A few brief memories of Sean
My first memory of Sean was way back in 2005 at Silverstone when both Steve Warburton and Piers Masarati rather forcibly told me that the then rather shy 18 year old was “absolutely the real deal”.
His dad Guy was in attendance that day, happy to chat about his young son, The Edwards/ Warburton combo won that day but the British GT run was very much a toe in the water ahead of a full season in the brand new FIA GT3 Championship with Tech 9 in their brand new Porsche.
It was an instantly successful introduction to the discipline from Sean, he took the title in its inaugural year with Dimitris Deverikos.
Porsche Supercup beckoned and again Sean showed race winning form.
In later years he would admit to having had a couple of difficult years with focus, his raw talent carried him through but the results, he readily admitted, could and should have been far better. He referred some time later to this as being his “difficult second album!” and credits Franz Konrad for some wise counsel in carrying him through it.
It was with delight that I saw him again a couple of years on and the clouds had parted, there was a different outlook, still confident, but the maturity had arrived, and with it the raw talent was transformed into something on a different level again.
The wins came, and so did the plaudits, and correctly so – By now an established force in top line Porsche one-make racing Sean was also appearing in GT cars just about everywhere, race wins in GTC in the ALMS came for the first time this year, again contested with all the passion we recognised from the very start but there was a new target emerging, Sean Edwards had got the 24 hour racing bug.
The raw figures say three wins, two at Dubai, and a third with a fabulous win this year at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, all three with the Black Falcon team in their AMG Mercedes SLS GT3 but the underlying story was that Sean was looking for any and every opportunity to add to that tally, and there was little doubt that he would do so.
His plan to contest just about every available 24 Hour race in 2012 was thwarted by broken promises and the odd broken car but he did make his one appearance at Le Mans, in a Pro-Am effort with Prospeed. We’ve been robbed of what would and should surely have been more in the years to come.
The last two occasions our paths crossed said it all for me – Odense, Denmark at Allan Simonsen’s funeral, Sean was there, tearful and respectful in memory of a racing mate, fellow Monaco residents both.
Then at COTA where the climax of the GTC battle at the end of Saturday’s ALMS race saw Sean bundled off by A GT car in defence of his GTC class lead, he was correctly furious, that passion still possessed him, confidence in his talent, and hungry for success.
With Simmo and Shedwards God has got a hell of a racing team up there!
