Feature

Family ties and homegrown heroes: Jessica Edgar’s Racing Idols

10 June 2024

Motorsport has always been a part of Jessica Edgar’s life, even before she first drove a bambino kart aged four. With racing in her blood, it’s no wonder that the American Express driver’s biggest inspiration is found closer to home.

Reflecting on those she’s admired on her road to F1 ACADEMY, Edgar’s picks couldn’t be timelier. What a weekend it has been for three of them with history being made in Indy NXT, whilst two British F1 stars battled it out in hope of victory at the Canadian Grand Prix.

JONNY EDGAR

“My first racing idols is my cousin Jonny. He’s a year older than me, so we grew up karting together. When he moved on to F4 and F3, I’ve watched him the whole way through his career, so that’s why I look up to him.

“I didn’t actually race against him because he was a year older than me, so he was always in the class above. Then he did the British Championships and cadets when I just did club meetings. Then when I moved on to do the British Championships, he’d moved on to F4 and F3. We go out in KZ karts together sometimes. We’re not allowed to race just in case we crash into each other!

“I think most tracks that I went to last year and this year, he’d raced on pretty much all of them and having done F4, he knows different things about the tracks like what to watch out for or to do this because it’s better. He gives some good advice.

Alongside her cousin Jonny, Edgar is part of the fourth generation of her family to get involved with racing

“It’s nice having him to look up to because being family, there’s nothing he thinks ‘oh I can’t give that away’. He can tell me whatever — what’s good and what’s bad. He’s not competition to me, so he can tell me everything and it doesn’t really matter. I would like to race against him, but then I would feel bad if maybe I crashed into him or something.”

JAMIE CHADWICK

“Jamie Chadwick is another racing idol. I think she’s really good and she’s made a big step for women in motorsport. She did well in W Series and now she’s doing Indy NXT and doing quite well in that.

“She was one of the women we all looked at and thought she might get into F1 one day, so I think it’s nice to see that there is a woman who’s doing really well that we can look to and hope that we can be one day.

“It’s really good to look up to someone (like her). She did karting as well and went through into W Series and I’ve gone through karting into F1 ACADEMY, so it’s a similar route. Hopefully, I can move on to better things like what she’s doing now.”

Edgar is still searching for her first podium of the season, with a best finish of P4 in Jeddah Race 2

GEORGE RUSSELL & LANDO NORRIS

“Both George and Lando — I think with both being British, they grew up in karting. When my dad raced, they were both little babies, so they were in the paddock as babies when my dad was competing. I look up to them, they’ve come through karting and made it to F1.

“They’ve achieved a lot from karting into cars in quite a short space of time. I think both of them are very good drivers, and it’s nice to look up and see that it’s possible to go from karting to F1 in that time.

“Both of them race well, qualify well and are just all around good at driving. It’s fun to watch and cheer them on when they’re racing being British as well. It’s nice to see someone else from England that did karting on the tracks that I raced on in F1.”