Sarah Moore

Sarah with the John Cooper Mini

Sarah Moore made history in 2009 by winning the Ginetta Junior championship outright. She was the under-17 series’s first female champion. She has since gone on to race saloons and sportscars in the UK and Europe.

She completed her first season of the Ginetta Junior series in 2008. She managed to finish in the top ten six times, with a best result of sixth. This followed a part-season in 2007, when she was fourteen. As well as full-size cars, Sarah also raced karts.

Her championship-winning season included five wins, making her the first female driver to secure victory in a TOCA-sanctioned race. She was awarded a BRDC Rising Star at the end of the year.

She returned to the series in 2010 for a final year, but did not manage another win. She was seventh overall. This year, she moved from her family’s team, Tockwith Motorsport, to Eurotech.

In 2011, after turning seventeen, she switched to single-seaters and raced in the Intersteps Formula, supported by Tockwith again. Her best finish was fourth, achieved twice at Silverstone, and she was sixth overall. Later, she described her foray into single-seaters as “difficult”.

She also did four races in the Smart 4Two championship, scoring two podium finishes. This was a new championship for the UK, based on the unlikely Brabus-prepared Smart micro-car.

She continued in the 4Two series in 2012, and scored a second at Spa and a two thirds at Snetterton. Her team-mate was her younger brother, David. They have another brother, Nigel, and all three pair up at various times.

A career hiatus followed. For a season, Sarah concentrated on her work as a driver coach, and only competed in karting. Even then, it was to help develop her student drivers.

In 2014, she was ready to race again. Alongside her brother Nigel, she travelled to Germany, to compete in the VLN, held on the legendary Nordschleife of the Nürburgring. She was racing in the Toyota GT86 Cup class. They won the class twice.

The pair aimed to return to the VLN in 2015, but it was not to be. Sarah kept her hand in by racing in kart enduros. She was the European ProKart Endurance Champion, with her team-mate Matthew Greenwood.

After another year spent mostly on the sidelines, Tockwith Motorsport entered Sarah into six rounds of the LMP3 Cup. She was driving a championship-standard Nissan-engined Ligier. If she had been able to complete the season, she would have been in line for a good position: she and co-driver Richard Dean were third at Donington and second at Spa.

As well as sampling prototype racing, Sarah continued to gain experience in different saloons. She entered five rounds of the UK Mini Challenge, all at Brands Hatch. She drove in both the Cooper Pro and JCW classes. Her best finish was fourth in the JCW car, in August.

Minis were a theme during her 2017 season. The intention had been for her to run a full season of the Mighty Mini championship. This was restricted to four rounds, but she won two of them.

The other cars she raced were a Smart ForFour, which she used for some rounds of the Britcar championship, and a Ginetta G50. The latter car she used in the BWRDC’s Ladies’ Handicap in November. She was the runaway winner on scratch, lapping almost all of the field twice. However, she was given a very low handicap, and was tenth in the final results.

In 2018 she drove a Ginetta in Britcar with Matt Greenwood. They won the Endurance championship in the Tockwith Motorsport G50.

2019 involved another season in Britcar and Sarah also tried to get back into single-seaters in the female-only W Series. Her season started well enough and she led during the first race at Hockenheim, but she could not get onto the podium and had a best finish of fifth, at Hockenheim and Zolder. She was eighth in the championship and will race again in 2020.

In mixed competition, she entered the Algarve round of the GT4 South European Series, driving a Ginetta G50 run by Tockwith. She and Moh Ritson were second in class in both races.

W Series was cancelled for 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis but Sarah picked up a drive in the UK Porsche Sprint Challenge. She raced at Donington and Croft, earning two fourth places and a sixth.

Her 2021 season was based around W Series, in which she finished fifth. She began the season well at the Red Bull Ring with a second place and was a fairly consistent top-ten finisher, apart from a mid-season dip in form. She was due for automatic inclusion in the 2022 championship and was picked for the Scuderia W team. 

In 2022, she was a consistent finisher in the lower half of the top ten in W Series. Her best result was seventh, achieved in Hungary and Singapore, and she was eleventh in the championship.

W Series folded at the start of 2023 so there was little competitive racing for Sarah that year. Late in the season, she was signed by the Bangalore Speedsters for the Indian Racing League, sharing the car with Kyle Kumaran. Sarah won the first race at Madras and was fourth and seventh in her other two races, leading the Speedsters to a championship win. Individually, she was fourth.

Moving away from competiton, she was announced as a driver coach for the More Than Equal female driver training programme.

(Image copyright Marc Waller)