Mitch Evans

Mitchell Evans (born 24 June 1994), is a motor racing driver from New Zealand who won the 2012 GP3 Series and has last contestied the 2015 GP2 Series season with RT Russian Time. He previously won the 2010 and 2011 Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand and was runner up in the 2010 Australian Drivers' Championship despite missing three races. When he won the New Zealand Grand Prix in February 2011, it is believed he became the youngest driver to win an international grand prix anywhere in the world at only 16.

Career

Early career

Born in Auckland, Evans was a champion karter in both restricted 100cc karts, and also won the CIK Trophy of New Zealand at JICA level. He moved to Formula First for the 2007 season, competing in three races of the Winter Series at Manfeild Autocourse, and ending the season eighteenth in the championship. He contested the full New Zealand championship in 2007–08, finishing ninth overall and recording a fastest lap.

Formula Ford

He returned to Manfield for the 2008 Winter Series, but in Formula Ford, winning seven of 12 races he contested to take the championship. In his national Formula Ford campaign in 2008–09, Evans battled with Tauranga's Richie Stanaway who came out on top by just over 100 points. Evans won six races during the season, including doubles at Taupo and Manfeild.

For 2009, Evans moved to the Australian Formula Ford Championship, and competed in the Victorian state championship. Evans was runner-up in the standings, losing out to CAMS Rising Star Luke Ellery in the state championship, and in the national championship to his team-mate at Sonic Motor Racing Services, Nick Percat. During the season, Evans became the youngest round winner in the championship's history, when he won at Sandown Raceway in August. As well as that win, he won five other races including a weekend sweep at Queensland Raceway, and a double win at Surfers Paradise.

Formula Three

File:Dallara F307 of Mitch Evans.jpg

Evans at the fourth round of the 2010 Australian Drivers' Championship at Mallala.

Evans was drafted in by Australian Formula 3 entrant Team BRM to compete for them at the final round of the season, at Sandown. BRM acquired Evans' services to help with Joey Foster's championship bid. Evans was quickly on the pace, setting the fastest time in the official practice session, and third in qualifying. In the first race, he ended up fourth overall and third in the Gold Star class, edging out Kristian Lindbom by just over a tenth of a second. However, in the second race, Evans led home his team-mate Foster to become the youngest winner of the Formula 3 Superprix, but Foster won the Australian Drivers' Championship.

For the 2010 season, Evans raced in New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series with the Giles Motorsport team. At the first round, Evans took pole position and won the race, a feat that had not been achieved since Brendon Hartley made his debut in the 2005 Toyota Racing Series. He added a second win at Timaru, and won the first contemporary formulae race at the new Hampton Downs Motorsport Park. He claimed the title at Taupo by three points, holding off New Zealander Earl Bamber who won all three races at the circuit.

Evans returned to Australian Formula 3 for the 2010 Australian Drivers' Championship, and won the first three races of the season at Wakefield Park. He skipped the second round at Symmons Plains to test a Formula Abarth car at Misano in Italy. But quickly resumed winning at Phillip Island.

GP3

2011

Evans was signed to race in the 2011 GP3 Series in Europe by the MW Arden team which is co-owned by Christian Horner (principal of F1's Red Bull Racing), and Red Bull driver Mark Webber (Evans' manager). The series features identical new design Dallara-Renaults, and is considered to be the feeder to GP2 and then F1.

Evans won the feature race at Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, having finishing sixth and seventh in the first two races at the first round which was staged at Istanbul Park in Turkey . He then went into the Valencia Grand Prix in third place in the championship, and emerged leading the championship after a third in the feature and fourth in the sprint. He held a four-point lead over second placed Nigel Melker for the GP3 drivers' championship and MW Arden was leading the constructors championship too.

However, his performance dropped off for the rest of the season, and he only achieved another point scoring round when eighth in the feature race of the final round of the championship in Italy. He eventually finished ninth in the championship with 29 points.

2012

Retained by MW Arden for the 2012 GP3 Season, Evans began with a win in the feature race at the opening round of the championship in Spain. He also had wins at Valencia in Spain and on the Hockenheimring in Germany, and a second and two thirds. He took his fourth pole position of the season at the final venue, Monza in Italy, but did not complete the feature race, requiring him to start from the back of the grid in race two. Evans worked his way through the field to seventh, but a puncture effectively ended his race, and the points for the fastest lap he recorded could not be claimed because he finished outside the top 10. Daniel Abt of Germany finished second in the race and was runner up to Evans in the championship by only two points.

Mark Webber told the media he was very proud of his protege, and he predicted Evans would move to GP2 in 2013. "There are a lot of good drivers in it (GP3),” he said, “yet it was Mitch who had the most poles and the most wins of anyone. He's learning all the time and I look forward to him moving up to another category next year and showing everyone what an exceptional talent he is."

GP2

2013

Webber's prediction was correct because Evans moved up to GP2 with Arden as teammate to the very experienced Johnny Cecotto Jr. In the first racing weekend of the season, at Sepang in Malaysia where he had never raced before, Evans was suffering from food poisoning and had handling problems in the first race. But he finished third in the second race and at 18 years of age, and still a rookie, he became the youngest GP2 driver to stand on the podium.

2014

For the 2014 season Evans moved to the Russian Time team alongside Artem Markelov. He took his maiden victory at Silverstone and then a second at Hockenheim, in what was GP2's 200th race. Four extra podium appearances saw him finish fourth in the standings on 174 points.

