Yahoo Autos Evans making a mark with a Mustang in Europe
Erik Evans, the 2023 British GT4 Championship winner, is now fighting on two fronts in the 2024 British GT4 Series and the 2024 GT4 European Series.
Hailing from the outskirts of Atlanta, the 21 year-old is the first American-born race driver to attempt to defend the British GT title. The No. 61 Mustang S650 GT4 driver stands third in the standings with only the Brands Hatch finale remaining. Concurrently, four rounds into the GT4 European Series, Evans is sixth in the driver standings with only the Monza and Jeddah rounds to go.
“Things this year are going pretty well,” Evans told RACER. “The new Mustang S650 GT4 has been awesome. The car has been a little bit bigger of a learning curve than we were expecting. The car is completely different from the S550 Mustang that we ran last year and won the championship with. Progress has been very good, and we’ve just been going forward since the beginning of the season. Ford and Multimatic Motorsports built the car together. All of their support and everything that they are doing is excellent. It’s a battle with stiff competition, but we keep moving up. At our last race in Germany we finished on the podium in each race, so it was a really fun time.”
Supported collectively through Academy Motorsport, Multimatic Motorsports and Ford Performance, the ensemble have optimized the performance of the new generation Ford S650 Mustang GT4, allowing Evans to run competitively the world over.
“I’m technically just a driver for one of their customer teams, Academy Motorsport, at the moment,” explained Evans of Ford. “My personal engineer on the car is an engineer from Multimatic’s English office. We have engineers and technical people engaged with us from Ford Performance and they are there at all the European weekends, making sure that everything is running smoothly and that the cars are continuing to progress towards the front of the field.”
As referenced, at the recent GT4 European Series round at Hockenheim, Evans and the Ford Mustang GT4 placed second overall, taking the measure of 50 other GT4 competitors.
“It went really well in Germany,” said Evans. “Hockenheim is a super-cool track. We walked away with two second place finishes and we found out a lot about the car. Plus, having the team from Ford and Multimatic Motorsports there was a real confidence boost that this car is definitely able to win races.
“As we said earlier, this car has been a learning curve. At the beginning of the year we had a lot of stuff to figure out, because not only was this the first time these cars have been thrown on European tracks, it was also the first time these cars were being ran on Pirelli tires, So no-one really knew how to set this car up on that specific tire. Everything was just guesswork, but with lap after lap, as you can see through this season, we keep moving up and up and up and up in the standings as we learn more about this car and how it likes to handle things. And also as drivers, we’ve been earning how to drive it to maximize its capabilities.”
Everywhere Evans and the Mustang line up, the fans immediately take notice.
“Dude, people, everywhere we go are just attracted to the Mustang like a magnet,” he said. “It’s so different from everything else out there. We’re racing McLarens, Audi R8s, Alpines, BMWs and Aston Martins, and then you have this big old hunk of an American made muscle car that just sounds awesome and completely different from everything else out there. The Mustang stands out and people love it, and the car is quick, as well.”
Racing in two different competitive series, as well as lining up against two different competitive groups of race teams and race drivers, Evans admits that keeping track of both GT4 classifications takes commitment and concentration.
“You know, it’s hard because they are two completely different styles,” Evans explained. “In British GT, the races are more endurance races and you have GT3 cars out there at the same time as GT4. It’s multi-class racing and longer races and you have refueling stops and all this other stuff that adds strategy. You’ve also have to be really on it, because you’ve got GT3 cars coming through all the time because they’re a lot faster. You’re dealing with them racing each other while going around you into a corner… It’s just a whole different level with that stuff right there.
“Then you go over to Europe for the GT4 European Series and it’s a sprint race, but you’ve got 50-plus other GT4 cars out there and you have to be absolutely perfect because from first to 30th place is separated by one second or so. Even 0.1s can out you three or positions in a different way and that changes the whole complexion of your race. You have to be on it every single lap, because most of those guys have been running those tracks since they first started racing. And some of the guys are older guys who are paid factory drivers. I compete against them and it’s real tough and real competitive and I just love it. I just love driving no matter what the circumstance is.
With both the GT4 European and GT4 British competition seasons heading towards their conclusions, Evans is keeping his targets in sight.
“I think the goals are, top three in the British Championship,” he said. “That’s what I’m looking for and it proves that the car is definitely competitive and me as a driver and my teammate Marco Signoretti did a really good job of taking the car and building it up into a championship contender by the end of the year.
“The GT4 European Series is killing me. I would love to get a win. We got so close at Hockenheim. I think we led probably 80 percent of laps for the whole weekend. Just couldn’t get it done in either race. But I think we are due for a win. Especially at Monza, which is a big power track. The BMWs are going to be stiff competition, but I think we are going to be well in it for a chance to win.
“Coming into this season, all my team told me was, ‘Erik, if you can finish top 10 in the European Championship, that’s really, really good. These are some of the best drivers in the world. If you can go out there and finish top 10 in this championship, that states that you are a good driver and you deserve a spot to be a professional.’ I definitely think a top five in the championship this year is really doable, especially if we keep on the form that we are in. I think we’re out of a shot to win, but I definitely think that second place in the championship is still very much possible. We can still mathematically win it, but the other teams would basically have to have a couple of really bad races, while we would have to have some really good races at the same time.”
Looking further ahead, Evans is committed to a future in GT racing.
“Next year I want to be in GT3,” he said. “The eventual goal is to be a paid factory driver, and hopefully it will be for Ford.”
