Jasmine Shaw: The Cotswolds superstar forging a unique career in the world of sportscar racing
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- Jul 17
- 8 min read
A solid frontrunner in the Caterham 270R Championship, twenty-year-old Jasmine Shaw is turning heads in her second season in the series – a star in the making who aims to make a name for herself among the world’s best GT drivers in the near future.
As the timer ran out for qualifying at the Spa round of the Caterham 270R season, an unexpected name put herself on the front row for race one after taking advantage of a clear track ahead to take her career-best qualifying position.
While that lap eventually was good for fourth on the grid, it still left a big smile on Jasmine Shaw’s face, who had never been to the Belgian venue and had placed herself at the front of a highly-competitive grid against experienced veterans. However, the Motorsport UK Academy athlete’s story isn’t like others.
Hailing from the Cotswolds, Jasmine Shaw’s competitive career began much later than her peers, but that didn’t stop her from punching above her weight on her quest to become a standout figure in the world of GT racing.
While cheaper and more accessible, the GT scene hasn’t seen a big growth in female participation, even with Iron Dames’ mighty efforts in the World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series. In contrast, the junior formula and karting scenes have seen a much bigger number of females racing in it since F1 Academy’s first season in 2023.
Many young girls dream of reaching Formula 1, and often some have even started their careers to get their name out in F1 Academy and their discovery programme in hopes of reaching the ultimate spotlight that is the pinnacle of single-seater competition.
Jasmine Shaw grew up watching the sport with her father and always had wanted to race cars in her early years. However, without a role model to motivate her to go racing and a family stranger to the motorsport scene, it became clear that the road ahead was going to be a difficult one from the beginning.
After years of spending birthday parties at her local karting track, Shaw discovered professional karting in 2019, and began making preparations to make her debut the following year. Those plans unfortunately never came to fruition, as the pandemic put a hold on her career and forced her to spend another year on the sidelines.
“I always really liked Formula One,” said Shaw. “My dad was really into it and I got into it because of him. I didn't come from a racing background, no one in my family had ever raced, but I did really like go-karting. Me and my dad would always go to our local track and that was sort of my birthday present every year was to go go-karting. So, we didn't really know much about the industry.
“I loved racing, but we didn't really know how to get into it and being a female in motorsport, I didn't really have that role model that sort of made me believe I could do it as well. So, it never really crossed my mind. When I was 13, I was again at this go-kart track for my birthday and the staff there told me about professional go-karting and there was actually a national track about 15 minutes from my house. So, we went to go and watch and obviously I fell in love with it and we planned to start the next season, but unfortunately we went into lockdown. So, that did put a pause on me getting into racing.”
By the time 15-year-old Shaw started karting, it was a very late start compared to most youngsters, which were making their first appearances in Formula 4 and entry-level car races. Rather than choosing the junior formula path, Shaw decided to go down the car racing route to make a name in the global GT scene, in which female representation was being spearheaded by Iron Dames in their efforts in the European Le Mans Series.
That came after a surprise opportunity appeared, in the form of a scholarship to race in the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship, but despite showing tremendous speed and making it to the semi-finals, she caught Covid and found herself on the sidelines.
However, that didn’t hold her back, as she was determined to make the jump to cars in time for the 2022 season. That determination turned into reality on the eve of the season, when a last-minute opportunity to race in the series came about. Despite the lack of preparation and in a field of future stars like British F4 champion Deagen Fairclough, Shaw had an extremely promising debut, gaining seven places to take ninth at Brands Hatch ahead of accomplished karter Aaron Walker.
“We were at a karting event at Silverstone,” said Shaw. “We saw an advert for a Fiesta Junior scholarship, which we hadn't heard of before. So, we decided to give it a go. I did get to the semi-finals, but then I caught COVID and I wasn't allowed to finish the competition, which was a shame. But it did give me the taste for racing cars and racing Fiesta Juniors.
“Although they didn't let me continue with the scholarship, we decided we were going to go for it anyway. So, we reached out to a team that had one last car for that season and we went for it. It was all very last minute, I went into the first round having only learnt how to dip a clutch about a month before. I went from 16th to 9th in my first race, so I obviously got hooked on it quite quickly. It was my first real taste for car racing and I loved it.”
