Photo: Ida Wood
GB4 organiser MotorSport Vision has announced that it will provide a £20,000 prize for a teenager from BRSCC National Formula Ford 1600 to graduate into its series for 2023.
Any driver who competes in National FF1600 this year and is born after 2002 will be eligible, and the top three teenagers in the championship come the end of the year will be invited to a GB4 shootout.
The best driver in that shootout will then recieve £20,000 to be spent on moving into slicks-and-wings racing in a GB4 seat for the next year. Further details on the format of the shootout will be released at a later date.
“At MSV we’re very passionate about assisting young drivers in achieving their goals through cost-effective single-seater racing,” said MSV boss Jonathan Palmer.
“Through our GB3 championship partnered by the British Racing Driver Club, and its immediate predecessors BRDC British Formula 3 and BRDC Formula 4, we’ve created an outstanding value pathway which has been chosen by talents such as George Russell and Lando Norris in their quest for Formula 1.
“Our new GB4 championship now extends that pathway with an even more affordable first step and I’m delighted that we’re able to offer a package to assist the most promising young FF1600 drivers.”
GB4 is a new-for-2022 series using Tatuus’s first-generation F4 cars that have been raced in Europe since 2014 but never in the United Kingdom before, while the wingless National FF1600 series is open to cars from multiple manufacturers.
Many of the National FF1600 drivers contest Brands Hatch’s FFord Festival, also organised by the BRSCC, and Silverstone’s Walter Hayes Trophy at the end of the year with those events attracting current and former professional drivers in addition to young talents and club racers. Last year’s Festival included ex-F1 drivers Roberto Moreno and Jan Magnussen.
“Our hugely successful 2021 FFord Festival has once again shown the racing world that top class FF1600 racing is in great health, and that the formula still offers the most viable and cost-effective first step on the ladder to success in higher levels of single-seater car racing,” said BRSCC chairman Peter Daly.
“This amazing gesture by Jonathan Palmer and his MSV organisation will give a talented young BRSCC FF1600 driver an opportunity to showcase their skills in the GB4 championship with the comfort of knowing that £20,000 of their season’s costs are already covered.
“On behalf of the BRSCC I wish to thank Jonathan Palmer and MSV for offering this valuable prize, and our club will in return use every opportunity available to us to support the GB4 championship as the natural next step for our talented FF1600 racers.”
MSV has also increased the prize fund for taking pole positions in its GB3 series – which also has a basis in Tatuus’s first-generation F4 car – with each pole delivering £250 in prize money. The driver with the most poles will receieve a further £2,000, and their team will get an identical amount.
In GB4 a pole will earn £125, with the season-end prize for taking the most earning another £1,000.