2015

Evans will remain with Russian Time for the 2015 season. Markelov will once again be his teammate.

2016

For the 2016 season Evans will switch to Campos, alongside Sean Gelael.

Racing record

Career summary

Season	Series	Team	Races	Wins	Poles	F. Laps	Podiums	Points	Position
2007	Formula First Manfeild Winter Series		3	0	0	0	0	105	18th
2007–08	NZ Formula First Championship	Sabre	18	0	0	1	0	707	9th
2008	Formula Ford Manfeild Winter Series	Sabre	12	7	2	9	10	813	1st
2008–09	New Zealand Formula Ford Championship		21	6	3	5	13	1111	2nd
2009	Australian Drivers' Championship – Gold Star	Team BRM	2	1	0	0	2	32	5th
	Australian Formula Ford Championship	Sonic Motor Racing Services	23	6	3	6	15	297	2nd
	VSCRC Formula Ford Fiesta Series		2	1	?	?	1	176	2nd
2010	Toyota Racing Series	Giles Motorsport	15	3	8	5	10	915	1st
	Australian Drivers' Championship	Team BRM	17	8	4	4	16	219	2nd
2011	Toyota Racing Series	Giles Motorsport	15	7	6	5	14	973	1st
	GP3 Series	MW Arden	16	1	2	0	2	29	9th
	British Formula 3	Double R Racing	3	0	0	0	0	10	20th
2012	Toyota Racing Series	Giles Motorsport	6	2	4	2	4	284	19th
	GP3 Series	MW Arden	16	3	4	3	6	151.5	1st
2013	Toyota Racing Series	Giles Motorsport	3	2	2	1	2	204	18th
	GP2 Series	Arden International	22	0	0	0	4	56	14th
2014	GP2 Series	RT Russian Time	22	2	0	1	6	174	4th
2014–15	V8SuperTourers Championship	Team 4	3	0	0	1	2	245	28th
2015	GP2 Series	Russian Time	22	2	0	3	7	135	5th

Complete GP3 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	D.C.	Points
2011	MW Arden	TUR FEA 6	TUR SPR 7	ESP FEA 1	ESP SPR 5	VAL FEA 3	VAL SPR 4	GBR FEA 9	GBR SPR Ret	GER FEA 19	GER SPR 22	HUN FEA Ret	HUN SPR 24†	BEL FEA 11	BEL SPR Ret	ITA FEA 8	ITA SPR Ret	9th	29
2012	MW Arden	ESP FEA 1	ESP SPR 20	MON FEA 5	MON SPR 4	VAL FEA 1	VAL SPR 6	GBR FEA 2	GBR SPR 11	GER FEA 8	GER SPR 1	HUN FEA 3	HUN SPR 21	BEL FEA 3	BEL SPR 15	ITA FEA Ret	ITA SPR 20	1st	151.5

† Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

Complete GP2 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	DC	Points
2013	Arden International	MYS FEA 10	MYS SPR 3	BHR FEA Ret	BHR SPR 15	ESP FEA 12	ESP SPR 13	MON FEA 3	MON SPR 3	GBR FEA 19	GBR SPR 14	GER FEA 16	GER SPR 7	HUN FEA 7	HUN SPR 2	BEL FEA 11	BEL SPR 10	ITA FEA Ret	ITA SPR 15	SGP FEA 11	SGP SPR 15	ABU FEA Ret	ABU SPR 14	14th	56
2014	RT Russian Time	BHR FEA 14	BHR SPR 7	ESP FEA 14	ESP SPR 20†	MON FEA 2	MON SPR 6	AUT FEA 7	AUT SPR 4	GBR FEA 1	GBR SPR 7	GER FEA 1	GER SPR 11	HUN FEA 12	HUN SPR 9	BEL FEA 5	BEL SPR 4	ITA FEA 3	ITA SPR 20†	RUS FEA 2	RUS SPR 4	ABU FEA 3	ABU SPR 5	4th	174
2015	Russian Time	BHR FEA 6	BHR SPR 17	ESP FEA 2	ESP SPR DNS	MON FEA Ret	MON SPR DNS	AUT FEA 10	AUT SPR 5	GBR FEA Ret	GBR SPR 20	HUN FEA 17	HUN SPR 22	BEL FEA 5	BEL SPR 3	ITA FEA 3	ITA SPR 1	RUS FEA 11	RUS SPR 8	BHR FEA 3	BHR SPR 1	ABU FEA 3	ABU SPR C	5th	135

^† Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2015	Jota Sport	Simon Dolan Oliver Turvey	Gibson 015S-Nissan	LMP2	358	10th	2nd

Personal

Evans attended Saint Kentigern College in Pakuranga, Auckland, but left at the end of 2010 to pursue his career overseas. Evans' career has been backed financially by entrepreneur Colin Giltrap, who helped establish careers for fellow New Zealand racing drivers Scott Dixon, Chris van der Drift and Brendon Hartley.

External links

• Official website
• Mitch Evans career summary at DriverDB.com

Sporting positions
Preceded by Mitch Cunningham	Toyota Racing Series Champion 2010–2011	Succeeded by Nick Cassidy
Preceded by Earl Bamber	New Zealand Grand Prix Winner 2011	Succeeded by Nick Cassidy
Preceded by Valtteri Bottas	GP3 Series Champion 2012	Succeeded by Daniil Kvyat