The British rookies targeting a good first impression at Le Mans

The GTE Am class rarely gets the same attention as the fight for outright honours, although it features a strong grid comprising Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin, and well-decorated drivers who have won in Formula 1, taken outright Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours honours, and claimed titles in Japan's Super Formula and Super GT series.

Among their number this year will be a trio of British aces who are making their first starts in the world's most famous endurance race.

Before sampling the track for the first time at the test day on Sunday, Autosport heard from David Pittard, Charlie Fagg and Seb Priaulx about their journeys to reach this point.

David Pittard

Pittard made his name by impressing on the Nurburgring Nordschleife and caught the eye of Prodrive

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Age: 30
Team: NorthWest AMR
Car: Aston Martin Vantage GTE

David Pittard has enjoyed what could be described as an unconventional rise from Toyota MR2 club racer to driving an Aston Martin Vantage GTE at the Le Mans 24 Hours. His career path has been all the more unusual, at least for a British driver, because the springboard to a World Endurance Championship seat with NorthWest AMR in GTE Am this year was his exploits — and successes — on the Nurburgring Nordschleife. 

The 30-year-old, who now calls the Eifel region home, forged a new career direction after a year racing a Ginetta in the GT4 class of the British GT Championship in 2017. It came as the result of a conversation with two-time Nurburgring 24 Hours winner and long-time Audi driver Frank Stippler.

Pittard was doing some historic racing alongside a British GT programme that yielded third in class aboard a Lanan Racing Ginetta G55 GT4. His partner in the historic ranks was Graham Wilson, who is friends with Stippler and suggested that Pittard talk to him. 

“I said to Frank, ‘I’d like to be where you are, what is your advice?’ He suggested the Nurburgring because it’s the big four German manufacturers’ home turf,” recalls Pittard. “You can get noticed by BMW, Porsche, Audi and Mercedes racing on the Nordschleife whereas you might struggle to do that competing in the GT World Challenge Europe or similar. It offers a chance to put yourself on the map.”

Pittard made his debut on the daunting ‘Green Hell’ in the second round of the 2018 VLN (now renamed the NLS) aboard a BMW 325i racer, and then made contact with Walkenhorst Motorsport on a visit to the Nurburgring 24 Hours that June.

After a further race aboard an M240i with Walkenhorst to get his full Nordschleife permit (or licence), he graduated to an M6 GT3 in the top SP9 class on only his third outing at the track. Two VLN races later, Pittard stuck the car on pole position. 

“I remember my team manager telling me he was getting loads of texts saying, ‘Who the hell is David Pittard and why is he on pole?’” he says. “That started to turn people’s heads. I’ve always excelled on the old-school tracks where you need to be committed; the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit and Spa were always good for me. When I got to the Nordschleife, I instantly clicked with the place.”

Pittard contested a full programme in the VLN the following year, as well as the 24 Hours for the first time, in a pro-am car, and then progressed to a Walkenhorst pro entry in the first year the series was named NLS in 2020. He won the SP9 title with a revolving cast of team-mates in a COVID-affected season. Last year, he claimed the lap record on the so-called NLS variant of the full Nordschleife on the season’s penultimate weekend. 

Pittard’s successes on the Nordschleife, still as a driver bringing a budget, resulted in Walkenhorst giving him opportunities in the wider GT3 arena through 2020 and 2021. He raced an M6 in selected GTWCE enduros and Intercontinental GT Challenge rounds with factory drivers as team-mates. He makes no secret of the fact that he was knocking on BMW’s door in search of a closer relationship with the marque: “I was going to Munich every winter to talk about how I might come more into the BMW family.”

BMW didn’t increase its roster of drivers for this year, but Pittard had another option. He was approached by Prodrive, which runs the NorthWest AMR squad. Its interest increased when he told them he was silver rated. That resulted in a try-out in a Vantage GTE at the end-of-season WEC rookie test in Bahrain last November.

He ended up fastest of all the newcomers Aston Martin Racing sampled, and a deal to race alongside NorthWest car owner Paul Dalla Lana and two-time WEC GTE Pro champion Nicki Thiim in a full GTE Am WEC campaign followed. He was originally announced as a factory driver, though Aston quickly clarified his position, pointing out he was paid by NorthWest in a move to protect his silver status.

