How Jonny Adam became British GT's benchmark

It could have all been so different for British GT record-breaker Jonny Adam. The year was 2009 and the young Scotsman, then aged 25, had just completed his rookie season in the British Touring Car Championship after winning the SEAT Cupra title in each of the previous two years.

By all metrics it was a solid BTCC campaign – two podiums en route to eighth in the championship aboard a Motorbase Performance BMW – but a lack of sponsorship left Adam without a drive for the following year.

A blessing in disguise, some might say, since it was during 2010 that he found his true calling: GT racing. His turning point came in a Ginetta G50 Cup guest appearance at Knockhill, his only racing that year, where Adam started three races and won the final contest to truly kickstart one of the most successful careers in modern national motorsport. 

Two Le Mans class victories and four British GT titles followed, while at Spa in June this year Adam edged clear of Phil Keen as British GT’s all-time race wins record holder with 20.  

“I don’t think I would be racing, I genuinely don’t,” reckons Adam when asked at the following British GT round at Snetterton what might have happened if he had tried to stick with the BTCC. “It was a one-year deal for me and it was great, because I wanted to tick the box and say I’d done touring cars.

“And I didn’t really have Le Mans or GT on my radar. I raced at Knockhill in this celebrity [G50] car and I really enjoyed it. I thought, ‘This GT stuff is actually good fun.’”

Adam notched up two podiums in sole 2009 British Touring Car Championship campaign

Photo by: JEP

Next came an eventually successful test for Adam to make his British GT debut in 2011 alongside Andrew Howard aboard a Beechdean Aston Martin DBRS9. Three wins across his opening two seasons led to Adam becoming an Aston Martin factory driver at the end of 2012, and it was with Howard in 2015 that he clinched his first title.

The floodgates opened. Adam won another crown with Derek Johnston in 2016, claimed a third with Flick Haigh in 2018 and then a fourth in 2019 with Graham Davidson. That’s four championships with four customers – all in Aston Martins – and it’s Adam’s love for pro-am racing that has stood him apart.

“If you don’t get the best from the am, you will never win on your own – you need these guys,” he reasons. “Others miss that the guy next to you is just as important.” 

You could even say that the amateur is more crucial for British GT success, because the gap between the best and worst bronze driver is greater than that between the professionals. Adam’s role is therefore not to necessarily be the quickest, but to be the best teacher and, having coached throughout his career, he reckons that’s the secret to his success.

“I worked at Knockhill for 10, 11 years,” Adam explains. “So I’ve always done coaching and I understand it really well. When I started to do GT, it was like second nature to me to grab a laptop, do data and spend a bit of honest time with them.

“Sometimes you can overcomplicate the situation but, because these people are businessmen, if you just tell them the facts and the figures and break it down into two or three spots of the lap, the rest of it works.”

Ginetta G50 Cup guest outing at Knockhill in 2010 was a career turning point

Photo by: JEP

His current assignment is an attempt to win a record-extending fifth title alongside Giacomo Petrobelli in the Blackthorn Aston. The duo is deep into a battle against the 2 Seas Mercedes crews of Kiern Jewiss/Charles Dawson and Maximilian Gotz/Kevin Tse – but it is not the only target on Adam’s radar, because “competing on the continent” is where his heart truly lies. 

“I miss Le Mans,” he admits of an event where he won the GTE Am class on his last appearance in 2020, to add to his 2017 GTE Pro victory. “Once you’ve touched Le Mans, once you’ve raced, it’s like, ‘Why am I not sitting on that grid? Why am I not driving it?’ Because it is the coolest race in the world.

“I want to go back next year, because I’ve waited too long now. But I don’t want to do it improperly as well. I don’t want to go there and just drive around and say, ‘I’ve done Le Mans again for a sixth time.’ 

“I want to go back and try to win or be on the podium at least. But you have to have the right team, car, line-up, testing. Everything has to be strong enough to do it, but the biggest and hardest hurdle is trying to get a ticket.”

For all Adam’s GT experience, he is still only thinking about what’s left to achieve, making any retirement questions even more ridiculous by the second…

Adam’s five favourite British GT wins

Rockingham 2011 – the first British GT victory 

Starting on wets turned out to be a smart move for Adam and Howard at Rockingham in 2011

Photo by: JEP

As Adam quite rightly puts it, “you always remember your first win”. For him, rather unsurprisingly, it came during his rookie campaign in round seven at Rockingham after two near-misses earlier that year: a podium on his debut at Oulton Park and again at Spa.

That first triumph was achieved at a changeable Rockingham where the majority opted for slick tyres at the start, which benefited Adam’s co-driver Andrew Howard, who was on wets aboard the Beechdean Aston Martin. 

Howard took the first stint of the 60-minute race and very quickly rose from eighth to the front, while those who started on slicks were forced into an extra pitstop amid worsening conditions.

But it still wasn’t easy for the Aston pair, with Adam’s core memory of that day being the malfunctioning wiper on the ageing DBRS9. Imagine that, a constant 100mph+ around the oval while driving almost blind.

Survival was the key, as Adam reckons it so often is in endurance racing, but that was the first of many occasions in which he has risen above the rest to win. Make no mistake, Howard also delivered a stellar drive to hand over to Adam with an eight-second lead, before the Scotsman subsequently increased it to 42s.

It gave the DBRS9 its first British GT race win since Thruxton in 2007, and there would be one more victory in 2011 for Howard and Adam, who won at the Silverstone finale before moving onto the Vantage V12. 

