British Rallycross champion Heathcote switches to circuit racing

2017 British Rallycross champion Nathan Heathcote has moved into circuit racing for the first time in his career as he joins Century Motorsport in the Ginetta GT4 SuperCup championship.

The 22-year-old caught the eye sealing the British Rallycross title two years ago, along with selected World Rallycross RX2 outings last year, and is pursuing a fresh challenge in his career with a move from dirt to circuit racing.

Heathcote will be faced with getting up to speed in a new series, with a new car and learning all the British circuits for the first time but is relishing the opportunity as he hopes to apply some of his rallycross skills into circuit racing.

“I am at a place in my career where I want to push on as hard as we can,” Heathcote said. “I’ve made the decision to switch to circuit racing and the Ginetta GT4 SuperCup is a great series to be involved with and Century Motorsport the perfect team for experience.

“I have never raced any of the circuits, so if I can get all my testing in and with the simulators being so realistic now I’ll go and smash out a few hundred laps of each circuit to build up the biggest knowledge base of each track as possible.

“The first test went really well, and a massive confidence boost as I know I have the ability, so it is a case of putting it all into action.”

“There are definitely things I can take from rallycross, like racing in the wet and car control. If it goes a bit sideways or with oversteer or understeer that is what I’ve been dealing with at every race in rallycross. There is also circuit strategy that you need in rallycross so I don’t think I’ll be on the backfoot too much.”

Heathcote’s rookie Ginetta GT4 SuperCup campaign gets underway at Brands Hatch on April 6-7 as part of the support programme to the British Touring Car Championship.