MANN MOTORSPORT EYES GROWTH AFTER SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN

Charlie Mann says he is hopeful that his Mann Motorsport team can grow in the coming seasons on the back of a strong campaign in the Quaife MINI CHALLENGE Trophy.

Having competed with LDR Performance Tuning in his debut season in the series in 2020, Mann – who runs a championship-winning kart outfit – elected to run his own car this year, with the team also responsible for the Mannpower Motorsport-entered car of Paul Manning.

After a tricky start to the season at Snetterton, Mann enjoyed a breakthrough weekend at Thruxton where he put his car on the second row of the grid, and quickly established himself as a regular contender inside the top ten.

Although tough weekends at Croft and then back at Thruxton would drop him out of championship contention, Mann ended the season on a high at Silverstone with a maiden victory helping him to fifth in the final standings.

“It’s been a good year for us and we made big strides forwards to finish fifth in the championship,” he said. “We’ve all worked hard this season to prep the car more thoroughly and have been happier running the car ourselves.

“We have run this year as a totally independent team, and whilst we might be small, we have been able to take the challenge to much bigger teams on track and we’ve been beating them. My hope for the future is to be running more cars as a career, and I think this has been a good first step.

“I’m pleased that we were able to get a win to end the year because we’d had a fastest lap and a podium, and I wanted to get the monkey off my back. I think we had the pace to fight for the title this season if we’d had bit more luck on our side, and I want to come back next year and fight for the championship.”