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STUTELEY SIGNS UP FOR TITLE BID

British Formula Ford Championship race winner Linton Stuteley is among the first names to have registered with the series for the coming season.

The Hertfordshire-based 22-year-old will return to the Ford-backed championship for a third full season, once again at the wheel of the Getem Racing-prepared '06 Mygale which he drove to fourth place overall in 2007.

Linton believes he has a good chance of adding to the summer win he scored last season at Snetterton: "It's not going to be like last year with one or two drivers dominating, and that gives me the opportunity to go in there and hopefully nail it from the start.

"My car was competitive last year and I've done a lot of work over the winter to improve my skills. I'm feeling confident but I'm not underestimating the level of opposition: the Jamun team is bound to be strong and Westley Barber is a top driver, though his car is an unknown quantity."

Stuteley, who won the Avon Clubmans Formula Ford title in 2005, hopes to have a quick team-mate in an identical car alongside him at Getem. He retains the backing of sponsors Big Cold Turkey, ST Construction, Redline Oil and Powerpill.

British Formula Ford co-ordinator Penny Mattocks reports that the grid is filling fast: "We await the paperwork from the big teams; they are all expecting to field multi-car entries so it looks as though we shall have a nearly full complement at most rounds. We are hoping that drivers won't leave it too late, as advance payment entries are being taken on a first-come/first-served basis and we will not be allowing reserves at any of our meetings -including Knockhill, where we can start only 28 cars."

The other early registrations for 2008 are:
25-year-old Westley Barber, the 2002 champion, who will return at the wheel of a new Comtec chassis
Chrissy Palmer, 17, runner-up in last year's 750 Motor Club SaxMax saloon championship, will race a Sterling Motorsports-prepared Ray
The 2007 British Formula Ford Scholarship Champion, Matt Dobson, and his prize Van Diemen
Nineteen-year-old Anglesey-based Alex Jones, who will race a Myerscough College-prepared '07 Van Diemen
Daniel Walker, the novice son of truck racing legend Richard Walker. The 22-year-old will race an'06 Mygale for the new SlideSports team
Van Diemen driver Matthew Payne, who switches to the PJM Racing team for '08
Former Ginetta sports car racers Felix Scott, 23, who will drive a Spirit, and 18-year-old Kieran Vernon
Garry Findlay, who has the advantage of a 2007 Mygale for his championship bid. It's the Suffolk-based 18-year-old's third season of British Formula Ford

This 25-race championship gets underway in two months, at Oulton Park on Easter Monday. British Formula Ford is alongside British F3 at all its UK dates, and also supports A1GP at Brands Hatch, British GTs at Knockhill and will have a meeting at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

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