Aged just 19 back in 2013, BRDC ‘Rising Star’ Jake Hill had been struggling to raise a budget to race, and was facing a season off, not by choice of course, when completely unexpectedly the call came that would change his career.
Having tested for Motorbase at the end of 2012, Hill had impressed sufficiently that when regular driver Liam Griffin was unable to race at Croft, the chance was given to him to make his BTCC debut at the North Yorkshire venue.
“We were fighting like crazy to raise a budget, but it was just proving so tough. Then the chance came, we managed to get the funds required, and out of no-where I was going to make my BTCC debut!”
Hill impressed and went on to Win the Jack Sears Trophy on his debut (then for older spec. S2000cars), standing on the podium with Turkington, Shedden and Neal…a surreal experience (below)….!”
“I managed to have a brilliant race, Won my class, should have won race three too…but to have made my debut and got on the podium it was incredible. It gave me the momentum to show I was ready to compete in BTCC”
“I have been very fortunate that firstly Motorbase, then RAR (at the end of 2013), and AmD (at the end of 2015) gave me the chance to race, and that brought me to the attention of Tony Gilham at Team HARD….and the rest is history!”
“I can’t thank everyone who gave me the chance enough, but I am loving now being a Dunlop BTCC regular, and this is my third full season with Tony, and he has believed in me and made this possible, as have his awesome partners like Trade Price Cars, Oodle and Click Dealer.”
“Plus I have the support of some amazing, loyal and passionate people – Brisky Racing, Rolec Racing, Sportif Cars, Ecoflam, Danfoss, ABGO, Bill Rawles Classic Cars, AWS Appliance Spares, ScoriaTech, Jakob Ebrey Photography, Zynth, P1 Nutrition, Octane Hair, Cloud 9, ModelWorld, TechMax and lots, lots more over the years…and I am hugely proud to be part of the BRDC ‘Rising Stars’ programme…so I would just love to be back on the podium at Croft again…five years later!”
“This year I have Won the Independant’s Class and taken 2nd overall at Brands, took the 2018 version of the Jack Sears Trophy at Donington and the Dunlop ForeverForward award there….and I am still leading the Dunlop ForeverForward series going into Croft. We made big progress in the final race at Oulton, so I hope we can carry this on here – I love Croft – I won my first ever car race in Ginetta Junior in 2009 here – so let’s hope for more podiums!”
Qualifying is live this Saturday 23rd June on line atitv.com/btcc at 15.20, then all three BTCC races are LIVE on ITVHD4 on Sunday 24th June – race one at 12.05pm – race two at 14.45pm – race three at 17.25pm