Abbie Eaton

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Abbie Eaton (born on 2. January 1992 as Abigail Eaton ) is a British racing driver from East Riding of Yorkshire . The previous highlight of his career was winning the British Mazda MX-5 Supercup racing series in 2014 . She worked as a test driver in the second and third seasons of The Grand Tour .

Eaton lives in Northampton . Her father Paul Eaton is also a racing driver.

Career

Eaton started racing at the age of 10 and has since achieved numerous podiums and lap records in various racing series. She started out with karting, gained racing experience in the Comer cadet class and won several victories. This was followed by assignments in the Minimax and later Junior Max classes, where she competed in the Super 1 series.

In 2007 Eaton contested her first full racing season in the SAXMAX Championship, her best result being fourth. In 2008 she took part again in this championship and reached fourth place in the overall standings, having led the championship for part of the season. The following year, Eaton competed for the first time in an adult racing series with the Production Touring Car Championship , driving a Vauxhall Corsa SRi-R . She won class B with 15 wins in 18 races, 16 podium places and seven fastest race laps. In the overall championship, she finished second. After her British GT Championship debut in 2010 failed, she only contested one race in the Mk1 series in a Mazda MX-5 , which she finished third.

In 2011 and 2012, Eaton competed in the Mazda MX-5 Cup . In the first year she made it into the top ten eleven times despite a lack of financial means, but had to end the season prematurely in 2012 for family reasons. At the end of the 2013 season she returned to the racing series and contested the last three races, one of which she won. In her final year of the series, she took five wins and seven podiums, and won the championship in 2014.

Eaton began her career in GT racing in the British GT Cup racing series . She completed part of the 2015 season in a Geoff Steel Racing BMW E46 M3 GTR and achieved one win, eight podium positions and three fastest race laps. In 2016 she switched to the British GT Championship, where she drove a Maserati Granturismo MC GT4 together with Marcus Hoggarth . This was the first time Maserati had competed in this series in 20 years, with the team taking second place in the Pro / Am standings and fourth place overall.

In 2017, she initially wanted to take a break when AF Corse offered her a cockpit in a Ferrari 488 GT3 for a race in the Blancpain Endurance Series . It was Eaton's first outing in the GT3 and her first race at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in Italy. After 10 training laps she was among the 52 starter vehicles, took first place in the amateur rating and was the first woman to win a rating in this series. The car with starting number 961 was driven by Alex Demirdjian and Davide Rizzo alongside Eaton.

Television appearances

In 2016, Eaton made her first television appearance on the Drive show on ITV , when she trained rapper Professor Green in various racing disciplines over a period of five weeks. The couple won the season.

Eaton has been a test driver since the second season of the English car show The Grand Tour , where she replaced the first season driver Mike Skinner . In November 2017, co-host James May said that a large number of drivers had been tested and that it was the fastest and best. Eaton was introduced in the second episode of season two, released on December 15, 2017, when she was testing a green Mercedes-AMG GT R at the Eboladrome. Eaton's name is not mentioned during the episode and only appears in the credits at the end. It is speculated that there are legal reasons for this, because there must be differences to anonymous test drivers like The Stig . An Amazon spokesman described this as a compromise between explicitly naming Mike Skinner as The American and a completely anonymous driver like Top Gear .

statistics

season series team run Victories Poles Fastest racing laps Podium Points position
2008 Saxmax Eaton Motorsport 12 0 0 2 3 176 4th
2009 Production Touring Car Championship Thorney Motorsport 18th 15th 2 7th 16 173 1.
2010 Mazda MX-5 Championship Eaton Motorsport 1 0 0 0 1 - -
2013 Mazda MX-5 SuperCup Eaton Motorsport 8th 1 0 1 6th - -
2014 Mazda MX-5 Supercup AE Racing 18th 5 2 4th 7th 1448 1.
2015 GT Cup Geoff Steel Racing 17th 1 - 2 8th 403 -
2016 British GT Championship Ebor GT 9 - - - 1 106 4th
2017 Blancpain Endurance Series AF Corse 1 - - - - - 27.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Patricia Pedrosa: Who is the new The Grand Tour driver? In: DriveTribe. December 15, 2017, accessed October 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Phoebe Cooke: Who is Abbie Eaton, new Grand Tour season two racing driver replacing Mike Skinner? In: The Sun . December 15, 2017, accessed October 15, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Jon Mattes: HotShots meets up with 16-year-old female rally driver Abbie Eaton to hear about her awesome talents at the wheel . In: Hull Daily Mail . June 10, 2008, p. 2 f . ( Online at flickr.com ).
  4. ^ Asmita Kundu: Ladies and gentlemen, the Grand Tour's new American is this 25-year-old British female racing driver. In: International Business Times . December 17, 2017, accessed January 16, 2018 .
  5. ^ Basir Khan: The Grand Tour Has Found Its New Driver. In: TheDrive.com. December 16, 2017, accessed January 16, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Abbie Eaton in the driver database driverdb.com. In: driverdb.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Abbie Eaton - Official Site of British GT Championship. www.britishgt.com, accessed January 17, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b c Lamborghini wins Monza 3 Hour. In: Speedcafe. April 24, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Tom Pritchard: Who Replaced The American as The Grand Tour's Resident Racing Driver? In: Gizmodo . December 15, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  10. ↑ James O'Malley: The Grand Tour S2E2: A Much Better Job Of Faking Authenticity. In: Gizmodo . December 15, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Ed Power: The Grand Tour, season 2, episode 2, review: Clarkson and co fail to step up a gear in trip to America. In: The Daily Telegraph . December 15, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Sean McKellar: James May: Jeremy Clarkson is 'rather womanly'. In: Motoringbox. November 30, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  13. ^ Adam Starkey: The Grand Tour season 2: Fans call out show for failing to mention new female driver's name. In: Metro. December 16, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Pat McAssey: The Grand Tour Doing More For Gender Equality In Motorsport Than FIA. In: New England Sports Network. December 18, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Susanna Lazarus: “Say her name!” Jeremy Clarkson introduces The Grand Tour's new female driver - but fails to identify her. In: Radio Times. December 16, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Christopher Smith: The Grand Tour Reveals New Racing Driver In Not-So-Grand Fashion. In: Motor1.com. December 15, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Kristen Lee: Abbie Eaton Is The Grand Tour's New Racing Driver But Bizarrely Nobody Is Saying Her Name. In: Jalopnik. December 15, 2017, accessed January 24, 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Abbie Eaton  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Eaton, Abbie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eaton, Abigail
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British racing driver
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd January 1992