Recently, TrackDays caught up with Matthew Parry, who is one of British motorsport’s most exciting young racing drivers. Suffolk-born Matt has a stellar racing record, despite being just 22 years of age, and has achieved a whole host of accolades in his career to date. This has included winning the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 2013, which has previously been won by a whole host of world-famous British Formula One drivers, including the British Formula One World Champion Jenson Button. Another of Matt’s awards has even included the Young Welsh Sportsman of the Year prize, where he followed a particularly famous face in this achievement.
After working his way up the motorsport ladder, Matt managed to reach the heights of the internationally-renowned GP3 championship in his single-seater motorsport career, which is a real accomplishment for any racing driver. In 2017, Matt swapped single-seater racing cars for GT3 endurance sportscar driving, and has recently started an exciting new chapter in his career by competing in the renowned Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup with the RJN Motorsport team.
In the interview with this British motorsport’s rising stars, Matt gave us a great overview of his progression through the motorsport ranks. Matt’s journey started competitively with karting at the relatively late age of 10, after an unusual stint in motocross as a child. Matt’s career then followed the traditional single-seater route of club and national karting, before he moved across to the popular Formula Renault category. Following this, Matt spent a fascinating two seasons in the Formula One support category GP3 in 2015 and 2016. In those two years, Matt raced during the same race weekends as Formula One stars including Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, on world-famous tracks including Silverstone, Spa-Francochamps, Monza, and even Sepang in Malaysia, and banged wheels with the likes of current Force India Formula One driver Esteban Ocon.
In the interview, Matt also explains about his favourite car which he has driven in his motorsport career to date, and his favourite feature of this particular racing car, and managed to give us a great level of insight into what it’s like to drive at the very highest levels of competitive motorsport against top-level competitors. Matt also gave us some excellent driving tips for readers who are involved in more competitive forms of driving such as karting or club racing, which you can read in the full interview. One particular highlight included Matt’s explanation of what it is like to drive around his one of his favourite circuits in the UK at high speed. However, Matt also provided some incredibly useful some words of wisdom for the more casual trackday enthusiast. And of course, Matt’s advice is particularly useful for anyone who is thinking of taking part in a driving experience day, as his top-level racing advice will really help you to make the most of your driving experience. You can read the full interview with Matt Parry here.
