THE MEN FOR THE BIGGEST OCCASION OF THE SEASON
Matt James launches the MN poll to find the favourite Formula Ford Festival winners
The annual Formula Ford showpiece, the Festival, is rapidly approaching and it has got us thinking about some of the big names who have scooped the silverware in the knock-out style, winnertakes-all showpiece.
This year’s event takes place at Brands Hatch on October 22-23. While the Festival doesn’t attract the numbers it used to, it is still a major accolade in the national racing calendar and there have been some truly epic finals and notable winners since it first took place some 50 years ago.
We’ve narrowed down a shortlist and need you to help us pick out the ones who have warmed the heart the most. Simply follow the instructions in the box-out on this page and make your voice heard.
“There were lots of firsts for us in 2022”
Jack Godden
The 20-year-old’s frontrunning form in the low-cost endurance series was not such a big surprise, as he tells Graham Keilloh
The Gaz Shocks 116 Trophy season that’s just finished has a remarkable accolade. In its eight races, it had eight different winners. Even allowing for the BMW 116i one-make endurance series’use of success penalties for the previous race’s podium finishers, it’s testimony to the category’s calling cards of accessible racing and close competition.
Yet among the series’ many drivers who got success in 2022, one stood above them. And perhaps an unlikely one. Twenty-year-old Jack Godden, who usually competes with father
Chris, bagged an overdue first race win and two second-place finishes in a campaign he started without even ever having a podium finish.
“It was a really good year,” Godden Jr tells Motorsport News. “There was lots of firsts for us. It was just the one race win, I would have hoped for maybe two or three, but in a series where there were eight different winners in eight races that’s fine by me. We had three or four fastest laps, I think it was three lap records as well, the pole position to go with it, a few podiums along the way.”
And Godden’s performance shouldn’t have been altogether a surprise. Not if you examine in more detail his 2021 freshman 116 Trophy campaign, which also was the karting champion’s car racing debut.
“It came quite naturally to me,”
Godden says of his first steps in the 116. “It was a bit weird having to learn the car and adjust from karting whilst at the same time having to try and coach dad through it all because he’s never raced before, he’s done a couple little sprints and things but he’s never done an actual race. It took a little while to get [myself] fully up to speed to where I am now but it was pretty good.
“We were not really enjoying [karting] anymore so we went to look at something different for 2021,” Godden continues, “and dad said it had been something he’d been eyeing up for a long time, the 116 Trophy.
“We’ve got friends that race Formula Vee so went to their race weekend at Snetterton at the end of 2020, and 116 Trophy was there, had a quick look and was like ‘yeah OK this will do!’And dad he’d spent too much time watching me race so wanted to join in as well.”
The Goddens were easy to spot, having acquired the series’brightly liveried publicity car, that had been raced by no less a figure than Martin Donnelly. And during the Goddens’2021 debut they built up to the pacesetting form that became common in 2022.
“A lot of it comes down to the seat time we’ve had,” Godden Jr notes. “I’ve become more and more comfortable with the car over time. Our breakthrough was probably Cadwell Park last year, that was the first race where I really felt like I had good confidence with that car but then we had a nightmare of a race, we had a broken shock absorber that led to all sorts of problems.
“And then at that point of the year we were just having a terrible luck, because we had that problem, we had a badly timed safety car which cost us a podium at Anglesey, we had the exhaust come off at Brands Hatch.
“So we came into this year still having not had a podium, and that was the target I told everyone that we had was to get that podium but realistically I was actually thinking I want to win a race this year, which we were able to do.”
That long-awaited win, following on from Oulton Park and Silverstone second places, came at Brands Hatch. Godden Jr drove alone, and overcame a couple of favourable safety car interventions for his opponent Louis Woodward, to chase his foe down and pass him to win. Godden even eschewed a chance to take the lead after tapping Woodward sideways at Paddock, instead preferring to overtake cleanly later. Still though he had to survive a nervous post-race visit to the stewards. Thankfully the result stood.
Endurance racing, such as 116 Trophy’s, is Godden’s first love. “If budget wasn’t an option for us I’d rather do endurance racing than Formula 1,” he says, “I would love have a chance at Le Mans. I love sportscar racing maybe more than open-wheel racing, it’s always been a very keen interest.”
And he is clear that he’d recommend 116 Trophy. “Yeah definitely, it’s a really good series especially if you’re on a tight budget,” he says. “It’s a really good atmosphere in there as well, everyone’s very friendly.
“As a budget series it is very good. The only problem for us is it’s probably as high as we will ever get, because of this budget scenario. There are people that I raced against in karting that are now racing Porsche Carrera Cup or British F4.
“I hate to sound like that guy but I know we can get further up or at least I know I’m good enough to and I’d love to be able to be in a situation where we have the facilities to find out just where.
“I’m happy doing what we’re doing but I always want more,” Godden laughs. “But this is still good and I’d just like to get that opportunity just to see. But for next year it looks like we’ll be staying with what we’re doing.” ■