The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) announced the names of 19 finalists for the inaugural Young Driver Excellence Academy.
The international program, which is led by ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Wurz and 2001 World Rally champion co-driver Robert Reid, is designed to offer additional support for today’s up-and-coming drivers.
Newgarden
Rossi
The whittled-down list contains two Americans, both GP3 drivers: Alexander Rossi, 19, and Josef Newgarden, 20. The Netherlands and France are the only other countries to have two drivers named on the list.
After a three-day shootout, 10 of the 19 finalists will be chosen to take part in the academy. During the event, drivers will be evaluated on in-car performance, fitness, media relations, teamwork and psychology.
The average age of the finalists is just under 20-years old (19.895 years).
The list is fairly diverse, although three drivers were chosen from the Formula 4 Eurocup 1.6 championship – formerly known as the Formula Renault Campus France. None of the finalists are from the sports car ranks, all were chosen from a rally or open-wheel background. Not surprising, perhaps, when you look at who’s heading the program.
The full list of 19 drivers after the jump… [Continue Reading...]
Racer Magazine’s February 2011 edition features a nice story — written by David Malsher — that looks at some of today’s up-and-coming American open-wheel stars.
While several promising young American drivers were left out of the story, Malsher did a nice job with the space he was given.
The story is available at Racer.com.
The amount of positive news surfacing this off-season has been mind-blowing and it’s great to see more and more media outlets picking up these big stories.
The main thing everyone in the industry needs to keep in mind, however, is that the progress shouldn’t be looked upon as a success story. Not yet. Everything that’s been put in place is great, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Malsher sums up his article nicely with this:
With IndyCar’s announcement that the Indy Lights champion will receive $1m there’s a step in the right direction, but as Hildebrand observes, it probably still isn’t enough: “By formalizing the Road to Indy, IndyCar has made the system more straightforward, but the jump from Lights to the top rung without $2 or $3 million is still a major challenge.”
Let’s hope there are corporations out there who are listening. Take it from us, America truly has got talent.
The only thing I’d change is remove the word “probably” from the first sentence.
What would we do without Mazda?
It was announced earlier today that Mazda will expand its unparalleled support of open-wheel racing in 2011 by adding scholarships at each level of the “Road to Indy” driver development ladder.
Exact details of each scholarship haven’t been released, but we do know that the USF2000 champion will receive a scholarship to compete in Star Mazda. The Star Mazda champion will receive a scholarship to participate in Indy Lights and the Indy Lights champion will receive a scholarship to compete in the top rung: IndyCar.
This is a tremendous development for today’s karters looking to venture up the motorsports ladder and graduate to the upper echelon of open-wheel racing in North America.
On Monday, Lewis Williamson was named 2010′s McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year. The prestigious award was bumped up from £50,000 to £100,000, thanks to McLaren.
In addition, Williamson, 21, will receive a McLaren Formula 1 test, full BRDC membership, Puma racewear and a TW Steel watch.
The young Scottish driver finished runner-up in the Formula Renault UK Championship this season, compiling five wins, nine podiums and five pole positions while driving for Manor Motorsport. This season marked his second consecutive full campaign in the competitive Formula Renault category. He showed tremendous improvement this year, scoring his first win at Oulton in early June, while finishing inside the top-five on 15 occasions.
While nothing official has been announced, Williamson will likely make the jump to GP3 in 2011. He tested with Atech CRS GP at Estoril and paced the 30-car field. Watch for a bright future from this talented up-and-coming driver.
Other nominees for this year’s BRDC McLaren Autosport Young Driver Award were: Tom Blomqvist, Formula Renault; Luciano Bacheta, Formula Renault; Jack Harvey, Formula BMW Europe; Scott Malvern, British Formula Ford; and Nigel Moore, Formula Palmer Audi.
- Bryan Clauson earns 2010 Road to Indy USAC Scholarship
(Photo: IndyCar.com)
This is sort of old news by now — as I was holding off to see if a team announcement would be made — but it’s big news.
Bryan Clauson wrapped up a tremendous season on Thanksgiving night at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale, Calif., winning the USAC National Drivers Championship. With the title in hand, Clauson was awarded a $300,000 Road to Indy scholarship that will see him compete in six Indy Lights oval events next season, starting with the Freedom 100 in Indianapolis. Oval races make up 50-percent of the 2011 Indy Lights’ schedule.
