Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
The 10 contenders for this year’s Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award have been named, with a prize of an Aston Martin Formula 1 test up for grabs.
The long-standing award is for young British drivers and “primarily competing in a category below FIA Formula 3 or be an FIA F3 rookie”, must be 16 by the time of the Award final in October and no older than 24 at the start of 2022.
A MotorSport Vision Formula 2 car, an Aston Martin GT3 machine and a LMP3 prototype sportscar will be the cars used to test the four finalists at Silverstone aross two days in October, with the winner revealed two months later.
This year’s longlist age spread is 16 to 24, and features two women for the first time, and in addition to the F1 test there is a £200,000 cheque included in the prize package.
Former finalists Ollie Bearman (2021), Jamie Chadwick (2019) and Louis Foster (2021) have reached the longlist stage again, with the trio racing in FIA F3, W Series and Indy Pro 2000 respectively this year.
The seven new names to make the longlist are W Series racer Abbi Pulling, GB3 contenders Luke Browning and Callum Voisin, and four Formula 4 racers: Taylor Barnard, Williams junior Ollie Gray, Aiden Neate and GB4 leader Nikolas Taylor.
Of the 10, Bearman, Pulling and Gray already hold F1 affiliations with rival teams to Aston Martin.
There may also be an 11th driver that joins the longlist later this year, as it was announced the judges “reserve the right to introduce a wildcard for drivers excelling during the closing stages of the season”, although the selection of the four finalists will also be made in the next two months.
British Racing Drivers’ Club vice-president Derek Warwick once again chairs the judges, and is joined by Formula E racer Alexander Sims, long-time Aston Martin driver Darren Turner, IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, touring car icon Jason Plato, racer Andrew Kirkaldy, race car designer Mark Williams, engineer Leena Gade, commentator Ian Titchmarsh and Autosport magazine’s chief editor Kevin Turner.