The list just keeps getting longer. Josh Webster, Charlie Eastwood, Dan Harper, Harry King and now Adam Smalley have all won the Porsche Carrera Cup GB championship during their two seasons as the Porsche GB Junior. That run of success proves that Porsche is pretty good at picking out stars of the future and, at the end of last year, it was time for the next Junior to be chosen.
Nothing is left to chance when it comes to the meticulous process of selecting the new Junior, but it proved to be a particularly tricky decision this time around thanks to the quality of the drivers applying. Even before getting down to the final four, who took part in an intense shootout at Silverstone at the start of November, some notable drivers had to be eliminated from the running – including the likes of GB3 race winner Matthew Rees and GB4 dominator Tom Mills.
This left Porsche Sprint Challenge GB champion Joe Warhurst, British GT contenders James Wallis and Josh Rowledge, also the 2022 Ginetta Junior conqueror, and European GT4 frontrunner Tom Edgar as the finalists. But, heading to Silverstone, there was no clear favourite for the coveted prize, worth £85,000 per year towards the Junior’s Carrera Cup budget along with a host of money-can’t-buy experiences and support from Porsche.
As with all of the final four, Wallis wanted to be as prepared as possible for each element of the selection process. And this included the interview with members of the Carrera Cup organising team that helped whittle down the 12-strong shortlist to the four who would make the final.
The 18-year-old enlisted the help of his school headmaster to practice the scenario of being interviewed in slightly intimidating circumstances. Then, after making the cut, he sampled the current Type 992 911 GT3 Cup car to get his head around the machine, which contrasts greatly to the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with which he scored a best result of sixth in British GT last year.
“I had never driven a car without ABS, so it was different to me,” admits Wallis, who was confident of being in a strong position in terms of the fitness assessments. “I’m quite active with my sport outside of racing and I’m a big hockey player and I did the England Hockey pathway for a while.”
And his preparation even extended to some media training earlier in the year. “Before I entered the scholarship, I did half a day with Louise Goodman in June and it worked super well that she was interviewing on the shootout day,” says Wallis. “Everything fell into place!”
Source: Autosport