Despite her already busy schedule, Yorkshire based driver Katie Milner has added a further race meeting to her schedule with the news that she’ll be entering the Britcar Endurance championship when the series heads to Donington Park in September (2nd)
She’ll be joining her 2016 Junior Saloon car championship team mate Ollie Willmott in an ex-Carrera Cup Porsche 997 GT3, a big step up from her usual Ginetta G40 GT5.
The duo are among the youngest drivers to compete in Britcar and Milner will be the only female driver in the field.
Milner and Willmott were quite closely matched in JSCC in 2016 with several 1-2 finishes although of course Milner came out on top after being crowned champion!
The Porsche is owned by Willmott’s dad and will be run by Team One Call who run Milner in the Ginetta GT5 championship. They are her family team with her dad Jonny Milner in charge.
The team has already run the car in Britcar last season and so they are already experienced in what it takes to get the Porsche performing well. Porsches have often gone well in Britcar in the past so the whole team are hoping for a good result.
Both Milner and Willmott will be testing the car on the 31st of August to try and get up to speed before they enter the very competitive Britcar weekend. Although Willmott already has experience racing the car with his dad.
Britcar is divided into classes and the Porsche’s spec puts it in class three where it will be up against various cars potentially some tough opposition in the form a couple of Ferrari Cup cars.
Milner is excited about the weekend;
“I’m really looking forward to teaming up again with Ollie, we were a great pairing last year which lead to me taking the 2016 JSCC title. It’s a great opportunity to taste what the GT racing world is all about whilst still in the ‘grass root’ stages. Hopefully, this will be the first of many GT races.”
Willmott is also positive about their entry;
“It’s exciting for me to team up with Katie, we were great team mates last year, she’s a great driver and I hope we will do well in our first endurance race together. I love the challenge and driving of the Porsche 997 GT3. I hope this is the beginning of us doing more GT and endurance races together.”
September’s race will on the shorter National circuit at Donington, a layout that both drivers are well used to from their JSCC days and so everything is looking strong to get a great result. This could be the start of a long and successful partnership.
Milner has also been racing in the most recent rounds of the Ginetta GT5 Supercup last weekend, see our separate article coming up on how she got on. By Marc Waller