The USAC National Drivers Championship is a season long battle that crowns the driver with the most National points as the overall champion. The top-25 results are scored from the three main USAC National Series: Silver Crown, Sprint Cars and Midgets — in order to factor in a drivers ability to perform in a variety of conditions/cars.
Clauson finished inside the top-three on 19 occasions, including 10 feature wins. INDYCAR CEO Randy Bernard and Indy Lights team owner Sam Schmidt were in attendance as Clauson won the Turkey Night Grand Prix. The scholarship was awarded following the race.
While nothing has been announced, it’s likely that Clauson will drive for Sam Schmidt next season. But, until something official is released that’s strictly a guess. Stay tuned for updates.
I really like the RTI extension to USAC as it should help bring in a tremendous amount of talent who might have otherwise taken a different path. It would have been nice to give these kids a little road course experience too, though, rather than limiting the scholarship money exclusively to oval events. Perhaps, they will set up a similar scholarship for road course events and extend it to Star Mazda competitors?
Last April I decided to write season previews for several North American junior formula series. Within those previews, I made a few championship picks which is always a challenge heading into a new year of racing. Fortunately, I picked a champion in every class (but, technically, I cheated — or at least, significantly, improved my odds of a solid pick — because I chose three potential champions for each respective series).
The current economy caused several drivers to prematurely end their 2010 seasons, altering the end-of-the-year points and making a year long prediction all the more difficult.
With the off-season in full swing, it’s always fun to look back at season previews and championship picks. Several of you also made picks in the comment section, so make sure to review your own selections while re-reading the original post.
If you missed the season previews in April, here’s a look back.
If you missed my end-of-the-season race reports highlighting each champion, I’ve linked to each below. Congrats to all the drivers who participated this season.
2010 North American Junior Formula Champions
(linked below are the championships covered on JOWT)
Indy Lights – J.K. Vernay
Star Mazda Championship- Conor Daly
USF2000 National Championship- Sage Karam
F2000 Championship Series- Victor Carbone
Skip Barber National- Spencer Pigot
In sad news, I was just informed that Michigan-native and junior formula icon Rob St. Clair passed away on Friday, Oct. 29. My sincere thoughts and condolences go out to Rob’s family, friends and the entire junior formula community. He will be missed.
EFCN has a bit more detail, here.
As always, feel free to leave comments or stories in the comment section. RIP Rob.
Ireland’s Patrick McKenna has won the Dunlop Motorsport Ireland Young Driver of the Year Award for the second-consecutive season. Five other talented drivers made the final-six, but McKenna was ultimately chosen due to his success in the 2010 USF2000 National Championship. The other nominees were: Niall Murray, Gary Thompson, Stephen Daly, Andy O’Brien and Kevin Sheane.
McKenna, 23, plans to compete in the 2011 Star Mazda Championship. His off-season testing is set to get underway this Friday, Oct. 29.
The end-of-the-year EFCN Driver Rankings were released this past weekend. Conor Daly retains the top spot with 10,360 points after claiming the 2010 Star Mazda Championship.
The biggest movers inside the top-20 were Indy Lights competitor Adrian Campos Jr. (up five spots) and Star Mazda competitor Joao Horto (up four spots).
USF2000 runner-up Patrick McKenna picked up the most positions of drivers inside the top-100 this month by jumping from 69th to 32nd. McKenna had a great season and really it’s surprising to not see him higher up the charts. The Irishman completed his rookie USF2000 season with two wins and eight podiums.
Fellow USF2000 competitor Javier Barrales picked up 17 spots this month, ending up 60th overall. Star Mazda driver Juan Piedrahita, who has really flown-under-the-radar, gained 15 positions, jumping from 88th to 73rd in October. Matthew Powers, who spent the 2010 season in USF2000, broke into the top-100, ranking 77th. Indy Lights competitor Brandon Wagner — who won at Homestead-Miami — picked up 11 spots to finish 89th after being ranked 100th last month.
David Tremayne wrote a piece in the September edition of Professional Motorsport World magazine about how overly-aggressive driving by Formula One drivers can negatively impact the driving-style of today’s junior formula pilots who emulate them. It’s an interesting read that brings up some good points. Read it here.
I won’t call out anyone, as Tremanyne does, but I can think of a few drivers who should give this piece a read. A little reminder (about safe driving and using your head) never hurt anyone.
Enjoy.
