ABOUT US

Garage 59 is a multiple championship-winning British motor racing team, launched in 2016 and now owned by Alexander West, Andrew Kirkaldy and Chris Goodwin.

Specialists in running McLaren, Ferrari and Aston Martin race cars, the team's Technical Centre is located in Brackley, in the heart of the UK's 'Motorsport Valley'.

Championship winners

Garage 59 has taken multiple championship victories in recent years.

The first championship title came in 2016, when Garage 59 seized the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup for Drivers with Shane Van Gisbergen, Rob Bell and Côme Ledogar in the McLaren 650S GT3.

In 2020, Alexander West and Chris Goodwin took the GT World Challenge Pro-Am Endurance Drivers' title in the #188 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 while the team also took the Pro-Am title.

Miguel Ramos and Dean Macdonald won the 2022 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Pro-Am Championship in the #188 Garage 59 McLaren. Ramos then went on to be crowned overall 2022 Fanatec GT World Challenge Pro-Am Driver’s Champion after competing in both the Sprint Cup and Endurance Cup.

In 2023, Garage 59 ran a McLaren 720S GT3 Evo for Sky Tempesta Racing, delivering a breakthrough title at Barcelona when the team took the Bronze Cup Endurance crown.

McLaren 720S GT3

At the close of the 2021 season, the team took delivery of two new McLaren 720S GT3s, ready to race the following year in the Asian Le Mans Series and GT World Challenge Europe. The return to McLaren was a great success, with the results getting better and better throughout the season as the team got to grips with the new car.

The first podium came at Abu Dhabi in the Asian Le Mans Series and the first win came at Magny Cours in the fourth round of GT World Challenge Europe. By the end of the year, Miguel Ramos’ lead in the Pro-Am Driver’s Championship was unbeatable and he sealed the title in Barcelona.

Le Mans

Garage 59’s weapon of choice for its first attempt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans was the Ferrari 488 GTE. Alexander West, Côme Ledogar and Marvin Klein took the wheel for the toughest race of them all and for 13 hours the drivers made no mistakes, the strategy was perfect, the team serviced the car with flawless pit stops and the Ferrari ran like clockwork.

As the race entered its 14th hour, the car suffered a broken driveshaft, just as it reached the Mulsanne Straight and that was the end of that.

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois...

New challenges

The team took a hard-earned class podium at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2020. Running the Aston Martin Vantage GT8R, West and Goodwin were joined by Aston Martin factory drivers, Darren Turner and Jonny Adam, and the four men drove a faultless race to take third place in the SP8T class at one of the world’s toughest endurance races.

In 2021, Garage 59 entered the Asian Le Mans Series for the first time and also launched an assault on the full GT world Challenge Europe season, competing in both the endurance and sprint events. The highlights of the endurance season were a Pro-Am win at Monza for Alexander West, Chris Goodwin and Jonny Adam, and an outright podium and a silver cup class podium at the Spa 24 Hours.

In the Sprint Cup, West had the team on tenterhooks when he took the Pro-Am victory at Misano in Italy by a margin of just 0.001 seconds. The championship was out of reach in 2021 but Adam and West took 7 out of 10 possible sprint podium finishes.

The Vantage years

The team ran the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 from 2019 until 2021, tasting success straight away when its Am-class Aston Martin duly took four out of five possible podiums in the Blancpain Endurance Series in the hands of West, Goodwin and Chris Harris.

The 2020 season started well with a Silver class podium at the Bathurst 12 Hour race, just before the Covid-19 shutters came down. When racing restarted later that year, the team was ready to hit the track with a Pro-Am and a Silver class entry in GT World Challenge Europe (previously named Blancpain GT Series). It was the Pro-Am squad of West and Goodwin and their various professional counterparts – Jonny Adam, Maxime Martin and Marvin Kirchhöfer – who took the spoils, winning the endurance title for drivers and for teams, with their victory at the final race of the season at the Ricard 1000kms.

Driver development

Garage 59 specialises in developing drivers. Many young drivers have gained experience and success with the team going onto professional factory driver status with various brands. No less significant is the team’s long list of amateur drivers taken on the journey from being enthusiastic road car owners to race and Championship winners in some of the biggest international GT competitions around the world.

Heritage expertise

Garage 59 runs in historic competitions as much as time allows. A highlight came in 2018 when the team ran a stunning Lotus 22 at the Goodwood Revival before taking the same car to Spa in Belgium where it won its race. Can Am McLarens, historic Alfa Romeo touring cars are also part of the historic fleet.

The team also manufactures and services the iconic Hart 420R racing engine, used in European historic racing and rallying.