BRITISH GT’S NEARLY MAN
Jon Minshaw has come close to the title in the past two years, but chasing trophies isn’t his main motivation
Twelve GT3 victories, no titles. The stats don’t make pleasant reading for British GT’S nearly man Jon Minshaw, whose tally exceeds that of defending champion Rick Parfitt and 2016 champion Derek Johnston combined.
The son of 1980s touring car regular Alan, who won the ’83 British Saloon Car Class C crown with a Volkswagen Golf GTI, Minshaw joined British GT after achieving success in historic racing with the aim of testing himself in contemporary machinery.
Given the heart-breaking near misses he and Barwell Motorsport co-driver Phil Keen have endured in recent years – falling short in both 2016 and ’17 after costly mistakes at Donington Park – Minshaw could be forgiven for railing against his luck, but his passion for motorsport is undiminished.
“I never look at it as chasing a championship, I just want to go racing,” says the Demon Tweeks boss. “I take every race as it comes and it just so happens that over the last three seasons we’ve done very well and been there or thereabouts at the end.
But I don’t do it to chase a championship, I do it because I really enjoy racing and if it happens, it happens.”
He’ll need that pragmatic attitude again this year, particularly after overheating issues for his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 at Brands Hatch cost him the championship lead and handed Jonny Adam/flick Haigh a 17.5-point advantage with one round to go.
Minshaw will have to hope for a repeat of his 2014 Donington victory – and the 37.5 points that go with it – with Adam/
Haigh finishing fourth or lower to secure the title. But if his championship credentials this year are looking a little shaky, his relationship with Keen is rock-solid.
The pair have driven together since 2013 in a Trackspeed
Porsche – after Minshaw spent his debut year alongside 1992 British Touring Car champion Tim Harvey – and have gone from strength to strength, with Minshaw establishing himself as one of the championship’s benchmark amateurs under Keen’s tutelage.
The Huracan isn’t the easiest of cars for a gentleman driver to master, relying on aerodynamic performance to achieve its lap times rather than outright grunt in the manner of the everpopular Aston Martin Vantage. But Keen believes the mid-engine machine is ideally suited to Minshaw’s driving style.
“You need good car control, which Jon has,” says Keen. “You do have to grab it by the scruff of the neck – or grab the bull by the horns, as they say. It does reward you if you’re attacking the car, especially in the braking zones.”
This really shows in wet conditions; the pair won a weatherinterrupted Silverstone 500 in 2016, while Minshaw stormed into the distance from pole to win a similarly soggy season opener at Oulton Park last year.
“He has come on massively as a driver,” Keen continues. “He’s always had pretty good raw pace and always had very good car control, but the problem with these cars is they have ABS and traction control, so it’s very easy to overdrive them. With Jon, it was really a question of calming him down more than anything. He’s constantly improving and every year he gets better and better.”
Now 55, Minshaw admits that age will become a barrier to further improvement at some stage and paints himself as “somebody who has to work very hard at it”. But that’s hardly surprising given that he lost his right leg below the knee in an incident with a forklift in his youth and races using a prosthesis.
Compared to historic cars, which invariably require a clutch pedal and right-foot braking, GT3 cars are a much simpler prospect. But there can be no doubting that applying the throttle through his hip and knee has an impact.
“My leg has always held me back, so the semi-automatic gearbox and the paddleshift was a great help because I could left-foot brake,” he explains. “I can modulate the brake as well as anyone else, the problem I’ve got is I probably lose half a tenth to a tenth on most corners because I don’t have the throttle modulation that somebody with an ankle and a foot has. All the feel comes through my backside.
“You’ve only got to look at the data and you can see that I’m a little bit more cautious on every corner exit than Phil or my team-mate, and that adds up. We try to make it up elsewhere, but I can’t use it as an excuse because I’ve been an amputee now for so long that I don’t even remember what it’s like having a leg!”
Regardless of the outcome at Donington, whether he wins the title or not, Minshaw says that it won’t affect his future participation in the championship, dovetailed with periodic historic outings.
“It would be very nice to be able to say that I’ve won British GT – it’s a fantastic championship. But I’m not doing it just to win a championship, I’m doing it because I enjoy racing. I think maybe
I’m a bit different to some people.”
Keep up with the Sunoco 240 Challenge – for which British GT Am drivers are eligible – on Motorsport.tv’s Motorsport Show