Luke Browning – Half Way Home

It’s the halfway point of a hectic Ginetta Junior Championship and our teen racer of the year Luke Browning has been one of the star finds of the year, as the only driver without a junior teammate in the field and having scored as many points single handedly thus far as one of the other teams in the championship in total. His stock is rising fast and his future in motorsport is already a hot topic, but how has he done it and what happens next? To discuss this, Jake Sanson digs out the lap charts and takes everything into context to assess just how good this young lad from Cheshire really is.

Luke Browning has spent the 2017 season learning the ropes of the Ginetta Junior Championship, where there is a large contingent of rookies, and Luke is the fourth placed rookie at the halfway stage. Driving for Richardson Racing, he has turned heads throughout the paddock with his driving abilities, charming personality and can-do attitude.

uke (left) grabbed a rookie trophy at his local circuit Oulton Park in May

Qualifying well is Browning’s focus. It’s a major challenge, which is largely down to the drafting tactics by other teams. The stablemates help each other to get a tow in the draft wherever they can find it, which can gain as much as 2 seconds around certain circuits. With no team-mate to work with, Luke is left behind. In spite of this, neither the team nor Luke has ceased in their determination and perseverance to find an edge. He is improving; Luke found himself starting on the fourth row of race one at Croft, so his speed is definitely coming and incredibly quickly. This is very much in a similar fashion to his JSCC campaign last season when he went from 12 seconds down with mechanical issues at Oulton Park to a race winner at Brands Hatch. So now that determination is starting to pay off, and now all they need to do is find something they can use against their opposition for the rest of the season. At Croft, they found it: wet weather.

One of Luke’s strongest skills through last year’s Junior Saloon Car Championship was utilising wet conditions, and indeed his times on his first ever day in the Ginetta G40 at a soaking wet Rockingham were equal to those of his contemporaries who had been in the car for a season. At Croft in particular, the timesheets couldn’t fail to show what Luke is really capable of. His ideal lap time in races (taking the best three sectors of his races and creating an “ultimate best lap”) is around half a second faster than what he actually achieves in races. His wet weather prowess on the narrow and twisty Croft circuit – a track which is notoriously difficult to overtake on, he was one of the very fastest drivers of the championship in the opening sector of the lap, which has reputation for catching out rookies and making weak drivers look weaker and the strong increase in strength. The fact of the matter is that Luke was faster than seven of the racers ahead of him in the drivers’ standings in those conditions and the only three ahead of him have had at least six months more experience in the car then Browning. Quite frankly, Browning’s raw ability is undeniable.

Luke is running competitively with the top drivers in the series in his first year

His racecraft is ever stronger too, as in both of the first two races he had to recover after others had made mistakes either pushing Luke off the track or forcing him to take avoiding action and on both occasions he gritted his teeth and fought back. He made brilliant overtakes and moved himself back into contention, incredibly impressive when you consider that at Croft each of the three races were only 6 laps in length, and yet Luke was unfazed and motivated to push forward and has now scored enough points to be just nine off the top ten in the standings.

So how has he done this with so little experience? Well, for me there are three key factors. One is his own natural ability which I have observed through karting and the JSCC last season prior to Ginettas, and he just keeps getting better. Every car he gets into, every challenge he faces and every new experience he takes on, he accomplishes with astonishing fluidity. A teenage schoolboy with a flair for his sport is expected to excel to a certain point, and defying all predictions made for him Luke just keeps smashing through those barriers with his acute intellect and no-nonsense can-do attitude. For example, you don’t lap two seconds faster than every other driver at a Clio Cup Junior test on your first day in the car on a circuit as short as Blyton Park by accident. And yes, people still talk about that day.

Browning is a very popular character within the paddock and is gaining friends quickly just by being himself

The second is Richardson Racing. Having observed the work the team has put into Luke first-hand at both Brands Hatch and Donington Park so far this year, the team works incredibly hard to give young Browning the best possible equipment. When he was involved in the multi-car pile-up in the second race at Donington (his only retirement of the year) the team worked tireless and with consummate professionalism to drag the car back onto the starting grid, and he was even quicker than he’d been in the previous race.

The third is his management team. Ivor Bourne is giving Luke phenomenal guidance on how to be a professional racing driver, not just a talented kid who can string a few laps together. Naturally, Browning is soaking it up like a sponge. All the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are coming together rapidly. Bourne has worked alongside and learnt from three world champions in Formula One. This knowledge is being utilised by a young lad from Cheshire who has the charm and personality off the track to use these skills to become an athlete everyone will want to support.

I have always given incredible stock to a racing driver when they are in the pack, as you can tell a lot more about a racing driver when they are losing than when they are winning. Browning is achieving more with a one-car outfit than I could expect any driver of his age, experience and character to give. He is always professional, incredibly intuitive, quick to adapt and mentally wise and strong, an unfaltering team player who demonstrates loyalty to his many supporters. This is what will make him a champion in the near future. Rather than show petulance and impatience as many others in his position have done in the past, he shows grace, dignity and ruthless determination.

Browning is highly tipped for success in the future

This is meant to be a learning year for Luke Browning, and whilst nobody expects him to win the championship in 2017 and it’s increasingly unlikely he will, the truth of his journey in 2017 is far more revealing if you look under the skin of the scoreboard. His results, his rate of development, his one-man effort in a strong team of fighters: it all adds up to an astonishing speed of progression both from team and driver that provides ample writing on the wall for everyone in the paddock. Luke is on the radar for various championships. Supporters have already seen enough to be assured that here lies championship winning quality, and this young star is moulding himself into one of Britain’s future motorsport stars. After all, Senna Proctor, Lando Norris, Jamie Chadwick, Jake Hill and Will Palmer have all competed in Ginetta Juniors and haven’t won the championship. Also Sarah Moore was outside the top ten in her first season of Ginetta Juniors in 2008 before winning the championship in 2009, so the early promise Luke Browning is showing is just the start of an incredible racing career with plenty of victories ahead. The sky truly is the limit, and with this young man the road ahead is looking very rosy indeed…

Images: Luke Browning Racing