British Touring Car champion Jake Hill has won the vote for the Autosport National Driver of the Year award.
The 30-year-old Kentishman polled highest among Autosport readers after a 2024 campaign where he claimed a season-high eight race wins at the wheel of his West Surrey Racing-run Laser Tools BMW 330e M Sport.
Hill’s BTCC title success came after a gripping fight that went down to the final race with 2022 champion Tom Ingram, who was one of the other nominees for the award. The others were British Formula 4 king Deagen Fairclough and British GT runner-up Sandy Mitchell.
It wasn’t just Hill’s victories in the BTCC that captured the public imagination. As a driver who likes to jump into anything, anywhere, he also won twice in an ex-works Nissan Primera at the Brands Hatch Super Touring Power meeting, took a TVR Griffith to victory at a Donington historic meeting, and achieved glory with an HWM-Jaguar at the Goodwood Revival, a couple of hours after his epic fight in an AC Cobra against Ingram.
Hill received his Award at the Roundhouse in London on 29 January, with other public votes determining the winners of International Racing Driver, British Competition Driver, International Competition Car, International Rally Driver, and Moment of the Year.
While the National Driver accolade often goes to the BTCC champion, in 2023 tin-top king Ash Sutton lost out, and it was Ginetta Junior dominator and star Formula 4 newcomer Freddie Slater who won.
Other non-BTCC winners of the award have included Martin Brundle, Johnny Herbert, David Coulthard and Takuma Sato during the pomp of the British F3 Championship, while Lando Norris prevailed in 2017 after his European F3 title success.
Hill, meanwhile, joins BTCC legends including 1990s Super Touring heroes such as Gabriele Tarquini, John Cleland, Frank Biela, Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell, Laurent Aiello and Tim Harvey as a recipient of the award.
Presented the award by Mercedes Formula 1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Hill said: “I’ve been coming to the Autosport Awards for 15 years, since I’ve been racing cars, and maybe one day I hoped to win. It might be the smallest award of the night but honestly I am so proud.”
To find out who our other Award winners are, go to autosport.com/awards
