It’s been a while since DSC caught up with Ginetta’s chairman Lawrence Tomlinson, but with the LMP1 era now a memory, with new cars launched and racing, the Yorkshire, UK-based manufacturer has hit a purple patch.
In the aftermath of the debut of the latest iteration of the brands’ LMP3 contender and the opening round of the British GT Championship, which featured three one-make Ginetta Championships, LT took time out to talk to the DSC Editor:
In LMP3, DKR Engineering fielded a car apiece in both the ELMS and Michelin Le Mans Cup, with the ELMS car running competitively before a freak issue stopped the car.
You have to be pleased with the first weekend’s racing for the new LMP3 ?
“We were super pleased with it. The pace that DKR are getting out of the car, considering they’ve only run two or three test days before Barcelona was impressive.
“In fact, they actually only got their actual race cars a couple of weeks ago; before that, they’ve been working with a couple of converted 2020 cars that we let them run around a bit.
“They’re doing a great job this early, and the cars really aren’t quite in the window yet so we have got quite a bit of speed to come. But things like the temperatures and the general reliability of the car was super strong, really brilliant.
“When they chose that power train and we got the heat rejection figures, and then the revised heat rejection figures. I think everybody had to be super cautious on cooling but we are in good shape on that whilst I believe at least one of the other cars was very marginal with some hotter races to come!
“They got good mileage out of it. I believe we would have had a solid fifth and maybe even a fourth in the ELMS race other than for the kill switch, which was bit gutting for everyone.
“I’ve had that happen before, once with a piece of rubber. John Lancaster and I were racing at Mugello in a G58 58, leading the (Ultimate Cup) championship, and we couldn’t understand why the car had stopped.
“Everything was fine. And then we watched the onboard, and you see a piece of rubber come off the safety car, bounce down the track. It’s the perfect size piece of rubber to go down the protective cone thing that covered the button in those days. Then it just goes in, and the car just stops. You can’t believe it!
“In Le Mans Cup, poor Freddie (Tomlinson – son of Lawrence) just got smacked into the back of it all the carnage at the beginning. He got the car back, and the team got it back out, but laps down.
“That was a shame because we can change the cheese wedge (rear corner legality panel) in 20 seconds on that car, but it needs a little bit of training, and there was just a little bit of miscommunication between the factory and DKR.
“If you can coincide it with your (longer) pit stop, you can even maybe get in and fix it, and your race isn’t over. We’ll do better if there’s a next time.
“In the meantime look forward to going a bit faster. It’s going to progress. And it’s so nice to have more variety.”
What’s next for the LMP3 car?
“We’ve had a lot of inquiries from other teams about the car, how they can get one, and where they could run.
“We hope to be running two cars in the Road to Le Mans race if we can find a good pairing, with DKR (now confirmed with two cars for DKR).
“Beyond the LMP3 programme though, there’s little doubt that the core business for Ginetta is with their one-make ‘GT’ models and the endurance and sprint racing versions of those cars. There has been significant investment and attention to the range in recent months, with the new-look cars debuting on the British GT Championship package earlier this month at Donington Park.”
How is it all going with the new cars and the British GT package?
“We’re loving the LMP3 and having a team running at the front. That’s great, and we’re very happy with that. But, you know, our niche is really bringing people into motorsport, and, bringing a lot of the drivers onto those ELMS grids, and particularly the SRO grids.
“So many of these drivers are ex-Ginetta Juniors. Actually I reckon if we had a few more ex-Junior drivers on the Le Mans Cup grid, there might be a bit less carnage!”
Tell me about the revised Junior car?
“We listen to our customers, drivers and teams and and our partners, including SRO, and what they wanted from us was lower costs and a lock-in for the product not changing for five years so they can invest in the product.
“So we rejigged the Junior. They wanted the front refreshed to make it look a little bit more modern, a little bit more sexy. Everybody loves the new front, and the body work is lower cost.
“We’ve got new doors coming for the next race, or the race after so they don’t have the road car window winders and all that sort of stuff, because they don’t need to. It costs us a fortune to make and is just totally unnecessary.
