NEXT BRAZILIAN STAR SOUGHT FOR TEAM BRAZIL SCHOLARSHIP FESTIVAL CHANCE
Roberto Moreno-guided outfit to let one up-and-comer follow in famous footsteps at Festival
Team Brazil Scholarship with Roberto Moreno is looking for the next Brazilian star to follow in Ayrton Senna’s footsteps with a funded seat competing at this year’s Formula
Ford Festival.
Formula 1 and Champ Car star
Moreno is one of the scholarship’s judges, alongside three-time UK Classic Formula Ford champion Adriano Medeiros and veteran racer Djalma ‘o Monstro’ Fogaca.
The opportunity is for Brazilian racers aged 16 to 25, and the panel using race results and interviews will pick one driver from a sixstrong shortlist to race at this year’s Festival as well as get three days of testing.
The scholarship team also hopes in future seasons to expand the opportunities offered.
The project is the brainchild of Vera Lyra Oliveira Dos
Santos and it will partner with the Swift Cooper team, with which reigning Castle Combe FF1600 champion Luke
Cooper is a regular frontrunner.
“It’s really exciting to be involved with it,” Cooper told Motorsport News. “Lyra was over here with me for the Festival last year and had watched the previous Festival. She saw the Team USA [scholarship] guys doing it and wondered if there was a chance of getting Brazil drivers together to do something similar. The more she looked into it the more she realised how much involvement Brazil had in the Festival over the years.”
Senna cut his car racing teeth in UK Formula Ford in 1981, though didn’t compete at the Festival. Moreno, Chico Serra and Niko Palhares are Brazil’s winners of the Brands Hatch end-of-season showpiece.