Highly rated karting champion Flynn Jackes will make his car racing debut in the GB3 Championship next weekend (16/17 October), after joining top team Hillspeed for the final three races of the 2021 season at Donington Park – the squad’s home track.
The 18-year-old Australian, who was born in the Philippines and lived in Manila until his early teens before moving with his parents to the Gold Coast in Queensland, will team-up with GB3 podium finisher Jonathan Browne at the Markham Vale squad.
Jackes started out karting in the Philippines and quickly marked himself out as a driver to watch by becoming a two-time Asian Karting Champion. Racing in the ROK Cup Karting Super Series, he became Mini-ROK Champion in 2012 and won a second Asian crown in 2013.
Going on to compete in the SKC Singapore Championship, after the move to Australia in 2015 he competed at KF3 level in the Australian Karting Championship and was also a front-runner in the Queensland Kart Championship.
Having tested cars for the first time in 2017, with a run in Formula 4 machinery in Australia, Jackes will now make the step-up to Formula 3-level competition in the GB3 Championship and will join the rest of the entry for the first time during official pre-event testing at Donington next week.
Long renowned for its first class driver development, Hillspeed is very much looking forward to working with Jackes across his maiden car racing weekend with team principal Richard Ollerenshaw confident the GB3 debutant will make strong and consistent strides across the three races.
Ollerenshaw commented: “We are absolutely delighted to welcome Flynn to the team for the GB3 season finale at Donington, and very much looking forward to working with him on, what will undoubtedly be, a major weekend of learning. He clearly has a great deal of ability and has achieved some notable success in karting, both in Asia and Australia, so our job at Hillspeed is to help harness and develop that potential.
“From a team point of view, it’s fantastic to be fielding two cars again and we’re sure Jonathan [Browne] and Flynn will work very well together at Donington. It’s always important to go into the winter with a strong final round behind you, and that’s what we’ll all be aiming for.”
For more championship information visit www.gb-3.net.