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The Grid.co.uk the national & club motor racing website - est1998 |
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The Grid.co.uk the national & club motor racing website - est1998 |
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Provisional championship placings after round 21 (of 24)
Scholarship class
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mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk INTERNATIONAL FORMULA FORD STARS JOIN SILVERSTONE BATTLE
Joining Malvern and his regular team-mates Nick McBride, Jeroen Slaghekke and Spike Goddard in the team for the championship’s first races on the new Silverstone Grand Prix track will be Australian Formula Ford star Jack Le Brocq(pictured right) and South African Formula Ford Champion Robert Wolk. Nineteen-year-old Le Brocq arrives in the UK with several Australian Formula Ford Championship victories under his belt already this season. Jack, who is part of the Australian Motor Sport Foundation’s CAMS Rising Star programme, will also tackle the BRSCC’s Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch the following weekend. “I have been able to put together some very solid results with the CAMS Rising Star squad throughout the 2011 season,” said Jack, “taking my first round and race wins at the past few events. I now think that I am ready to take on the rest of the world and travel overseas to try to make my dreams a reality. “I have chosen to go to England to race as I think it will offer me the best chance of proving myself to the international scene and to get my name out there so that I can progress further up the open-wheel rankings.” Robert Wolk arrives in the British championship with multiple Formula Ford titles under his belt. The 26-year-old won the South African Zetec Formula Ford championship in 2004 and ’05, and was the Duratec Formula Ford title winner in 2010. Another newcomer next weekend will be 18-year-old American Spencer Pigot, who will race alongside his countryman Neil Alberico in one of Cliff Dempsey Racing’s rapid Rays. The 18-year-old was second in the USF2000 Series in the States this season and will, with Alberico, form part of the Team USA assault on the Formula Ford Festival. The other guest drivers due at Silverstone are Dutch championship drivers Jelle Beelen and Steijn Schothorst, who will drive their Geva Racing Mygales. The Silverstone races will mark the end of an era for Formula Ford in Britain. In 2012 an all-new Formula Ford chassis, the first tubular steel single-seater to meet the latest FIA safety standards, will join the championship. The new-generation Formula Ford car will use a production-based 1.6-litre Ford EcoBoost direct injection, turbocharged engine, limited to producing around 165PS and 220Nm, and mated to a six-speed sequential transmission with mechanical shift mechanism. The new car will race alongside the current crop of Duratec-powered chassis next season. Since its introduction to the championship in 2006, the 1600cc Duratec engine has provided reliable power enjoyed by more than 100 competitors in the championship - and has provided countless thousands of spectators with some enthralling action. Scott Malvern knows all about entertaining the crowds, and next weekend is the Ilford man’s chance to try to take his tally of race wins in a single British championship season to an unprecedented 20. He’s already broken all the records, with 17 wins (13 of them consecutive), 11 pole positions and 10 fastest laps along the way to wrapping up the championship last month at Donington Park. However, Scott is not unbeatable, as his Jamun racing team-mates Slaghekke and McBride have each proved over the course of the last two meetings. Dutchman Slaghekke won at Silverstone in April, on the National circuit, and again at Brands Hatch in September. Australian McBride broke his duck at Donington Park, and Jeroen and Nick are locked in battle over championship runner-up position, separated currently by 23 points. A further eight points behind is the third driver with a realistic chance of breaking into the championship top three. He is another Mygale man, Finn Antti Buri, whose car is prepared by the family LMS Racing team in conjunction with Geva Racing. Others looking to end their seasons on a high include JTR’s trio of talent: Dan de Zille, Geoff Uhrhane (who was another Silverstone National race winner) and Tristan Mingay; ever-improving Cardiff-based racer Matthew Parry in his Fluid Motorsport Van Diemen; and Enigma/RVR’s fast Frenchman Philippe Layac.
pic Jakob Ebrey Photography |
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Jamun
Racing, whose driver Scott Malvern has already clinched the Dunlop MSA
Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain, will field a six-car squad
in next weekend’s (8/9 October) season finale at Silverstone.