“And we’ve changed all the rear ends. You used to see the rear bumpers coming off when they ran wide. Now that’s all a one piece assembly.
“We put the air jack union hidden beautifully under the swinging Ginetta badge at the back of the car, so you swing the badge to the side, and air jacks go in, and now the charging lead is where the other side of the fuel cap would be, so fuel filler one side, charging lead at the other.
“So all little things like that that make life easier and better for the team and lower cost, and less damage.
“Unnecessary cost, really, has all been removed from the product.
Unnecessary cost, really, has all been removed from the product
“You can buy a new Ginetta Junior now from a team. The team will build the car for you. We’ll supply all new bits to the team, and the team will build the car to our specifications.
“That’s because we realised that whenever we build a car, the teams take it away and totally take it apart, and then they rebuild the car.
“So we may as well just supply them with all the bits and save them one job, which is taking it apart, so they just have to put it together!
“The new Ginetta Junior is super good value, and we got 27 cars out on the first weekend, which was a super good grid, equals our best ever, and there are four other cars joining it throughout the year.
“We’ve got a couple of Red Bull-sponsored drivers in their Red Bull colours this season. It would be good to have a couple of McLarens and a couple of Mercedes coloured ones too!”
In terms of the numbers, the switch to the SRO package (from TOCA) has not hurt that part of your product?
“Oh no! The switch to SRO has been the best thing we’ve done for this series for a long time.
“The profile of the series is higher and better, and we are now with the more appropriate partner, because most of our people are either going to open wheel, in which they’ve got GB4 and GB3 on the bill. Or they’ve got GT4 as a next step in GT, or they’ve got the new GTP8 as a stepping stone to GT racing.
“It’s our natural environment. Really, we are a GT car manufacturer.
“The crowd at Donington was the biggest crowd I think I’ve seen there for a very, very long time. They were queuing to get in. They didn’t really open enough gates, and people were queuing back to East Midlands Airport.
“We had roughly 70 cars at Donington across the three championships.”
It looks to me that this has been, from your point of view, and I think from pretty much everybody else’s point of view, a roaring success.
“I think it’s been a pretty huge success for everybody, apart from the people we left!
“We wanted to have control of our (media) content. We now deal directly with Hayfisher (Productions). We broadcast everything, and we control it. So the mums and dads, if it’s Juniors, or the families and friends of the older racers, can watch the race live.
“We broadcast it live to the awning, and it’s fabulous, we’ve got every single minute of every single race with really nice commentators. And, you know, it just adds so much to the weekend. That was one of the reasons we wanted to go.
“We wanted more paddock space and more control of it, and we wanted everything on the same weekend. So it’s brilliant.
“I think it’s been a huge success for SRO. I think the crowds love it too.
“There’s a big following for Ginetta Juniors. I think the GTP8 is going to get a big crowd as well, because you’ve got 20 big V8s, soon to be 25 when the grid grows.
“All in all, it’s a good weekend and the competitors have such a lot of fun.
“We’ve had to increase the hospitality space and made it bigger, better, more fun, with more stuff going on. We’ve put our own technical area in now, and Mike’s (newly appointed Director of Motorsport, Mike Simpson) has made some changes and put his stamp on some of the new stuff.
SRO put on a great weekend, and I felt that it was a more natural partner for us to be with GT cars
“So, in short, SRO put on a great weekend, and I felt that it was a more natural partner for us to be with GT cars.”
So a better fit for your product range?
“I try and look to the future, and would I want to go and watch, or would my son or daughters want to go and watch a touring car when they have no affinity whatsoever to Ford or Vauxhall, like we used to have.
“Back in the day, you were either a Ford fan or a Vauxhall fan, weren’t you? And then you’d throw the Audi in, and then there was the Volvo, etc.
“There was a difference in the cars. The cars that are on the road now don’t have the same following. You buy one on price, or the fact that it’s a hybrid, or electric.
“I’m not pulling it down. I’m just saying the genre is like a kind of shape, and it’s going to be a colour and a sticker.
