By Jamie O’Leary
A dominant display at Donington Park secured the Protyre Ginetta GT Championship crown for Fox Motorsport’s Welsh Wizard Mckenzie Douglass on Sunday.
And with Irish teenager Colin Cronin claiming his first-ever car-racing victory in the Ginetta Junior Championship on Saturday, it was one of the best weekends for many years for the team from Maldon, Essex.
Ginetta GT Championship
Mckenzie arrived at Donington – where he made his series debut at last year’s corresponding round – with one target; wrap up the title with a round to spare.
The 17-year-old from Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan, topped pre-event testing and played a cautious game in a wet qualifying session to put his Ginetta G56 Trophy car second on the grid.
Continuing to play things safely, he dropped to fourth at the start of Saturday’s damp opener before gradually picking off his rivals one-by-one, setting the fastest lap by over a second and tearing away to a 19.5s victory; the largest of the year.
A more straightforward win – his 12th of the season – followed in fully-wet conditions on Sunday morning and meant he only needed to finish inside the top four in a dry finale to make certain of the title.
This he did easily, taking second place and ensuring that his points score cannot be overhauled across the final three races.
Mckenzie’s title is the fourth in Ginetta racing for Fox, who claimed the GT5 Challenge Am crown in 2018 and ’20 and G55 Supercup Am honours in ’22.
Ginetta Junior Championship
Having steadily improved his qualifying and race performances across the season, Irishman Colin Cronin, from Ballylickey, co Cork, produced a career-best third place in wet qualifying to put himself in contention for a podium.
Things went even better than hoped for as, chasing the leaders, he watched them collide and was gifted the advantage. He held it most of the remainder, defending firmly without ever having to resort to any desperate tactics.
Desperation did, however, get to his chief rival for the win, who cut the chicane on the final lap to pass and claim victory. This was unfair in the eyes of the race officials, who reversed the positions post-race and correctly awarded Colin his first series win.
His success, plus those of Mckenzie, significantly lifted Fox onto 17 wins in 2024 – the highest number of victories the team has ever scored across a calendar year.
Colin added a Rookie podium in fifth overall in Race Two and then recovered from an early trip through the gravel to climb from last to ninth in the finale.
Holly Miall roared to a season’s-best 12th-place finish on Saturday, the Chelmsford racer showing excellent skills on a damp, but drying, circuit as she consistently moved forwards throughout a tricky race.
After suffering spins in each of Sunday’s two races she came home 17th and 19th.
Jack Robinson achieved his best qualifying result to date with 14th overall and third in the Freshman Trophy – a category in which he’s already a race winner this year.
Early Race One contact sent the Maldon racer into the pits for repairs and led to a 15th-place finish. He rebounded with 16th and 17th; narrowly missing out on a Freshman podium in the finale due to a time penalty for exceeding track limits.
Both series conclude on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on September 28-29.
Mckenzie Douglass said: “It feels amazing to have won a championship for the first time in my racing career, but truthfully I think it might take a little while to really sink in. From the get-go the plan was to aim for the title because the pace we showed on our one-off in the series here last year was good and gave us the confidence to think that was realistic. We came out and won the first race of the season and straight away we knew this was on as long as we kept the standards up. That’s exactly what’s happened and I can’t thank the team at Fox Motorsport enough for the way they’ve supported me this year in every area – joining Fox has been the best decision of my career. The aim is to use this title to move up to endurance GT racing next year, but first we’ll focus on finishing the season on a high.”
Colin Cronin said: “It feels great to be a Ginetta Junior race winner. We signed with Fox so close to the start of the season that we had basically no testing before the Oulton Park opening round so we were behind where a lot of other drivers were with the starting point. But things have just built and built and the team have worked so hard to help me build up my speed and experience and here we are. Even though I crossed the line second, I kind of knew they [race control] wouldn’t let the result stand because you can’t overtake someone by cutting a corner – even though the other guy had nowhere else to go – and the team said the same when I got out of the car. When we got the trophy it felt great. I’m very happy.”
Paul McNeilly, Team Principal, said: “I’m so proud of the whole team right now. Mckenzie’s performed superbly all year so we knew that if everything went according to plan, it was possible to tie-up the title here and it’s really nice to have had the whole team here to celebrate at the podium. For Colin to go from a tough weekend at Silverstone to scoring his first win here is just incredible, but he’s fully deserved it. The way he absorbed the pressure towards the end of the race was so mature for a driver still in their first year of racing. Add in a best-ever qualifying for Jack and Holly’s best race result of the year and it just gets better. I can’t wait to see what we can achieve at Brands Hatch to close the season.”
