Newly announced for a racing refurn after a year long hiatus from single seaters, 2025 GB4 contender and former Mercedes junior driver Daniel Guinchard caught up with thelaidbackraceblog to discuss his return, what’s kept him busy, and what could happen next for him in this year.
How did you get into racing?
My dad and my grandad raced years and years ago, my grandad was a Stock Car driver and my dad raced mini Stocks and single seaters so he got to Formula 3000 which was the equivalent of Formula 2 back in the day. I wasn’t that interested in racing when I was younger and when I was about 9 I wanted a car for Christmas, then that happened and then the rest is history.
How easy was the decision to come back after having a year out?
To be fair pretty easy, because all I have been thinking about is getting back in the seat, it's all I’ve been working towards for the last year.
The last time I was out in a car was with Hillspeed in a GB3 car for media day, so I did all the media stuff for them last year around March and since then I’ve just done a bit of karting just to stay sharp, but since then I’ve just wanted to get back into it. It’s been really difficult and then it was nice to have a little surprise before Christmas with that being announced, I literally found out two days before so it was a surprise for me as they said they wanted to announce it straight away I was like that’s mad, I never thought I’d be in that position. It was the best Christmas present I’ve gotten, definitely.
What are you most looking forward to this season?
I’m looking forward to getting back into the seat, I actually saw some people at the track today that were engineers for other teams and they were like you’re the championship favourite, I was like what already so it’s a lot to live up to but hopefully I can live up to the expectations.
What is the aim for this year?
To win it, that’s definitely the aim. I think it’s definitely possible, I’ve got an amazing team around me like the Hillspeed lot, they’ve helped me out massively to get in the car last year doing a few bits in GB3 with them.
📸 Daniel with Hillspeed during a media day.
Richard the team owner is a great guy and they deserve to have some really strong results, they did really well in GB4 a couple of years ago where they finished as championship contenders in P2 and P3, so it will be nice to give back to them because I know they are going to work hard and obviously they’ve got a good opportunity with someone who has a bit of experience now and just go from there. Definitely to win it but take it step by step, got to do a test day first.
What circuit are you most looking forward to racing at this season?
I am most looking forward to Oulton Park because I won in British F4 there a few years ago when I was still part of the Mercedes banner. That was my first car win so that was quite cool and that’s like a proper drivers track, it’s one of my favourites definitely.
📸 Celebrations at Oulton Park.
Raced at Snetterton which I’m not a fan of but Oulton Park definitely because it brings nice memories back from a few years ago where I know I can be a good driver there, I did GB3 testing there and was in the top 4 top 5 so that was quite good.
You were a former Mercedes Junior, what was that like?
📸 Daniel displays his Mercedes branding during his time in their academy.
Strange, again that all happened very quickly after I did my karting. I had quite a successful karting career the last year I did it in 2021. I actually got a text message from James Vowles, I didn’t have his number or anything and he said “hi I’m James Vowles we’d like you to join the program”, and I was like “what did you just say to me?”, so that was like mad and that happened in like October 2021.
That all got announced sort of quickly and then I got announced to do F4 and that all rolled pretty quickly. It was good but it was a lot of pressure because I was the same age as Antonelli so that year was pretty much basically him or me, unfortunately I didn’t get enough testing and I’d just come out of karting whereas his dad owned a Formula 4 team. It was a shame I didn’t get the running and I wasn’t in Italian F4, I only did British but the year I did it was really hard, you had people like Alex Dunne, all these great people who have done a lot of laps even Ugo who was a rookie but wasn’t a rookie he did like 150 days of testing, so the levels are crazy but I really enjoyed it, it was a nice experience.
📸 Alex Dunne.
I live near Brackley so I was there quite a lot and there’s a good picture of me and Toto in a boardroom together so that was quite cool, but it was a year full of experiences and was quite difficult at the end of it but that’s all part of racing, you just have to move on and pick yourself up and go from there.
Who inspired you to get into racing?
