technique, race craft, coping with adversity and of course results. Once again, the competition was very strong but the winner was apparently obvious to them quite early on, it was Emily whom they considered to be the best of the best and had what it takes to make the grade as a racing driver, thus earning her the prestigious ‘Buckmore Park Junior Star Pupil’ award for 2016. The first girl in its 16-year history to receive the honour.
The year was topped off by being Shortlisted for Karting Magazine’s ‘Rookie of the Year’ award, for which she was Highly Commended.
Emily has a full year of karting planned in the Junior Subaru Championship as well as her Ginetta testing too. Subject to her pace, confidence and gaining the right partners to help her raise the budget to compete at the British Touring Car Championship events and beyond, she’ll be on the grid before the end of the season.
With Ginetta Junior testing already well under way, there was unfortunately a fairly large set-back to deal with; Well let’s be honest, there had to be at some point, right!? Whilst testing at Snetterton, alongside much faster cars like Porsche Carrera’s, GT3’s and F3 cars, Emily was clearly at a large speed and cornering disadvantage. All the driving in the morning sessions was with her driver coach, Chris Hodgetts alongside her in the car, as she’d not done any solo driving to mention beforehand. Coming into turn one at exactly midday, she entered Riches and committed to this high speed 5th gear corner, when, from out of nowhere (well actually he’d come straight out of pit lane on his first out-lap that day) an F3 car hit the front right corner of Emily’s car as he’d tried to get underneath her onto the bend. He hit the car with such ferocity that it took the pair of them straight into and through the Armco barrier at high speed, bending the chassis on her car, totalling the front end, thus almost destroying the entire car. Thankfully Chris was in the car to ensure she understood that it was in no way her fault and that the other driver should’ve waited until the short straight before attempting to come past. This was a massive crash, one Chris believes to be as big a shunt as she’s ever likely to have in her career, which gives you some idea of how big this one actually was. Testament to the car’s build strength though as neither driver nor coach were seriously injured.
The team went and got their spare car from the factory so she could at least do some laps in it to get ‘back on the horse’ as it were; she got straight back into the same lap times as she’d been doing in the morning.
Then onto Brands Hatch where she again had another day with Chris providing excellent tuition before on the media day itself when she took to the Brands Hatch Indy circuit on her own for the first time. The day was a big success with Emily holding her own amongst the far more experienced drivers and reducing her lap times through out the day.
She now continues with her karting in 2017 with hopes of even more success.
This young lady looks set to make her mark in the tough, harsh world of motor racing. Could she be the first female to grace the F1 grid since Giovanna Amati in 1992?
Visit Emily’s site at www.emilylinscottracing.com
