Understandably, most people don’t know much about the Junior Formulae of motorsport. Even in the worlds most popular spectacle, Football, the lower divisions are still given just a fraction of the exposure that the top tier divisions receive. However, I urge you to flick your channel from the safe comfort of the 58th repeat of the TopGear Vietnam Special on Dave over to Eurosport next time there’s some FIA Formula 3 or Formula Renault 2.0 on show. Why? Well. Let me use myself as a case study to convince you.
For starters, there are plenty of exciting crashes. Now nobody wants injuries, or anything worse, but it’s a guilty pleasure none of us can deny either, and Junior Formulae is one of the best places to get a fix.
In a total of 3 rounds of Formula Renault, I have seen a piece of debris impale a teammates car next to me, had a wing mirror completely and utterly destroyed next to my head by an errant piece of carbon fibre, been chopped at 140mph, and this:
So you can imagine the spectacle is quite something. These misfortunes however have managed to thoroughly scupper our plans for utter domination, as instead of being in the top 2 or 3 in the standings, we languish only in 8th after a good recovery at the most recent round. Which leads us nicely onto the second attraction of Junior Formulae;
Unpredictable results. This sounds like something of a holy grail in single seater motorsports thanks to Formula One, but it’s a given in our series. With nearly 30 identical Formula Renaults duking it out each weekend, there’s usually around 7 or 8 guys who could win. Sounds fun right? I have managed to typify this, the lows coming courtesy of my afore-mentioned misfortunes, and the highs coming in the last round where I finally managed to secure the first win of the season at the Hungaroring. This rollercoaster of form can really test the mental strength of younger drivers, after all it can be hard to come to terms with a non-points finish a week or two after winning in the very same series!
Finally, and perhaps the most convincing reason of all, you get to see WTF1 on a car! Although I’ve been assured that there are plans afoot to purchase an F1 team and win the World Championship over 9000 times, for the moment the best place to see the WTF1 logo is next to my head on my Formula Renault. #TeamInternet.
Anyway, to wrap up, my season so far has been somewhat trying. We certainly were hoping to get that first win sooner than last weekend, because as arrogant as that may sound, we are here to win and we know we are capable, so we set our expectations high. There’s no room for modesty in the car, you just have to aim for the best you can get. But as many have said, that’s just racing sometimes. We have proved we are contenders with our latest win, and with the next round being my home event at Silverstone (!!!), we are ready to get ourselves back into the championship hunt.
Follow Jack’s racing journey on his Twitter @JaitkenRacer