Hillspeed’s Dan Guinchard is the early leader of the 2025 GB4 Championship, following a strong weekend that netted a second place finish and two top-fives.
While three drivers claimed wins this weekend, Guinchard’s headline results weren’t quite at the same level as the drivers around him, but while Isaac Phelps, Ary Bansal and teammate Leandro Juncos all hit misfortune at one point or another, Guinchard’s experience and more importantly, strong race pace paid off at the season opener.
“I’m thrilled, honestly” he commented at the end of the weekend. “When the reverse grid race played out and I saw the results, I knew we’d done a really good job in keeping our nose clean and having no crashes. To come away with the championship lead is just fantastic news. Having been out of the seat of a race car for so long, I’m buzzing, honestly!
Guinchard entered the event with just two test days in the Tatuus MSV GB4-025 car, both at Donington, under his belt. He showed strong pace in those tests, topping three sessions at the media day a couple of weeks ago, and while he expected to be towards the sharp end, he didn’t predict he’d lead the standings after the first weekend.
“I knew we’d be towards the front and fast, but I probably didn’t think I’d be the championship leader.
“I thought we might have struggled a bit on longer runs but they actually ended up being our strong suit. So if we can work on our qualifying pace a little bit, we’ll be right up there and fighting for race wins. We got mighty close this weekend, so hopefully at Silverstone with a couple more days testing we’ll be right there.”
Guinchard reckons that consistency will be key in this year’s title battle, and predicts the Elite Motorsport trio of Phelps, Bansal and Alex Kattoulas will be amongst his main rivals for the remainder of the year.
“It’s going to be so important. I’m sure everyone will have wobbles and difficult weekends, and as long as we’re scoring the points every single race, and minimising any damage and things like that, we’ll be completely fine. We always want to be going out for the overall win, but we need to take points all the time.
“The Elite drivers have all been really fast, but we’re going to get closer, definitely. They’ve done a lot of test days so hopefully as we do a few more, and get more used to the car, we’ll be right with them.”
While confident for the next rounds at Silverstone, the full Grand Prix circuit layout will be a new experience for the former F4 racer.
“I’ve raced on the National Circuit, the little one, but I’ve done some testing on the GP. I really like it and I think it will suit our car as we’ve been good through the high speed stuff. I’m just really looking forward to it.”
