Sir Chris Hoy says that endurance racing and the British GT series is a great mental challenge after class victory at Donington Park.
Sir Chris and Billy Johnson took top honours in the GT4 Pro/Am category for Multimatic Racing in a Ford Mustang, and the 43-year-old Scot says that he got out of the car mentally exhausted.
“It is not as physically challenging as professional cycling but you get out of the car exhausted because of the mental challenge, the skill and the concentration.
“There is intensity even with Endurance racing because you’re doing it for a long period of time so every braking point, every corner apex you need to get right. There is no room to simply sit back and catch your breath especially with this type of track and this grid. You’ve got your position on the track, the GT3s coming through and so it is exhausting concentration wise, but it is really fun.
Hoy, who won six Olympic Gold medals in a glittering track cycling career before retirement six years ago, had his racing passion ignited after a meeting with Colin McRae.
“I got the bug from Colin McRae really, he was my hero and I met him in the 90s and got interested in motorsport. I went for a track day at Bedford at one of the Palmer Sport ones. I drove a lot of cars that day, spoke to Johnathan Palmer and asked him what I should do, he said get a small, light car that’s easy on tyres and brakes and do track days.
“That’s how it started. I got the opportunity in 2013 to go racing in the Radical Novice SR1 cup series, Nissan got in contact after that (For The British GT series) and opportunities came my way. If you show you have consistency, you can be a safe pair of hands and do a relatively decent job then the word spreads and you get more offers to drive.”