Nurburgring 2012 – maiden success aboard the Vantage

2012 triumph at the Nurburgring in Beechdean Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage made others “take notice”

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It’s the backstory to his maiden victory with the Vantage that makes it so special for Adam, who was the first driver to complete a shakedown of Aston’s V12 at the end of 2011.

That test originated through a deal Beechdean made with Prodrive, which developed the car, to become the only team to race with the Vantage throughout 2012. 

“Andrew Howard paid for the development and the project,” says Adam, who quickly gelled with the car, winning on just its second weekend. 

“It was so cool to get that first win,” he adds. “It came at the Nurburgring, which was making its British GT debut in place of Spa. Adam and Howard qualified on the front row alongside the polesitting RJN Nissan of Jann Mardenborough and Alex Buncombe.

RJN should have won, and Buncombe had a comfortable advantage over Adam at the start of the final stint. But a poorly executed pitstop came back to haunt the crew – the Nissan was stationary for half a second less than the mandatory 68s, causing an eventual drive-through for Buncombe.

That dropped him behind Adam but, even without the drive-through, there is reason to believe that Beechdean could have taken victory, with Adam cutting his deficit to Buncombe by around a second per lap before the penalty. 

It was a monumental win for Beechdean because Adam, who officially joined Aston at the end of that year, reckons it made others “take notice”. 

Howard went on to clinch the 2013 title, which Adam missed out on due to a six-point deduction applied only to him for a collision at Snetterton. 

Oulton Park 2018 – Haigh becomes British GT’s first female overall victor 

Victory at Oulton Park kicked off title-winning campaign alongside Flick Haigh in Optimum Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage

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Adam has worked with a wide range of am drivers, and one of the best was Flick Haigh, who he reckons was “super-determined” from the start because “all she wanted to do was win British GT”. 

That was evident with the duo completing 14 days of testing throughout 2018 and, although Adam believes “she overspent”, it was worth it because they became champions.

Their title campaign had the perfect start with victory in the Oulton opener, and Adam remembers it fondly because of the preparation that went into it. 

Seven of the 14 test days happened before round one and six of them were in the wet, so it’s no surprise that Haigh flourished in the rainy conditions that Easter weekend. She first grabbed pole aboard the Optimum Aston, before using the safety car start to romp six seconds clear early on. Haigh handed the lead to Adam midway through, but there was a charging Phil Keen (Barwell Lamborghini) behind, a driver who has challenged Adam for many of his 20 series wins. 

Oulton Park 2023 – Adam’s first non-Aston triumph 

Adam had to fight hard for first non-Aston Martin victory, at Oulton Park in 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3

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Adam and Aston Martin practically go hand in hand, with all of his GT3 and GTE appearances until 2021 coming behind the wheel of a car made by the British marque. But, in 2022 and 2023, he had permission to drive a 2 Seas Mercedes provided it didn’t get in the way of his Aston factory duties.

In 2022 Adam completed a three-race season with Haigh, but 2023 was a more focused campaign, where he and James Cottingham fought Century BMW pair Dan Harper and Darren Leung for the championship.

“Driving the Merc was good because it was fresh to me and I was quite happy with where I performed,” reflects Adam. “But the biggest thing was getting the best from the customer, James Cottingham.”

The 2 Seas pair won three races that year and it’s the Oulton season-opener victory that stands out for Adam, who described it as “probably the hardest win of them all” at the time.

Cottingham dominated his stint from pole and handed Adam a healthy advantage – but the rain grew heavier and a late safety car put the win in doubt. Both Marcus Clutton (Enduro McLaren) and Ross Gunn (Beechdean Aston Martin) were within a second of Adam with five minutes remaining, but the Mercedes driver’s stern defence made overtaking difficult at the tight Oulton circuit. 

Clutton dropped back, after struggling to maintain tyre temperature. Then a failed attempt by Gunn at Lodge on the final lap meant Adam held on to win on his 100th British GT start.

Even so, 2023 was a ‘what could have been’ year for Adam, who missed the title decider due to his European Le Mans Series commitments, with Harper/Leung pipping Cottingham to the crown.

Spa 2025 – record-breaking success

Pole-winning pace and strategic nous delivered Spa glory in Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo

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Adam mentions his record-breaking victory at Spa straight away when asked about his five favourite wins – and with good reason. Not only was it his 20th in British GT, but also his first for almost two years as a move back to Aston with Blackthorn for 2024 required a new level of patience for Adam, who was tasked with helping the new squad progress to the front.

It understandably took time, with just one podium finish recorded in 2024, though it could have been two had it not been for a late engine failure at Spa. But 2025 has featured significant progress for Blackthorn. 

Adam and Giacomo Petrobelli were in the fight across the opening four rounds, including two third-place scores, before the ground-breaking moment at Spa. It was clear early on that Blackthorn was the team to beat that weekend and the squad took pole by three tenths. 

Much can subsequently go wrong in a three-hour race, yet a perfectly executed strategy gave Adam/Petrobelli a comfortable win while rivals faltered through mechanical failures, crashes or penalties.

“We deserved that for sure,” says Adam, who has now won a race in every GT3 car Aston Martin has produced. “We were due a win and Spa was really good for us. Giacomo was super-fast and the car was on point all weekend. I was happy to get 20 wins, but I was actually just as excited for the team – that was their first win.

“And nice that I’ve done it back in an Aston, because for three of the wins I raced a Merc.”

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the September 2025 issue and subscribe today.

Second Le Mans class win for Adam in 2020 sharing TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR with Salih Yoluc and Charles Eastwood

Photo by: JEP