The trio made a winning start to their 2022 WEC campaign with class victory at Sebring in March. A podium second time out at Spa in May means Pittard, Dalla Lana and Thiim lead the championship heading into the race at Le Mans. Not bad for a driver who started his career racing a 20-year-old Toyota. 

The Pittard family reckoned the Red Dragon MR2 series for the Mk1 version of the Japanese sportscar would be a good entree into car racing after a karting career mostly undertaken at club level.

“The most important thing was that it was a cheap way to learn,” he recalls. “I remember blowing up the engine on my first or second test day and we replaced it for something like 250 quid.”

That was back in 2010 when Pittard was still at school. He dovetailed racing MR2s the following year with a Sports 2000 owned by a family friend, then sampled endurance racing in 2012 in Britcar. Two years of Ginettas — first in GT5s, then the GT4 Supercup – were followed by lean years induced by a lack of finance, before his 2017 British GT campaign and that introduction to Stippler.

“Frank offered me what turned out to be good advice,” says Pittard. “I’m not sure I would be racing at Le Mans this year without it.”

Seb Priaulx

Priaulx won the Porsche Carrera Cup North America title in 2021 and is well thought of by Proton partner Multimatic

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Age: 21
Team: Dempsey-Proton Racing
Car: Porsche 911 RSR-19 GTE

Seb Priaulx was told last year by his employer that good things awaited him in 2022. Exactly what wasn’t made clear as a championship-winning season in the Porsche Carrera Cup North America drew to a close. But very quickly a plan came together for him to contest the full WEC in a Dempsey-Proton Porsche in GTE Am. 

The son of three-time World Touring Car Championship title winner Andy is on the books of Multimatic Motorsport, the Canadian-headquartered organisation for which his father raced a Ford GT in the WEC from 2016 to 2018-19. It placed him with the Kelly-Moss squad last year, and he rewarded the faith placed in him with six wins and the title. 

Le Mans wasn’t on the younger Priaulx’s radar for 2022, but a race his dad contested six times was “definitely on the bucket list”. 

“I didn’t imagine that I’d get there this year,” says Priaulx. “I didn’t have a clue what I would be doing; I was thinking it might be LMP3 in the IMSA SportsCar Championship or something. When they told me I’d be doing WEC, I thought, ‘This can’t be real’.”

The 21-year-old is sharing a Porsche 911 RSR in the WEC with Proton boss Christian Ried and Harry Tincknell, Priaulx Sr’s team-mate at Ford and a refugee of the Multimatic Mazda IMSA programme. Multimatic staff engineer and crew the 911 as part of an ever-deepening relationship with Proton that started a couple of years back when the German team rented some workshop space off the automotive giant for its North American programme.

Priaulx did briefly race in single-seaters, but his open-wheel career didn’t go beyond a season of British Formula 4 in 2018. “My dad couldn’t do any more after that,” he says. 

But what Priaulx Sr did do was to invite Multimatic Motorsport boss Larry Holt to one of his son’s end-of-season F4 races with Arden. That led to a test in one of the organisation’s Ford Mustang GT4s and in turn a full season in British GT, as Multimatic looked to show off the car in Europe. 

“Dad wanted Larry to have a look at me, and fortunately I had a good end to the F4 season,” recalls Priaulx. “He gave me a chance in the Mustang at Snetterton and I ended up being faster than a lot of the pros. Larry is an amazing guy and has changed my life.”

After two wins in British GT alongside Multimatic regular Scott Maxwell, Priaulx made his North American race debut in IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge support series. The season finale at Road Atlanta on the bill of Petit Le Mans yielded a victory together with Austin Cindric, which led into a full campaign in 2020. 

Multimatic opted to leave GT4 to its customers in 2021, which explains the Carrera Cup programme. 

“I think Larry wanted to see where my talents were at,” says Priaulx. “Obviously there’s nowhere to hide in a one-make series. I don’t think I’d be here, doing the WEC and racing at Le Mans, if I hadn’t performed as I did.”

