EX-BTCC racer back to Fford Festival
Former British Touring Car Championship racer Vincent Radermecker is to make an unexpected return to the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch later this month.
Radermecker, now 51, twice competed in the event in the early 1990s and says he has “unfinished business” in it. From there his career took him to British Formula 3, where he was the runner-up in ’94 before switching to tin-tops.
He contested the BTCC in a works Volvo in 1999 and then moved to Vauxhall in 2000, taking a total of five podiums.
“The story is that Geoffroy Horion – a Belgian driver who did Formula Ford a bit later than me and afterwards did F3 and touring car races in Belgium – he bought a Van Diemen RF91 and RF92 and then started a little team, Old Racing School,” Radermecker told Autosport. “He’s doing some historic racing with Formula Ford and he asked me if I was interested. If it was a normal track somewhere I’m not sure, but it was not possible to say no
[to the Festival at Brands Hatch].
“I did two Festivals – in 1991 I finished ninth in the final, then in 1992 I was running sixth in the semi-final and
I tried to improve my classification.
But I had an off because I locked my brakes in the wet. So I have unfinished business and I will try to improve on that.”
More recently Radermecker has competed in TCR machinery – including taking three wins in TCR Benelux in 2016 – as well as taking part in endurance races.
This will be his first race in the UK since Belcar visited Donington Park in 2007, and Radermecker is unsure how he will compare with his Festival rivals.
“I will do free practice before the weekend to remember everything with the car and to try to improve the car and myself,” he said. “Brands Hatch I know quite well and it will be very quickly in my memory.”
Radermecker added that he had looked at making a return to the BTCC over the years and, more recently, at competing in TCR UK. But the need to pay for a drive dissuaded him from taking it up. “With
TCR UK I did have some contact there but still needed to bring budget with it, which is not what I do,” he said.