Jodie Hill



Jodie Phillippe Hill (January 1st, 1989) is a South African racing driver who currently competes in the WMF Formula GT Championship, for AMI, Inc., driving the number 12 car.

Early life
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Jodie Hill was to be name Jody Hill, but a typo in the birth certificate made him be referred as Jodie, which mostly is a female name. Despite racing under the name Jody Hill for a while, since 2007 Jodie Hill uses his name with the typo.

"When someone would write my name, they would write Jodie. I was annoyed by this, because I wanted to be referred as Jody. After so many years, I just gave up, to the point where I asked myself: "Why should I care?""

Jodie started competing in go-karts when he was 6 years old, constantly competing against much older drivers.

Almost there (2014)
Hill competed for the AMI, Inc. / A-B Motorsports team in 2014. Hill started with a 4th place at Anj. After wins at Cam and BkH (Hill was 4th in USA), Hill became the leader of the championship. A 4th at JhqBy and a 5th at Germany, however, put Jodie back to 4th place in the standings. A win at IronB and two second places at Kny and MsZ, however, made Hill go back to the championship lead.

Hill was the odds-on favorite to become the inaugural champion. Coming to the Met85 race, Hill was six points ahead of Tomas Meilutis, but Jodie had a horrendous race to begin with. Jodie was only 4th place. With Meilutis winning the race, Hill would end the championship as the runner-up, 14 points behind the champion Tomas Meilutis, in one of the biggest upsets ever seen in auto racing.

Struggling in the pack (2015)
Hill stayed with the AMI/A-B team for 2015. However the season would be even worse than what he could imagine.

In 2015, the FGTC had a qualifying rule, where from the 7th to 18th wouldn't qualify to the race. So Hill had to fight for one of the 6 spots. That rule made the season unpredictable, with several drivers, who although won races, didn't qualify to other races.

At the opener, at Illa, Hill qualified 6th, the last of the drivers that could race. Hill had an unimpressive race, finishing 6th, 1 lap behind the winner, Michael Bootsma.

At Germany, Jodie Hill qualified 12th, therefore not qualifying to the race. He was 0.07 seconds behind the time he could make to successfully qualify.

At Lund, Hill was even worse. He was 16th, 0.23 seconds behind the time he could make in order to qualify.

To his chagrin, Hill also wouldn't qualify to the next 2 races: Alleway, 10th, 0.11 seconds behind the 6th, and Dasar, 15th, 0.31 seconds behind the 6th.

Hill would qualify for the first time since Illa, in round 6, at FSpires (A layout). With his best starting position (3rd), Hill won the race, after dominating most of it. It was his first win in the FGTC in nearly 11 months. Hill, who was in 16th in the standings before the race, would jump to 9th.

After that, Hill didn't qualify for the Gurveln race (14th, 0.09 seconds behind the 6th.), but he recovered at the following race, at GA-Airport. There, Jodie qualified 2nd (his best qualifying position). However, after a weak display from Hill, he only finished 5th, gaining 2 points. However, that made him go to 7th place in the standings.

His first pole position came at the next race, at RackFlo. He finished 2nd, after a gruelling battle with the race winner, Andrew Knight. Hill gained 6 points, and jumped to 6th place, with 19 points, 14 points behind championship leader, who was also Andrew Knight.

Despite being close to Knight, with 3 rounds to go, eventually Hill returned to his unlucky days, by not qualifying at Amber (8th, 0.04 seconds behind the 6th). Although he qualified 4th for the USA race, Hill only 5th, after an underwhelming performance.

Hill qualified 5th for the final race, at FSpires (G Layout). But he only finished 6th. With that, Jodie Hill finished 7th in the championship, with 22 points, 13 points behind the champion Andrew Knight.

WMF Nations Cup (2015)
Jodie Hill competed in two rounds for WMF Team South Africa in the 2015 WMF Nations World Cup season. In Egypt, the opening round, Hill was only the 6th. At the third round, in Germany, Jodie finished second. Eventually, Team South Africa would win the championship, as they won 5 of the 10 races.

Almost there (2015)
Hill competed in the 2015 WMF Endurance Cup season, for AMI, Inc., with Daniel Wexford as his driving partner.

They easily won the first race, the 2015 Illa 255K. At the 2015 GA4, they finished 3rd. Coming to the final round as the championship leaders, Hill and Wexford only finished 3rd at the 2015 FSpires 255K, since the No Name Racing team of Alex Julià and Yoshikatsu Taniguchi won the race and the championship. No Name and AMI finished tied with 36 points in the standings. As both teams won a race, No Name had a second place, as AMI had two third places.

Other series
Outside the WMF competitions, Jodie competes in the All-Oval Championship League, an open-wheel championship that races on oval tracks, as the name suggests, and in the South Africa Touring Masters Cup, where he won the 2014 and 2015 championships.

Personal life
Hill has Belgian and German descent through his mother. After being engaged to Argentinian race driver Jennifer Stracqualursi since 2012, they eventually married on December 6th, 2015, in Andorra-la-Vella, Andorra.

FGTC records
Country: South Africa

Races: 16 (6 DNQs)

Wins: 4

Podiums: 7

Current team and number: 12 - AMI, Inc.

Former team and number: 12 - AMI, Inc. / A-B Motorsports - 2014-2015

Career points: 193

Best place in standings: 2nd (2014)

First race: 2014 Anj Grand Prix

First win: 2014 Cam Grand Prix

Latest win: 2015 FSpires A Grand Prix

Latest race: 2015 FSpires G Grand Prix