Fox Motorsport started the 2023 season on the right foot in just their third race in single-seaters, with Liam McNeilly earning the team’s first victory from ninth on the grid. However, having taken just three more podium finishes over the course of the next 11 races, the team’s inexperience began to show as the season progressed. But, approaching the final two weekends of the season, Fox Motorsport sits in a far more favourable position.

By George Brabner

McNeilly’s exceptional season opener left him atop the championship standings, although he would quickly relinquish the lead to Tom Mills, who dominated at Silverstone in May. It would take until the end of round three before McNeilly returned to the podium, and the end of round five before the Briton would qualify inside the top three once again.

The mid-season lull endured by McNeilly was equally felt by his 17-year-old teammate Sid Smith, who felt Fox Motorsport’s drop in speed showed their lack of experience in the GB4 Championship.

“Here, everything has something you can change and you have to find. Especially with Fox being a new team in the championship, they don’t have that experience so it’s always going to be a learning year for the team as well [as myself] because they don’t have anything to go off really,” he told Feeder Series.

“We do struggle sometimes coming into the weekends with the lack of knowledge that the other teams [don’t] have, but especially going into next year, the data we’ll have will be like any other team, if not better.”

In the deep end

Fox Motorsport was a team yet to compete in single-seaters before venturing into GB4, having only raced tin-tops and GTs in the past. The same goes for Smith, who has made the leap from the Ginetta Junior Championship and BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship.

“I really haven’t driven anything like the GB4 car, so going into this year is always going to be a bit of a learning year for me because it’s a completely different sort of thing. Going into the season, we did quite a bit of testing before, so I felt alright, but it’s always a bit pacifying,” Smith said.

“The amount of detail you go into… say I’m losing two times to Liam in this complex set of corners. It’s not so much that I’m just being the right idiot and taking a wet line or something. It’s like, I’ve just come off the throttle one per cent earlier or something, and that’s caused all this, and you don’t really get that in a car with less power.”

The team looked to have gotten on top of things quickly come the season’s start as McNeilly stormed to victory at Oulton Park, but Smith struggled to settle in.

“We did quite a bit of testing when the pace looked really good. Me and Liam were matching each other and we were doing, well, below pole times at every track, so I was really happy. So I always felt like I was quite confident going into the season, but we got to the first round and I struggled to actually kind of get into the groove of things and really show what I could do…. I suppose testing is always very different to the race weekends,” Smith said.

Getting on top of GB4

A large portion of Fox Motorsport’s 2023 season has been plagued by car setup issues, but as the team’s experience with the Tatuus F4-T014 chassis grows, McNeilly and Smith find themselves able to frequently compete within the top five.

“We got a couple of P5s at Snetterton, and the rounds before we got some results that I was actually more happy about, and that’s when I actually started to get more comfortable in the car.

“Because you get all these kids that are coming from karting and stuff – and [the GB4 car] really is a big go-kart with paddles – so I was always feeling on the back foot. But then [at] this point, I really felt like I got in touch with the car and got used to it and how it works and how to really get the pace out of it. 

“So I’m starting to feel much more confident in the car and, well, going into last round at Silverstone, I was feeling good. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the results we were looking for. I couldn’t fully get it together there, but [I’m] feeling much stronger for the rest of the season,” Smith said.

In light of his growing comfort, Smith’s personal results show an upward trajectory.

“We look at the results. I was finishing eighth and 10th for Oulton for the first sort of times and towards the lower end of the field, not showing much form of race pace.

“But now if we look to most recent results, I’ve got a couple of fifths on my belt and the race pace has been kind of matching in that top five all the times. Hasn’t been fully put together, but the results are definitely improving every time we get around and the pace is as well, so I’m hoping just to keep getting better from here and we’ll see what we can do.”

Mutual progression

Despite McNeilly’s three Ginetta Junior Championship campaigns, both he and Smith are equally new to single-seaters which has led to a high level of intra-team progression.