Charlie Fagg

Fagg will race #777 D'Station Racing Aston with Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fuji

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Age: 22
Team: D'Station Racing
Car: Aston Martin Vantage GTE

Back in 2013, Charlie Fagg made a first visit to a World Endurance Championship race as a 13-year-old at Silverstone, and managed to get a tour of the Aston Martin Racing garage. The youngster couldn’t have imagined that the next time he’d venture into the WEC paddock would be as a driver in one of the British manufacturer’s machines. But then he wouldn’t have predicted late last year that he’d be contesting the full WEC this season and racing at Le Mans for the first time. 

The 22-year-old wasn’t even sure he’d be racing anything in 2022 at that time. He’d been part of McLaren’s driver roster since 2018, but a hiatus for the scheme this year threatened to leave him high and dry despite winning the 2021 GT4 European Series. It was a speculative punt from his management team that resulted in him landing a seat with the TF Sport-run D’Station Racing Aston squad in the WEC this season. 

“When McLaren said they weren’t keeping their young drivers it was a bit of a bad moment for me,” recalls Fagg. “I had a crisis meeting with my management. I think at that point it was fair to say that I wasn’t even dreaming of racing a GTE car or going to Le Mans this year. It was so far off my radar.”  

Fagg works with Edge Sporting Management run by sometime British Touring Car Championship racer – and now commentator – Phil Glew and Eddie Reynolds. They already had links with D’Station via another member of their stable: Tom Gamble had raced a D’Station Vantage GT3 in the Asian Le Mans Series in 2019-20 (briefly) and 2021. The Japanese entrant had a vacancy for a silver-rated driver after Andrew Watson had been upgraded to gold status for this year. 

“They were just sorting out contracts with D’Station for Tom this year and it was pure luck that Eddie put my name forward,” explains Fagg. “He asked Fujii-san [Tomonobu Fujii, lead driver and team director] if he’d thought of anyone for their silver in WEC. He said, ‘What about this kid?’

“He sold me to them as someone who would be in such a big learning phase coming up from GT4 that I wouldn’t be pushing for the new tyres or risking everything for the win. I was a bit of risk for them, but I came through a bit of a process and here I am.”

That process didn’t include any testing. Fagg’s first time in the Vantage GTE he’s sharing with Fujii and Satoshi Hoshino at Le Mans this weekend came a month after the deal was announced. 

Fagg concedes that it was a step up from the McLaren GT4 machinery he’d been racing since 2018. He’s missed out what might be regarded as the intermediary rung on the GT racing ladder, though not through lack of effort – he’d been trying to properly break into GT3 since 2020. 

“That was the first year I had to bring some budget while I was with McLaren and, unfortunately, I couldn’t,” recalls Fagg, who was unable to race that year. “Without a budget and little prior experience it was difficult to make the jump.”

Fagg was back in harness last year with United Autosports, as part of a package deal with Bailey Voisin. They took three victories across the six double-header weekends, and notched up a further three podiums at the wheel of their 570S GT4 on the way to the Silver Cup title. Fagg suggests that he would be nowhere without McLaren. 

“People don’t realise what an amazing scheme McLaren ran,” he says. “As a junior programme there wasn’t a better one in the world. Without the opportunity they gave me, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.”

The opportunity with McLaren came at the end of his first year of ‘big boy’s’ racing after half a dozen club kart races and two and a bit years in Ginetta Juniors. After a projected full season in the GT4 North European Series with Sean Walkinshaw Racing and a Nissan 370Z was cut short – “It was an old car and it all didn’t quite work out” – Fagg had the chance to race a Maserati for the Ebor GT squad. A double British GT Championship class victory at Spa with Matty Graham aboard the Gran Turismo MC GT4 led to another outing with the team, this time in the European series and with Glew as co-driver. This Zandvoort outing yielded a double victory too.

“It’s been a pretty unconventional career for a kid like me, and I still see myself as a kid,” says Fagg. “I’m still pinching myself that I got to this stage at such a young age.”

The jump from GT4 to GTE has been sizeable for Fagg, who impressed in McLarens and finished a close third in the 2018 British GT4 standings

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt