Now that is what a Formula Ford Festival final should be like. Forget the damp squib that was last year’s brief affair, this was a proper contest. Twenty laps of uninterrupted action that had the crowd enthralled, featuring unbelievable overtakes between quality drivers and uncertainty over the winner right to the end.
There was even some late unreliability drama for the brilliant Niall Murray to add another twist. It’s no wonder that Jamie Sharp, the 2021 victor who was part of the lead squabble, says: “You can never guess what’s going to happen – it’s the most unpredictable weekend!”
It was the perfect tonic after the misery of last season, when risky scheduling and a reluctance from those in charge to react to the expected bad weather meant predicted rain arrived shortly after the final began and insufficient daylight for it to be restarted when conditions improved. Autosport, and many others, gave the organising British Racing & Sports Car Club a hard time for not foreseeing such problems and, to its credit, changes were made this year, with the final brought forward to 1600 and no longer being the event’s last race.
But this year’s cracker was the perfect way to banish memories of the madness of 2022. And BRSCC chairman Peter Daly wants to take advantage of the brilliant battles to promote the event in the future. “We’ve got it filmed and available and will see how we can market it,” he says.
Yet, for all the final’s thrills, there is a problem. The Formula Ford Festival is an historic event with an incredible collection of previous winners and frontrunners. But this year just 55 drivers took part. It is an enormous reduction on the 78 of last year, which followed the 97 when its 50th edition was celebrated in 2021.
Only for the pandemic-affected 2020 instalment have fewer gathered for the Brands Hatch showpiece. For what is supposed to be a blue-riband event, having so few entries that every single one was guaranteed a place in the semi-finals somewhat undermines its knockout nature.
“Our original ambition was 80-85 cars,” admits Daly. “As the year’s gone on, all clubs have seen numbers dwindle. I was hearing people were running out of budget early in the year because of the increases in prices of tyres and fuel or early accident damage.”
Source: Autosport