The Paralympian skier who’s now a motor racing champion

James Whitley is a driver for Team BRIT, the world’s only competitive all-disabled racing team.He and co-driver Chris Overend have been announced as winners of the Britcar Trophy Championship, making him part of the first all-disabled team to win a national racing series.James, 24 was born without fully formed hands and has undergone many operations to improve his hand function. At the age of six he was involved in a serious boat accident resulted in multiple broken bones, internal bleeding and months in hospital.At 10 was invited to join the GB Paralympian ski team and at 13 he was promoted to the senior GB Elite squad and began in World Cup events.

Aged 16 he was ranked No2 in the World U18s and was selected to represent Great Britain at the Winter Paralympics in Sochi. He also skied at Beijing 2022 where he finished sixth in the giant slalom.James joined Team BRIT last year and raced for the first time at Snetterton in May where he and Chris took top spot. They did consistently well all season and were named winners of the championship following the final races at Donington Park.

James and Chris, a wheelchair user as a result of development dysplasia of the hips, drive a BMW M240i, which is fitted with the team’s world-leading hand controls.

Tthey finished the season with a 53-point lead in their class and a seven-point lead in the overall championship.Team BRIT was formed in 2015 by ex Royal Engineer Dave Player. This year their eight drivers have competed in the Britcar Trophy, British Endurance Championship and British GT Championship.James said: “What an incredible end to the season. We had two races at Donnington and an extremely exciting first race, where we started from the back and surged to the front.

In race two we had a couple of the car issues which the crew had to fix.“I’m in shock over how well this first season has gone – we have made history. Thank you to the exceptional crew, their hard work and quick thinking made it possible.”