It’s hard to say, I was always a big Schumacher fan. Obviously he was a bit before my time but watching old races back he was the man, him, Senna, even people like Mansell because he came from a similar background to me where he didn’t have a lot of money but when he got the opportunities he really managed to grab hold of them and make something out of it, and obviously became World Champion and the rest is history.
I was always a fan of the underdogs, so even Lewis, I started at the same track as Lewis so seeing him grow up through the Mclaren, Mercedes programs when he was younger that inspired me to sort of keep building up and keep looking up to them.
📸 Certainly someone to admire!
Are there any drivers you are looking forward to racing against this year?
I’m not really sure who is doing it. I know Luke Hilton is doing it and me and him were actually teammates in karting in 2015, so a long time ago.
He stopped racing for a bit and came back either last year or the year before to do Radicals so I think it will be nice to race against him again. It brings back nice memories for me and I know he’s going to be really fast and he’s a really good driver, so he’ll definitely be up there and a contender as well. I think he's definitely the one that I’m going to be looking forward to the most.
What is your favourite or best achievement you have had while racing?
Probably the whole of 2021, that year was like a fairytale year for karting. We broke so many records, I think every championship and one off race we won, which was mad as we won two British Championships, Car Masters, we won the World Championship the year before in the December. It was like nothing could possibly go wrong, the results just kept rolling in and again I had a really good team around me and really good people and obviously it all just clicks, so that year was a fairytale.
📸 Karting in 2024.
Unfortunately due to budget cuts you had to take a step back, do you think this has affected you in any way negatively or positively?
It all first started when I got dropped from Mercedes and that was all very last minute, that was like everything was fine then did the last round of F4 and got a good result with podiums on the last round of the GP, everything was fine then a few weeks later it was literally one phone call and it was done.
It was like Red Bull where they cut drivers straight away. It was like one Zoom call and it was done so that was difficult, it left us trying to find some money to put together for a seat and another season in F4. So I did some testing with Virtuosi and that was really good, we were quicker than Louis Sharp at the time, there was some real good glimpses of good results if we had the right people around us and the right equipment, then for 2023 I ended up racing for Chris Dittmann Racing because he could offer us the best deal and honestly it was just all budget related and unfortunately when its budget related you can’t do it properly and we got half way through the season.
I got the team’s first podium in the series and multiple podiums close to race wins but half way through the season we just pretty much ran out of money and couldn’t find any sponsors. It was a hard time definitely because, when it happened I went on holiday straight after so I was sort of okay but it was always in the back of my mind, but when I came back from holiday a couple of weeks later that I was like what am I going to do and literally had like 6 months of no driving, maybe one day in karting, until I tested with Elite for GB3, but that was strange for me as I’ve done it my whole life, it was so full on even the karting was 4 days a week every week.
It was definitely a difficult time but I think I grew a lot as a person, matured a lot through that time and sort of became more grateful for the opportunities that I get presented to me, even like my Driver Coaching business, it was a great opportunity that came up and the GB4 call, it’s an opportunity I’m grabbing with both hands and doing everything I can to try and sort of prove to everyone that even though I’ve been out for a while I can still provide results for a team.
Has it motivated you to return?
Yeah definitely, the goal was to get back into either single seater or GT this year. Whatever way that would be and yeah when Richard from Hillspeed rang me up and said do you want to do GB4 and possibly some GB3 races like Hungary, I was like yes I’m definitely up for that you know just get myself back in the seat and see how we get on.
📸 Could we see Daniel in Hungary this year?
Do you have any other hobbies outside of racing, and if so how do you manage them?
To be fair not really, racing has been my life for a long time and even when I stopped racing and did a little bit of karting that’s when the coaching started, so it’s all been within motorsport. I work with my dad most of the time so that’s nice to be part of the family business but that's not really a hobby it’s more of a job.
I’d say pretty much anything to do with motorsport or cars is a massive part of me so to actually be doing the racing myself and not coaching kids to do it is nice.
📸 Image credits: Daniel Guinchard, RoKit British F4, Chris Dittmann Racing, Sky Sports, GB3 Championship.
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