This week you will find out about two Driver Scholarship Shootouts that you can enter in the UK. You will also find out about a British ex-pat working in America to develop American talent in Europe and what it is like to be part of the Red Bull Junior Team.
All this and more in this week’s edition of the Driver Development Roundup on Motorsport Prospects. News that aspiring race drivers can use.
Details of the 2024 Dragon Sport Scholarship Shootout in the UK have been released. It will take place on 09 Feb 2024, 08:00 – 18:00 at the Blyton Park Circuit, Kirton Rd, Blyton, Gainsborough DN21, UK.
The Dragon Sport Scholarship is a motorsport competition that aims to find talented racing drivers, supporting one with a season racing alongside Rhys Lloyd in a fully funded seat for the 2024 Britcar Trophy Clio Cup class & placing others within the team academy for ongoing support.
To be eligible to enter drivers must be over the age of 16 & have some racing experience in either Karts or Cars (race licence required). All entrants will then be invited to an assessment day to drive a Renault Clio Cup car & be assessed on their driving ability, media skills & fitness levels.
The aim of the scholarship is to find the next big thing in endurance and tin top racing. We are looking for a driver either; graduating from karting, looking to progress their racing career, or perhaps someone new that aspires to get into endurance racing. We have got the platform to give ‘YOU’ a car for 2024 including guidance, coaching and the opportunity to race in the Britcar Trophy Championship!
You can enter here.
Staying in the UK, you can win a full season’s drive in the 2024 Ginetta GT Academy Series worth £100,000 by winning PalmerSport’s 2024 Ginetta Shoutout.
The talent-spotting program will run as a two-stage process in March, with those eligible initially taking part in an assessment day at Bedford Autodrome on either Tuesday 5 or Wednesday 6 March. This will include extended driving time and coaching in the Caterham PalmerSport Edition, Palmer JP-LM and the Ginetta G56 GTA itself. Participants will also be required to set solo timed laps in each of those cars.
The entry fee for the assessment day is £1,500 plus VAT per person, including catering and vehicle damage waiver. A maximum 64 places will be available across the two days, and we anticipate these will be filled quickly. The competition is open to any previous PalmerSport customer over the age of 25 who has never previously held a race licence.
More details can be found here.
The highly popular FIA Girls on Track Career: Development and Mentoring event returns to the 2024 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix for 2024. Applications are now open to young women aged 15-22.
Entry for this exclusive opportunity is limited, with just 20 participants selected and interested participants can register now via the FIA Girls on Track webpage for a chance to attend.
Prospective candidates are encouraged to submit their application through the ‘2024 Girls on Track – Career Development and Mentoring’ page and have until 11:59pm AEDT on Sunday, 4 February to do so. Applicants will be notified via email by Friday, 23 February with the status of their application.
Formula Scout has a very informative feature on British ex-pat Dan Mitchell of Velocity Racing Development, an American team that is looking to identify American talent and develop them in Europe.
“We all know it’s a slim hope. But if there’s an opportunity to be able to chase that dream and you get one shot, take the shot. And if you don’t make it, your fallback is to go back to America and head towards IndyCar. And that’s not being disrespectful to IndyCar, it’s just the way it is.”
Curious as to what it is like to be part of the Red Bull Junior Team? Racer talk to former Red Bull Junior Jak Crawford of what it is like.
“From the outside, the pressure appears to be the toughest aspect of being a Red Bull Junior, and Crawford admits that’s the case, as drivers try and stay on the right side of Marko, who runs the Red Bull Junior program. But that’s not to say the Austrian is a scary character to deal with – just a demanding one.”
We all understand that F1 is considered the pinnacle of motorsport, but is it a closed shop to new talent? Ben Edwards of Autosport Plus argues that it is because there is now too much on the line commercially to take a chance on new talent.
“Some of the biggest issues for younger drivers these days is that the business of F1 is so big that a team taking a risk on a new driver is quite high,” says Mark. “Hence you see guys in their 40s still under contract and teams that have kept drivers for several years. They just can’t take the risk of having someone new and it going wrong; on two or three occasions you see some guys come in and they’re spat out of the system again because it hasn’t quite worked. And some of it fundamentally is that the teams don’t get to understand the drivers’ qualities because they no longer really have a test programme and a test facility in an authentic environment.”
Author: Mark Boudreau
Mark is the publisher of Motorsport Prospects. As a former lawyer, he applies his legal background and research skills to assist race drivers by showcasing the resources they need to make their motorsport careers happen.