In its history, the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship has been a breeding ground for countless up-and-coming rising stars, and during Shaw’s two-year tenure in the series it was no different. Drivers such as BTCC racer Finn Leslie and British F4 front-runner Tommy Harfield began their careers in Fiesta Juniors, while Shaw showed promising pace and took home a top-10 points finish during her time in the series.
Looking back on it, Shaw regards her second year as her best year, in which she secured her first career podium in the opening race of the Brands Hatch finale, driving a Mk7-spec Fiesta.
“The first year was about getting up to speed with drivers who had like 10 years more experience than me,” Shaw said after reflecting on her stint in Fiesta competition. “By the second season, we were properly in the pack and we had a great round at Silverstone. We were P5 out of 25 cars, so that was a great result. At the final round of my final season in 2023, I managed to get a podium, which was my first podium in racing. It was a really special moment for me, my dad, the team. It was sort of a farewell gift to them for everything they'd done for me.”
Following that, Shaw made the bold decision to test F3 and GB4 machinery after being inspired by F1 Academy’s rapid growth in its maiden season, before joining the Monoposto Championship for 2024. Shaw raced at the Snetterton opener, but dropped out of the series to focus on her education, but later made sporadic testing appearances in GB4 machinery for championship-winning organisation KMR Sport.
“We moved to single-seaters because when we went into Fiesta Juniors, we didn't really know what we wanted from racing,” Shaw said. “We just knew we wanted to race, so going into a saloon car front-wheel drive didn't really relate to our racing goals. So we knew we had to maybe transition into more rear-wheel, faster cars after that. It was really inspiring to see the F1 Academy Series doing so well, so it made us have the idea of trying out single-seaters.
“It was a really big step for me, going from a Fiesta Junior into an old F3 car. It was really fun to race the F3 car and try out the GB4. We didn't continue with the F3 just because of mechanical issues and also to focus on my education, because I am trying to do both at the same time alongside each other. So we did have to take a break from racing that year, but it was a really fun couple of cars to drive.”
With 2025 on the horizon, Shaw met another female racing driver whilst testing out single-seaters, who proved to be the deciding force in the Cotswolds star’s return to one-make series, as she joined the Caterham 270R Championship.
Much like the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship, Caterham-run series have seen world-class drivers start their careers there, with notable alumni including current Genesis Hypercar driver Mathys Jauber and F1 Academy standout Megan Bruce in recent times.
It proved to be Shaw’s perfect match, as it was a compromise between the single-seaters she had been testing throughout 2024 and the Fiesta saloon car she had driven until the year prior.
“We met another female Caterham driver whilst I was trying out the F3 car, who introduced us to the series and it just sort of clicked, it all made sense. It was a very good series for us to go into, it was sort of a mix between a single-seater and a saloon car. It's rear-wheel drive, but it's still an H-pattern gearbox, there's no slicks and wings, so it was a good mix of the two. It worked well with our budget as well, it was a really competitive series with a really big grid.”
Racing for DPR Motorsport in a field of 20+ cars in which consistency and racecraft are key, Shaw’s priority was to get to grips with the highly-competitive series. Despite a rocky start to the season, Shaw turned her fortunes around at the halfway mark, as she began contending regularly for top tens and never finishing lower than 12th.
Following a 12th-place ranking in the overall standings last year, Shaw had a clear goal in mind for her second season in the series: “We knew this year we wanted to be fighting at the front, fighting for podiums and for wins. This year we're up against new drivers, new tracks as well, so it's not the exact same as last year, but we're in a good position to build on what we've learnt from last season.”
In her second season in Caterham competition, Shaw began the year with a positive round at Cadwell Park, before a highly promising showing at Croft, in which she ran at the front consistently in treacherous conditions to take a season-best result of sixth.
Then came time for the season’s only round held abroad, at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit. After masterfully placing herself in clear air during qualifying, Shaw took a career-best starting position of fourth out of 50+ entrants in a weekend where she demonstrated a lot of maturity in the season’s most chaotic round. After battling treacherous conditions in Spa, Shaw fought at the front in a cloudy Donington Park round, matching her season-best result of sixth in the opening two races of the season.
“I think pace has been really good this year,” said Shaw about her season. “We've definitely come back to the same point we left off last year. I think we've done well in the races the first two rounds to sort of fight from there and do the best we could from where we did start on the grid. Coming into Spa I think we showed our real progression and how we've adapted to Caterhams in qualifying. Qualifying fourth out of such a large grid this round was definitely proof of how far we've come in Caterhams and that we are here to fight at the front.”
