COUNTY Antrim’s Brandon McCaughan believes he has boosted the prospect of him securing a drive next season after impressing during a recent test with the Virage Group at Mugello in northern Italy.
Within hours of announcing his departure from the British GB4 Championship on social media due to a lack of funding, the 19-year-old was contacted by the Spanish squad and invited along to sample one of their Ligier JSP4 cars.
McCaughan – in front of Virage Group’s co-owner and former LMP3 champion Julien Gerbi – set a consistent pace and recorded increasingly quick lap times around the famous 3.27-mile circuit.
Discussions took place after the test, and with McCaughan getting the opportunity to demonstrate his potential first time out in the V6-powered car, he reckons the signs are all positive for 2025.
“It was a great opportunity to make my first step towards a career in sports car racing, especially with Team Virage who are the reigning champions in the Ligier European Series,” said McCaughan.
“I completed 240 kilometres of running on the day and was on a competitive pace right from the start; I was pleased to see that I was getting faster and more consistent throughout the day. The team were impressed as well, so it increases my chances of securing a drive for next year,” he added.
McCaughan has been forced to call time on 2024 despite working his way into GB4 Championship title contention in his debut season. He secured his place on the grid, and a seat with KMR Sport, after netting £20,000 by winning last November’s lucrative GB4 Shootout Challenge.
A GoFundMe page was setup to keep his dream alive but ultimately he ran out of time to book his place at last weekend’s meeting at Snetterton meaning he had to revisit the drawing board.
On the prospect of working with McCaughan moving forward, Gerbi said: “At the moment, due to his age and experience, I would be telling Brandon to look towards the Ligier European Series.” We would definitely be keen to work with him on this program in future. The test I must say went well. Brandon showed great maturity right from the beginning despite being quite young and inexperienced with prototype cars. He was quick straight out of the box and got quicker after we made time to sit down and talk to Brandon to help him adapt his driving style to suit the track.
“Mugello is a very technical and challenging one and having to change the way you do things when behind the wheel of the Ligier JSP4 added to that challenge, but over the day Brandon showed that he has the potential to keep improving and perform well in this category,” added Gerbi.