“But you go to an SRO weekend, you’ve got the Ginetta GTs, you’ve got the Ginetta Juniors, and you’ve got the GB4s. But in the main event, you’re seeing a Ferrari, an Aston, a Porsche, a Lamborghini. You’ve got V12, V8, V6, turbos, you’ve got all these different things, and it’s just a more sexy product.
“I genuinely wish everybody success. The British Touring Cars is a great product, and it has a good following and lots of really loyal fans, which is fabulous. And actually, ironically, they’ve now started broadcasting more on the web as well, and that’s great too.
“I wish everybody in British motorsport success, but we try and fish outside. We’re not trying to steal everybody’s drivers, we’re trying to bring people from outside of motorsport into motorsport and give them a fabulous experience.
“So much so that they go, maybe into another one of our products, and then they learn, and then maybe they go drive a Lamborghini. Maybe, like Darren (Leung), they go and drive a BMW and finish on the podium at Le Mans.
“Or maybe we give a pathway into car racing for youngsters and they go on to greater things, including racing and winning with McLaren in Formula One.
We’re not precious about it. We know our place and I think we’re very comfortable with our Ginetta space
“But we’re not precious about it. We know our place and I think we’re very comfortable with our Ginetta space, which is now a standardized product that brings people into motorsport, makes them have the most amount of fun whilst they’re learning to be the best driver they can possibly be and and give them all the options to help them move through the maze of options that they have with the right skill sets.”
How does that work as they climb the Ginetta tree?
“With the GTP8, we have a 20-minute race, and now we have a 40-minute race with a pit stop as well on a single weekend. So we’re bringing into it, not just for the drivers, but for the teams, a new discipline into it.
“Some of the newer teams have not done it before, a one-minute timed pit stop. They can pressure the tyres, but the driver doesn’t get out.
“The drivers are learning that I’m in a race. When am I going to box? Teams are going to call them into the box if they’re in traffic, they’ve got to hit the marks, hit the limiter, time them in, time them out.
“That 40-minute race went down really well with everybody, which we were a bit worried about, because historically, we’ve done sprint races.
“That’s doubly important because the GTP8 is convertible to a GT4 car – very easily, actually. We can do that and homologate it.
“So if you’ve got a GTP8, and you’re learning the skill set, if you want to go and do GT4 next year, you know there’s potentially 20 cars that could be converted to go into British GT.
“On the SRO package, we want to increase our grid numbers in GTA from just over 20 to 30 by the end of the year.
“In GTP8, we want to increase by five from 20 to 25, and then we know that we’ve got another four joining us in juniors, so we’d like to make that five, making the grid 32 cars.
“So overall, you know, we’d have 87, cars running on the British GT package by the end of 2025. That’s our target, and that’s what we’ll get.
“We know we’ve got other cars joining us in GTP8, but it was our own fault because we could only build 25 cars initially because there were only 25 XTrac gearboxes available. And XTrac did an amazing job getting us the 25 gearboxes in time.
“The GTP8 didn’t exist in October, November, and here we are with 20 cars already and five more coming. So it’s not bad, is it?”
The there’s the news of a new Ginetta car, this time aimed at SRO’s currently struggling GT2 class.
“We have a good basis for it in the GTX version of the G56 but the GT2 case needs a little more of everything, more power, more aero, but we are very pleased with the direction we are going with the project.
“I wish I could have got a car there for the opening round (of GT2 European Series 2025), but it just couldn’t be done.
“If we can get six of these built for the end of this year for people to test that would potentially give the grid a very substantial boost.
“I’ll race the first one to demonstrate the car and honestly I’m looking forward to driving it. GT2 has got an interesting premise, I hope we can be part of the story.”
Ginetta Juniors (3 races), Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT Championship (2 races for the GTP8s), and the Ginetta GT Academy (2 races for the GTA cars) return this weekend to the support bill for the Oulton Park round of the British GT Championship.
DSC’s coverage of the 2025 British GT Championship is powered by Birch – world-class automotive asset management at Gatwick
