Nothing ever stays the same for long in motorsport. Every few years manufacturers introduce new models, promoters tweak their class structures or race formats to combat fluctuating grids and teams change brands to seek a competitive edge.
As drivers come and go, seeking new challenges in different series and fresh overalls, it is vanishingly rare to see partnerships last more than a couple of seasons.
That alone makes Andrew Howard, a loyal supporter of Pro-Am racing who has competed successfully in Prodrive-run Aston Martins entered under the Beechdean Motorsport banner since 2009, something of a throwback. Although the Englishman has raced Mercedes-AMG and McLaren offerings too, those were one-offs arranged by teams needing a Bronze at short notice.
“I have absolute trust in the Prodrive guys, it never occurs to me to question the safety of my car,” he tells Sportscar365. “You’ve got to have a team around you that you trust. There are people at Prodrive, both on the race team and from an office point of view, who I’ve worked with for nigh on 15 years. They have a winning mentality and are always consummate professionals.”
From starting out in Mini Miglias on the UK club motorsport scene, Howard has seen it all in his decorated racing career.
The first driver to win two British GT championships in the GT3 era in 2015, he added the European Le Mans Series GTE title in 2016 and finished second in Pro-Am at last year’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, 12 years after Stefan Mucke qualified their Pro-Am entry on outright pole. The managing director and co-founder of Beechdean, today the third largest ice cream manufacturer in the United Kingdom, can rightly be regarded as the archetypal Am driver.
As a member of both the FIA’s driver committee and its driver grading sub-committee, Howard has his finger on the pulse and is better placed than most to pass judgement on the relative health of Pro-Am racing.
In light of this, his carefully-chosen words confirming that he will step away from full-time racing at the end of the season are especially interesting.