Since 2016, the Garage 59 GT team has grown rapidly and, this season, the squad is about to embark on a mammoth programme including running a duo of cars in British GT, the GT World Challenge Europe with three entries and a further pair in the Sprint Cup.
The relatively new team is headed up by three men with racing at their heart: Alexander West, Chris Goodwin and the latest incumbent of the readers’ question-and-answer hot seat, Andrew Kirkaldy.
Kirkaldy, 47, was one of the rising stars of the British junior single-seater scene in the late 1990s. From his background in karting, he shone in Formula Vauxhall Junior and Formula Vauxhall, and his potential was recognised when he won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year accolade in 1997.
He progressed to Formula 3 with Paul Stewart Racing, but politics in the background eventually knocked him off the single-seater pathway. After dabbling in the Renault UK Clio Cup – which he remembers fondly – he went on to find a happy home in GT racing and would go on to claim the British title alongside Nathan Kinch in 2005.
All the while, Kirkaldy had been forging a reputation as a team patron by running his own Formula Renault team, which latterly morphed into a British GT squad in its own right.
After an eight-year stint heading up McLaren’s GT programmes, Kirkaldy struck out on his own again five years ago with the Garage 59 programme. So busy is it that he rarely finds time to enjoy his rallying passion, something that is very close to his roots.
We are grateful for his time in tackling the Motorsport News readers’ posers, and thanks to all those who got in touch.
Question: What prompted your interest in motorsport to start with? Was it something in your family?
James Hilton Via email Andrew Kirkaldy: “Yes, it certainly was in my family. When I was born, my dad, John, was already building rally cars. He built cars for a guy called Donald Heggie. Dad put together a Ford Escort Mk2 for him, then an Escort G3 and eventually an Audi Quattro A2 Group B car. I was around and interested in all of that and actually, on a couple of occasions, I was picked up from school in a Gp B Audi: how cool is that?
“My father also did a bit of karting – not overly successful, but he tried! And following on from that, he got a kart for my brother Alan and myself. Alan did a bit, but not too much, and then he kind of stopped and went off to do other things within motorsport. He did stockcars, went back to karting for a bit and then he went and did more rallying. Now his son is karting too…
“I was 10 when I started karting, which was relatively late, but I carried on. It wasn’t overly late, but it is crazy when
