Erik Evans, 2023 British GT4 Championship winner, just lately wound down a twin program protecting the British GT4 Sequence in addition to the GT4 European Sequence. Sixth total within the British GT factors and eighth within the closing GT4 European standings, Evans and the No. 61 Ford Mustang S650 GT4 have tailored properly to the race circuits of each GT properties.
Q: Erik, the 2024 British GT Championship and the 2024 GT4 European Sequence at the moment are carried out for the yr. Are you again residence in Atlanta now?
ERIK EVANS: No, I’m in Southern Portugal proper now. This week I’m attending to drive the GT3 automotive for the primary time. I’ll be driving the Mustang GT3 in Portimao. I’m super-excited. I had the seat becoming and all the things this morning. It’ll be a full interval of testing. I’ll get some expertise within the GT3 automotive, so I’m excited.
Q: Can the check in the end result in one thing larger for you?
EE: It’s only a check. I simply wish to get expertise within the GT3 automotive. The pinnacle of Ford Efficiency’s sports activities automotive program is right here. We’re actually shut. If I do a great job, I don’t essentially know if it’ll result in something, however it’ll positively elevate my inventory. They’ve bought the Multimatic and Ford engineers right here.
We needed to make a few adjustments to the automotive with some padding within the seat, simply so I don’t transfer round as a lot since you don’t wish to be transferring round in a automotive that quick. It was good. The GT3 automotive is a complete lot extra automotive with the broader fenders and stuff. It’s an enormous, huge automotive. This season we needed to develop the automotive via the yr. Originally of the yr we had been struggling for tempo and efficiency. In the direction of the top of the yr you couldn’t discover us outdoors the highest 10. It was superior. It was actually thrilling.
Myself, Multimatic and Ford Efficiency all have a aim to go and win that championship subsequent yr. It’s nearly placing all of it collectively and ensuring that we get it proper as a result of it’s worthwhile to be acting at 110-percent every a kind of weekends to win the championship in that aggressive of a collection.
Q: Will you line up in each GT4 championships in 2025?
EE: I’m not going to do GT4 in England subsequent yr. It doesn’t make a complete lot of sense so far as price range and what you get out of it. I feel I’m going to attempt to solely give attention to the GT4 European Sequence subsequent yr.
Q: You will have advised me that there may be upwards of fifty automobiles GT4 European Sequence grid…
EE: Yeah, and 35 of them are inside a second of each other! It’s fairly nuts. I’m prepared and I’m super-excited that if all of it comes collectively, and if that’s what we’re doing subsequent yr, I’ll be excited to go after that as a result of we completed within the prime 10 within the championship this yr. Everybody already advised us that when you end prime 10 in that championship it’s a actually, actually, actually good job.
I additionally really feel like we left lots on the desk. Not by way of our performances and stuff, however the automotive wasn’t the quickest factor on the market. We had been performing with what we had and doing a very good job with it, so I’m excited for subsequent yr. If we get all the things collectively subsequent yr I feel we’ll have a very good shot at profitable it.
Q: How was it dialing within the Mustang this yr?
EE: I feel we’ve discovered a lot this yr. The truth that this yr we began with no knowledge or something on the automotive, we mainly needed to begin from scratch and we took it right into a prime 10 automotive in a really aggressive championship.
Subsequent yr we’ll be ranging from that as an alternative of at zero, you already know? It’ll be extra thrilling to see how properly we are able to go together with it. We’re beginning with a a lot better baseline than this yr. I feel we’ll have a very good shot. I’m excited to do it once more with Multimatic and Ford and Academy Motorsports. We’ve bought the tire discovered. We’ve bought the automotive discovered. So we’re already beginning in a a lot larger place than we did this yr.
A few the tracks they’re repeating in 2025 I’m excited for as a result of we’re going to be fast out of the field. We’ll additionally present up on the tracks that I haven’t carried out and it’s nice expertise as a result of they’re superior tracks. I’m all the time excited to go to new tracks and check out new locations. You by no means know whenever you’re going to search out one that you just actually love. That’s what occurred to me at Saudi Arabia. Saudi is perhaps my favourite observe that I’ve ever been to. The Jeddah Corniche Circuit was simply completely unbelievable.
Q: What do you want a lot about it?
EE: Not solely is the observe actually difficult and enjoyable since you’ve bought quite a lot of excessive pace corners, however you’re additionally millimeters from the wall. The ambiance of the race and all of the folks and the racing beneath the nights at night time with all the resorts lit up with LEDs was simply unbelievable. The ambiance of the race was simply probably the most unbelievable factor ever.
It was so particular to drive on that observe. I did the primary GT begin in Saudi Arabia in historical past. It was super-cool that I had the distinction of doing that. To be sincere, each weekend on the European GT-side was actually good.
Hockenheim was positively the standout weekend for me. I had two runner-up finishes there. We had a very fast automotive. We led 95-percent of race one. In race two we led half of it. We had probably the most laps led that whole weekend. We additionally had the quickest lap in race one. The automotive was super-competitive and super-awesome. Sadly, it simply wasn’t meant to be for us to win that weekend. That was positively the standout weekend of the yr. The automotive and the observe and all the things simply connected and it was superior.
Anytime that you just’re on the entrance of a grid that’s that aggressive it all the time offers you that additional confidence as a driver. It’s like, “Yeah, I’m meant to be right here and I can do that.” A bit of little bit of confidence goes such a great distance in racing. It’s such a psychological sport. You need to have that confidence that you’re meant to be there. It’s super-hard, you already know? So aggressive. Everyone seems to be exhibiting up with their finest stuff: The producers, the groups. You’ve additionally bought a number of the best drivers on the planet in these championships. We simply talked about confidence. It’s so exhausting to achieve, and so simply misplaced. Racing in these championships makes you dig deep.
