T-JAY COULD BE F1’S NEXT BIG THING

T-Jay Nelson also earned plaudits from Martin Hines, who nurtured the career of Lewis Hamilton.

Born in Hillsborough, T-Jay’s family moved to Spain where he began kart racing at the age of eight, travelling across Europe to compete.

The 14-year-old’s family have sinced moved back to Lisburn while he takes part in a driver development programme at Silverstone.

Alex Hawkridge, his current mentor, was formerly the boss of Toleman Motorsport and gave the legendary Ayrton Senna his debut in Formula One. He had been in international motorsport as a team boss for over 20 years prior to running Ayrton in 1984 and his team had won Championships at every level leading up to Grand Prix racing.

He said of T-Jay, “I have a talent for spotting the best young engineers and drivers and this was born of necessity as I never had the huge budgets to hire established top drivers. I first noticed TJ when I met him at the ZIP Kart Factory when he first came to England from Spain. He was physically tiny then but exuded a confidence well beyond his years and I started to watch his performance in Karting races.

“He won the London Cup at Rye House aged only nine with an incredibly mature display of fast, consistent driving without a single mistake and I knew then that he was a rare talent capable of going all the way to the top of motorsport.

“He once again won the cup again the following year and has what it takes to become an F1 driver and is totally committed to achieving his goal.”

He added, “TJ has had some difficult times following the death of Martin Hines of Zip Kart who had stood behind him throughout his career. This has obviously had an effect on TJ but he remains resolute and his work ethic just grows stronger.

“I am Chairman of iZone Driver Development based at Silverstone and we have the most modern driver training facilities in the world including a new Formula One Simulator. TJ has already demonstrated to iZone that he is a super elite driver, in the top 2%, yet he is still just 14.

“I have no doubt that TJ will exceed everyone’s expectations and have a Stellar Career in Motor Racing. just as he did in karting.”

Speaking in 2009, Hines said, “When I first spotted T-Jay I was immediately impressed by his kart control and exciting style which were skills which drew my attention to David Coulthard, Gary Paffett and, of course, World F1 champion Lewis Hamilton who drove in the Zip Kart team.

“I worked for seven years with Lewis and introduced him to Ron Dennis when he was just 10 years old. Since then I signed two further drivers to McLaren, those being Gary Paffett and Oliver Rowland and I’m sure that in three or four years T-Jay could be the next one.”