SMITH TO DEFEND HIS FFORD FESTIVAL CROWN
British GT4 frontrunner will make a return to single-seaters at Brands showpiece
Last year’s Formula Ford Festival winner Josh Smith has confirmed he will return to the Brands Hatch event later this month with Oldfield Motorsport to defend his crown.
Smith won last year’s Festival driving for Oldfield after a dramatic battle in the final with Niall Murray and Oliver White.
Smith has not raced in Formula Ford since reaching the final of the 2018 Walter Hayes Trophy shortly after his Festival triumph. He subsequently joined the Mclaren Automotive Driver Development Programme and in 2019 raced in the British GT Championship for Tolman Motorsport in a Mclaren 570S GT4. Paired with James Dorlin, he finished sixth in the GT4 drivers’ standings and won the Brands Hatch race in class.
Smith tested with Oldfield at Brands last Friday in preparation for his appearance in the Festival, which takes place on October 26-27.
“James [Oldfield], my team boss, was always wanting me to come back and do it, and I wanted to do it anyway just because I love Formula Ford racing, it’s always close,” Smith said.
“Hopefully we’ll try and win it again but we will not underestimate my opponents by any means, or think it’s going to be an easy ride.
“I’m approaching it with more of a light-hearted attitude this time. But it doesn’t mean to say I’m not going to come here and do my best to win it. [I expect to be] still at the front. I don’t expect anything less, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.”
Smith added that he is also considering entering the other major Formula Ford end-of-year event, Silverstone’s Walter Hayes Trophy in November. “We might potentially do the Walter Hayes,” he said. “We’ll see how the Festival goes first.”
Festival organiser the BRSCC has confirmed this year’s highest-placed teenager will get a British Formula 4 Scholarship Assessment Day place in November, with a chance to compete for a £35,000 prize package towards a 2020 F4 campaign. There will also be a drivers’ race equipment prize draw in each of the three heats, while the Festival winner will receive hardware from new event sponsor aimshop.com.