The Civic Cup has developed a reputation over the years for being a hugely competitive championship. The cars are closely matched and there’s always a cluster of star names at the front.
Take a look at this season’s grid – the likes of 2019 TCR Europe champion Josh Files, 2021 TCR UK conqueror Lewis Kent, past victor Alistair Camp and Liam McGill, a multiple title winner in Fords, are just a few of those on the entry list. But, despite the quality of the opposition, it’s the same driver who has ultimately prevailed in each of the past two years: Max Edmundson.
The category may not have the highest of profiles, but such results have marked the 19-year-old out as a rising star of the tin-top world. Especially when you consider how much Edmundson has progressed as a driver since he first joined the category as a karting graduate, having just turned 16 at the end of 2021.
Across his first year and a half in the series, his best results were merely a couple of fifth places and he also battled a few mechanical problems, but a performance at the 2022 finale at Snetterton gave him optimism going into last year.
“At the last round, I had the previous champion behind me and he wasn’t reeling me in,” recalls Edmundson. “I was going into the off-season thinking, ‘Next year I could have something good here.’”
Allied to a switch to the frontrunning Area Motorsport squad, things were looking up for Edmundson. But a tough beginning to the campaign meant he needed a rethink.
“At the start of 2023, I had the pace but I didn’t believe I had the pace,” Edmundson admits. “I got a win at round one but was defending like a bit of an idiot so that got taken off me. After then getting disqualified from Croft [the second round], I decided to calm myself down, use my head and believe in myself. I calmed myself and was like a different person.”
Having worked with the Area team to achieve that shift in mentality, the results were immediate. From that Croft disappointment onwards, Edmundson finished outside of the top two on only three occasions across the next 11 races to catapult himself into title contention.
When key rival Dan Thackeray, another to have achieved plenty of success in Honda machinery over the years, suffered a nightmare Brands Hatch finale with engine woes, Edmundson was there to pick up the pieces and seal the glory with a brace of victories. Yet finding the budget to go racing has never been easy and Edmundson opted to try for a second Civic title for 2024.
“People could have said it was a fluke the year before but I came back the next year, with harder competition, and won in a more dominant way, which felt great,” Edmundson explains. “Some great names came into it, like Josh Files and Lewis Kent. Any of the top 15 could probably win a race and that’s what spurred me on.”
"I didn’t want to race a Honda, then I jumped in and loved them! They’re low power so you have to keep the momentum up and they’re not on slicks. It’s close, clean, competitive racing" Max Edmundson
Files was among his Area team-mates for the new campaign and Edmundson describes him as “like my big brother”. “Me and Josh worked well together – he was helping me with the data,” he adds.
This bond developed into the pair sharing a Civic Type R in a Snetterton Saloons round when Files’s regular co-driver was unable to make it. “I outqualified Josh in his own car!” laughs Edmundson, who says he struggled more for race pace, although they still netted class success. “I’m used to Civic sprint races so it was weird him getting out of the car and me jumping in.”
The pair may get on well away from the track, but they also had some terrific battles on it in the Civic Cup – and these were helping to get Edmundson noticed.
“I saw him at Oulton Park, he was duking it out with Josh Files and the pair of them were gapping the field,” says Pete Jones, managing director of the Restart Racing British Touring Car team and someone who helps support promising drivers who struggle for funding. “He’s a real talent.”
When one of Edmundson’s sponsors dropped out, Jones stepped in to help him continue his march to another title. Nine wins and four further podium finishes, including some brilliant charges through the field during the reversed-grid contests, helped propel him to a more comfortable triumph and dispel any lingering question marks surrounding his 2023 success. Such performances mean Jones believes the teenager can make it to the top of the tin-top tree.
“I see him as a future BTCC driver,” reckons Jones, who has also supported the likes of Chris Smiley, Ronan Pearson and Dan Lloyd. “If he’s not in a car, he’s on a sim – that’s all he thinks about – and it shows. He’s pretty wily and very reflective of his choices. That’s why he’s been so successful because he’s driving beyond his years.”
For all his success in Civics over the past couple of years, Edmundson confesses to not exactly being overenthusiastic about joining the championship originally.
“A friend was doing it at the time,” he explains of how the Civic Cup first appeared on his radar. “I didn’t want to race a Honda, then I jumped in and loved them! They’re low power so you have to keep the momentum up and they’re not on slicks. It’s close, clean, competitive racing – that was what interested us.”
But, with two titles now under his belt, it’s time for Edmundson to try to progress up the racing ladder – not that he’s expecting it to be easy. The top JCW class of the Mini Challenge or TCR UK are the categories he has considered to continue the front-wheel-drive theme, but Edmundson says it’s now all down to finances.
“The Civic Cup is great value for money but there’s nothing that’s a small jump from it,” he says, adding that he does indeed have an eye on the BTCC for the future. “My long-term goal would be to make a career out of it. But it all depends now on budget – and if I don’t raise the budget, I won’t be racing.”
Considering the manner in which Edmundson has established himself as the Civic pacesetter, and beaten far more experienced drivers in the process, he would certainly be deserving of that move onto a bigger stage.
