FEO Member Event - FEO in conversation with Abbie Eaton, Multi British Motorsport Champion

Our First FEO Member event of 2022 saw us host British Motorsport Champion Abbie Eaton.

Abbie grew up in East Yorkshire and fell in love with racing after her Motorsport loving father bought her a Kart when she was only a child.

After a couple of years at the ripe age of 15 Abbie decided to give Junior car racing a go and her love for motorsport grew. Abbie won her first season senior racing in production touring cars.

Abbie raced on and off due to lack of budget, had to make sacrifices and worked extremely hard to find the budget to race.

2014

Onto the Mx5 year in 2014, Abbie talked about the year and the controversial last round incident (video of incident and in lap shows overcoming adversity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBrfr-OQ_Y (Start clip from 10 minutes onwards)

2016

Managed to secure the budget to race in British GT (the premier GT series in the UK) and ended up finishing 2nd in the championship.

2017

Unable to secure budget for a full season in 2017 but was offered a ‘shootout’ style opportunity for a race in a European GT3 series, the most competitive GT series in Europe, Abbie became the first female to ever win in the history of the championship.

The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime opportunity - Favourite episode to film so far is the Vid Ice Race Jeremy Clarkson & Abbie Eaton Race Around An Interestingly Shaped Snow Race Track | The Grand Tour

Continuing her career Abbie, has achieved a significant amount in 20 years, in 2021 alone Abbie had managed to:

• Sign to race for Praga Cars UK, the main season was W Series in 2021
• First year in single seaters and first full season since 2016
• Prolapsed discs uncertainty + lack of budget for testing after 5 years away from full time racing
• Pulled through to be consistently in the top 10
• Huge Spa Crash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfuN6DCPU_Q (Abbie very fortunately walked away from this crash with no injuries) Please watch with caution!
• Zandvoort high P3 in practice

In 2021 Abbie was racing in Texas when she broke her back having clipped a ‘sausage kerb’. After months of recovery Abbie is very lucky to now be on the mend and will look forward to racing again in 2022.

Abbie is still working with The Grand Tour, now a development driver for a new electric vehicle company Fisker, brand ambassador for various companies including Harley Davidson, Redbull, Hycolin cleaning supplies, driving for TV adverts and music videos.

Abbie described that her career had taught her to be tenacious, driven, focussed and determined.

It was a pleasure to hear Abbie’s story in person and we wish her a full recovery.