Katie Milner

Katie Milner won the Junior Saloon Car Championship in 2016. She now races Ginettas.

She first raced in the Junior Saloon Car Championship in 2015, driving a Citroen Saxo. This was her first season of circuit racing full-stop. She was ninth in the championship. Her best finish was fourth, at Croft, and she had two other top-five positions at Croft and Oulton Park.

Prior to her season in the JSCC, she was a successful autograss racer for four seasons between 2012 and 2015, with five junior titles. Autograss takes place on a short, oval grass track. Other saloon racers including Alice Hughes have used it as a training ground. Her first JSCC campaign overlapped with her last autograss title.

She also tried out the Ginetta Junior series at Brands Hatch during the 2015-2016 off-season. This was a challenge for her and she only had a highest finish of eleventh.

In 2016, she raced in the JSCC for a final season before she turned seventeen. The disappointments of the Ginetta winter series were forgotten. It was a dramatic year; she was one of the leading drivers, with seven wins, but her championship title was only awarded after appeals. She was excluded for technical reasons at Knockhill, but was reinstated, and crowned the winner.

In 2017, she raced in the Ginetta GT5 Championship, as a senior. It was a somewhat inconsistent season, but she managed two fourth places and one fifth at Rockingham.

At the end of the season, she won the BWRDC Ladies' Race at the Walter Hayes Trophy on handicap, having finished second on scratch to Sarah Moore in another Ginetta.

She was ninth overall in her second season of GT5 racing. driving the same car. Her best finish was a fifth place at Thruxton.

Most of 2019 was spent in the Ginetta, in the same championship. Her season looked to be a more consistent one at the start, but the big grids and competitive nature of the series meant that she got caught up in several bumps not of her making, dropping her down the order. Her best finish was a fifth place again, this time at Snetterton, and she scored two pole positions at Thruxton.

Mid-season, she teamed up with Alice Hughes for the Citroen C1 Challenge, racing as Team Merlin International supported by Motorsport Woman. The two Yorkshire women finished second in their first three-hour race at Croft, leading the race at one point. They were joined by Jem Hepworth and Sami Bowler for the C1 24 Hours at Silverstone, running as Team Motorsport Woman, and finished fifth.

Katie was due to contest the British GT championship as an official driver for McLaren in 2020, but coronavirus meant that the programme was shelved. She raced in 2021, having been retained as a McLaren development driver. Her partner for the Rocket RJN 570S was Harry Hayek of Australia. 

It was a challenging year for both drivers. Katie was not on terms with the leading GT4 cars and had a best finish of fourth in class at Snetterton. Her finishing record was good and she faced some obstacles from other cars, but the Milner/Hayek pair was not as quick as the other McLaren development team and she may not be retained by the team for 2022.

In addition to British GTs, she raced in the USA for the first time in 2021, finishing sixth in a guest appearance at Circuit of the Americas, the sixth round of the Pure McLaren GT Series.

Katie is the daughter of rally driver Johnny Milner.

(Image copyright LAT)