Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team Driver Ambassador Jessica Hawkins will make her British GT Championship debut alongside Andrew Howard at Beechdean AMR this year.
The manufacturer’s Head of Racing for F1 Academy became the first woman since 2018 to test a contemporary grand prix car when she drove for Aston Martin at the Hungaroring earlier this year.
Now she’s swapping single-seaters for Aston’s new Vantage GT3, which also makes its competitive British GT bow at Oulton Park over Easter Bank Holiday Weekend.
After becoming British Open Champion in go-karting, Hawkins stepped up to car racing and impressively finished second in her debut race. A stunt driver in the James Bond movie ‘No Time to Die’ and in ‘Fast and Furious Live’, she more recently became the first female race winner in TCR UK and was also a podium finisher in the W Series at the FIA Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.
“I’m so excited to have the opportunity to race in British GT this year with Beechdean AMR and Aston Martin,” said Hawkins. “British GT is a series I’ve seen close-up while racing in other series in this paddock and it’s made me want to get involved with GT racing on a regular basis.
“To be able to do it with a championship-winning team like Beechdean AMR and to be able to combine it with my Aston Martin F1 role means it’s going to be a very busy season.
“British GT has grown in stature over the past couple of years with increased visibility and so many factory drivers in GT3 so it’s very exciting to be a part of that and we’ll certainly be targeting good results from the get-go at Oulton Park.”
Alongside her is one of the championship’s most experienced drivers as well as the only amateur to have won the GT3 title on multiple occasions.
However, Howard is yet to mount a full-season assault outside of GT3’s Pro-Am class. And that’s an opportunity Beechdean AMR’s team principal is relishing when he links up with Hawkins.
“The 2024 British GT Championship looks like it’s going to be on another level even compared to last year, with both Pro-Am and Silver-Am looking ultra-competitive,” he said. “We enjoyed our comeback season in 2023 so much that it reinforced my opinion that this is the best national series in the world for an Am driver like me.
“It’s great to bring Jessica – somebody that’s such an important part of the Aston Martin family – into the team this season. This is a programme that has the potential to grow and grow over the next couple of years as we aim first to help her learn GT racing – which she’s totally new to – and then challenge for bigger and bigger results not just in Silver-Am, but overall too.
“The Vantage GT3 is the newest GT3 car on the planet and in what we’ve seen of it so far is an upgrade on the old car in every area, so I’m confident we’ll have a very good piece of kit underneath us with which to challenge for Silver-Am success. It all begins here.”
Providing the platform for the season will be the new-for-2024 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, which will feature in high-level competition across the globe including in the FIA World Endurance Championship and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS.
Built around Aston Martin’s bonded aluminium chassis and powered by its twin-turbo four-litre V8 engine, the Vantage GT3 features a new aerodynamic package, revised suspension and state-of-the-art electronics.
Previous iterations of the Vantage have scored 26 overall British GT wins and seven championship titles.
British GT’s full-season entry list will be officially revealed at media day next Tuesday before Oulton Park stages the season opener on March 30 + April 1.
