Meet The Grand Tour's New Driver, British GT Racer Abbie Eaton
The Grand Tour sacked ‘The American’ after his first season with the show and began looking for a new driver to handle the lapping duties for the second season.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond each had their own suggestion for the new driver. Clarkson suggested former Red Bull F1 driver and Porsche factory driver Mark Webber, who (jokingly) showed a huge bias toward Porsche vehicles. That put him out of the running and made way for Hammond’s suggestion: a stuntman who crashed two vehicles and was promptly asked to leave the set. Then May came along with a car thief who he wanted to give a second lease on life. Not surprisingly, he stole the car they had asked him to lap around the so-called ‘Eboladrome’.
SEE ALSO: Clarkson takes on NYC Traffic in a Ford GT in Latest Grand Tour Trailer
Now the guys have settled on a racing driver they all support: British driver Abbie Eaton. The 25-year old Yorkshire native got her start in the Citroen Saxo Saxmax series before moving on to the Production Touring Car Championship, MX-5 Championship and MX-5 Supercup. This year she became the first female to win a Blancpain GT race after winning the Am class in an AF Corse-backed Ferrari 488 GT3. She has also participated in British GT in the GT4 class. In short, she’s a fast, well-rounded racing driver who will be able to wheel anything around TGT’s plucky little racetrack.
You can learn more about Eaton in the video embedded above.
Sam McEachern holds a diploma in journalism from St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, and has been covering the automotive industry for over 5 years. He conducts reviews and writes AutoGuide's news content. He's a die-hard motorsports fan with a passion for performance cars of all sorts.
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Anyone other than Ben Collins was the wrong choice. I'm already starting to see too much Amazon in the show instead of their own natural selves. My prediction is 2.5 more seasons left.