Had things gone as Callum Ilott had anticipated over the long IndyCar off-season – a full eight grand prix weekends have been held since he navigated September’s Laguna Seca season finale crashfest to finish an equal-best fifth – then he’d be preparing for a third full-season in top-flight US open-wheel racing. But as the Cambridge native put it on the Autosport International show’s main stage last month, “circumstances changed as they sometimes do in life”. The 25-year-old duly found himself facing the exit door at Juncos Hollinger Racing, the team he’d joined for the final three races of a 2021 season that overlapped with his final year on Ferrari’s books.
Fortunately for Ilott, while the door to a Formula 1 race seat had remained firmly closed, he’d not spent 2021 entirely kicking his heels as Alfa Romeo’s underused reserve. A season in the Pro class of the GT World