“Being Liam’s teammate, he’s obviously shown himself in the Ginetta Juniors at that high level so he was always going to be a good person to be with, skill-wise, and there’s been a couple instances where I could be faster than him, but most of the time he’s a little bit faster than me, so there’s always stuff to learn off him. 

“By the end of testing, we’re always pretty much matching each other and that sort of stuff, so he’s really good as a teammate to help me push myself,” Smith explained.  

Sure to further the outfit’s upward progression, a healthy relationship between Smith, team owner Paul McNeilly – Liam’s father – and Fox Motorsport’s personnel shines through. 

“We’re both learning how it works, and how the car works, and how we have to work, and it’s honestly gone really well because we set a good foundation for the team because we both collectively really dug into it and want to learn…. He’s an amazing teammate and it helps me, like I say,” he said.

“Liam’s dad, Paul, he’s the team owner. I get comments sometimes like, ‘Is there favouritism in the team?’ but it’s not at all. The cars are identical. We work together, like I say, so the cars are identical, engines are identical, everything’s the same because Paul’s fair, he’s really supportive and he’s a really nice guy, so he helps us both to where we want to be.”

Closing the gap ahead

After Oulton Park, Cooper Webster and Colin Queen were the only two drivers able to stay within touching distance of championship leader Tom Mills in race conditions, but after McNeilly’s two podiums during round five, Smith feels Fox Motorsport is closing in on becoming a consistent front-running team.

“We’ve, on multiple occasions, shown we have that one-lap pace but it’s just they’re able to, especially Tom, with the experience he has the year before as well, they’re able to get that pace out of the car each lap and not drop off,” Smith explained.

“Obviously, Fortec and KMR have quite a lot of experience in the championship and the cars, so they have everything pretty much nailed, but obviously, [Mills, Webster and Queen are] very good drivers and you’re always aiming to be up there, as I say. But every round, we’re seeing that that gap comes down, and it’s not so much they’re the breakaway pack if you will. 

“It’s so much that they’re the leaders, and you’re always aiming for them, that gap coming down and down and down. Especially with the experience they have: Colin in the Formula Ford, which is pretty much like a GB4, obviously Tom with the year before, and Cooper, he’s done quite a lot of single-seater driving out in Australia, so they were always going to be the people to beat. So now we’re actually getting that gap down, it’s quite relieving for us that we’re actually starting to get closer,” he said.

“And, now into the last few rounds, we have all the data and have a perfect set-up for each track, so it should be all smooth sailing from here.”

High hopes for Brands Hatch

GB4 heads to Brands Hatch for the penultimate round of the season at the beginning of September. Importantly, Fox Motorsport has already tested at the venue before, which grants the team vital setup knowledge that can be difficult to come by due to the restrictions placed year-round on running at the Grand Prix circuit.

For a team yet to visit every circuit on the GB4 calendar in a competitive capacity, the importance of added testing cannot be understated. Poor weather during the team’s only pre-season visit to Snetterton left them unable to work on a setup best suited to dry running, in turn hurting their pace in the early stages of round four. However, Smith and McNeilly were without issues at Brands Hatch.

“The next round is Brands Hatch and Liam and I have always been pretty strong here on the GP circuit, so we’re hoping for good results in the top five from the both of us,” Smith said.

“We did a test day there before, and the car felt really good around there, so we’re hoping for the best, really. I think on the test day, we were both within top three pace so that’s obviously the aim for it, and I think it can be done, really, because we’re feeling strong. I’m feeling in touch with the car, and we’re training as hard as I can and stuff. So, yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.”

Ahead of the GB4 Championship’s final two rounds, Smith says he is “still hoping” for his maiden podium.

Editor’s note, 31 August 2023: A previous version of this article included a photo with a caption that incorrectly identified its subjects. This image has been replaced with a new photo and a correct caption.

Header photo credit: Artie C Photo