As the field’s only second-year driver, Tom Mills faces additional pressure to perform as he returns to GB4. He sticks with KMR Sport, which is owned by his father Kevin Mills, for whom he raced last year and has already picked up four pole positions and two wins in 2023. Whilst his future in GB4 isn’t confirmed, he’s making the most of his time in the series. Feeder Series spoke to Mills on the ground at Silverstone.

By George Brabner

Mills took a double pole position in qualifying for Round 2 of the GB4 season, finding his groove in the wet far quicker than the rest of the pack. A late red flag arguably helped him on his way to the pair of poles, but in Race 2, he once again proved that he has the pace to fight at the front no matter the conditions.

Race 1 was abandoned because of excessive rain, but on Sunday, the sun reared its head once more and the day’s two GB4 races were both held in dry conditions. Mills would then take victory in Race 2 by over five seconds.

Confident and comfortable

After fending off Colin Queen from the front row and Cooper Webster from third, Mills quickly revealed his dry-weather pace. Without a safety car interruption, the chasing pack couldn’t get within striking distance all race long.

“It was fantastic. When you do a lights-to-flag victory like that and you literally don’t see anyone anymore by the end, it’s so satisfying just getting away,” Mills told Feeder Series.

“It is nice to win at the home of the British Grand Prix,” he continued. “This is one track I wanted to [win at last year], but it was almost my weakest. I was fast in the wet and the dry [and] obviously got the double pole in the wet. I really wanted the race to go ahead yesterday because I think that could have been another win. I wanted to leave here with more.”

Despite his success at Silverstone in 2023, Mills struggled one year ago in comparison, taking only one podium from six races. He and KMR Sport worked hard off the track to ensure that wouldn’t be the case on his return to the circuit.

“Silverstone was always a bit of a weak track for me last year. The first visit we had a broken tub and the second time it just didn’t really suit my driving style and the team didn’t quite have it nailed. But this weekend we worked really hard on the two days of testing we had, and the car was awesome,” he explained.

“The tyre looks like it’s had it, but that’s what you need it to look like by the end! Can’t be more happy with that. It was just domination.”

Becoming a frontrunner in 2023

Mills took fourth in the championship standings last year with two victories and another six podiums to his name as he and KMR Sport moved upwards from Formula Ford 1600. As Mills returns to the outfit, albeit on a race-by-race basis, KMR Sport is really settling in. Mills set a new lap record for GB4 by over one second in Race 2, whilst both he and his teammate Jeremy Fairbairn took victories at Oulton Park. 

On the technical side of things, the team has taken a massive step forwards this year as they acclimatise to the Tatuus F4 T-014 chassis.

“That [result] shows the progress of the teams year on year. Obviously, last year, [the] first year, nobody quite had it nailed, but this year, the coaches now know how we should drive them and the teams know how to set them up. [At] Oulton, we were under the lap record as well,” Mills said.

“When you bring up the data to look at last year, it’s basically not worth looking at because the car was so different. The driving style is the same. We were telling ourselves to drive like that last year, but they’re quite difficult to drive,” he continued.

“I just can’t thank the team enough really. They’ve worked so hard. We were the underdog last year coming in, going against Fortec who were coming down from GB3 and we were coming up from Formula Ford, so there was a lot more learning than other teams had to do last year. But yeah, we’re here. We’ve now got three cars. We’ve now got a new truck. We’ve made it, I think.”

Header photo credit: Jakob Ebrey / GB4 Championship