Fifteen years after witnessing his father win the Kent-engined section of the Formula Ford Festival, Jason Smyth became the first second-generation winner with a commanding performance at Brands Hatch’s 50th edition of the event.
Team Dolan driver Smyth continued his dominance from the United Formula Ford Championship to win his heat, semi-final and the final. His Van Diemen RF00/JL12 finished two seconds clear of countrymen Jordan Dempsey (B-M Racing Medina) and Niall Murray (Team Dolan Van Diemen BD26) as Irish drivers locked out the podium.
Smyth earned pole position for the final by virtue of winning the second semi in a marginally quicker time than surprise package Tom Nippers (Van Diemen RF01) had taken the first. The 19-year-old converted that into the lead as Dempsey jumped Nippers into second. But, while Dempsey had shadowed Smyth throughout both their previous contests, Smyth found another gear when it really mattered.
He negotiated two safety-car restarts with ease and was never headed. In cool but dry conditions – save for a few spots of rain in the closing laps – Smyth deployed “robot mode” to set the only sub-50s lap of the undulating 1.2-mile Indy circuit in race conditions all weekend as a measure of his superiority.
“I was really, really pushing it,” he admitted, “which I probably shouldn’t have been with the lead I had!”
The biggest threat to Smyth’s supremacy came in his semi-final. Having experienced the worst of Saturday afternoon’s rain, his heat-winning time was slowest of the four 10-lappers. That put him second on the grid for semi-final two, behind two-time Festival winner Rory Smith (B-M Racing).
Smith (l) and Smyth had differing views on this semi-final clash
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
Eager to assert his authority, Smyth tried rounding his opponent at Druids on the opening lap, but ran out of road on the exit of the hairpin. With two wheels on the grass, Smyth kept his foot in and his right-front connected with Smith’s sidepod as they charged down the hill.
Further contact entering Graham Hill Bend sent an unimpressed Smith down to seventh, from where he recovered to third. “I felt like he just drove into the side of me and pushed me out the way,” he said.
Smyth retorted: “If he took his normal line in Druids, instead of trying to push me out, he would have been by me.”
Under pressure from Dempsey, Smyth later dipped two wheels in the Paddock Hill gravel but held on to win by 0.24s, despite an ill-handling car.
“The contact maybe gave me a bit of toe in or toe out on the front right,” he admitted, “but the car still wasn’t good even on the rear. I was really, really battling the car.”
Smyth reckoned set-up changes were needed, but the experience of father Neville and team boss Bernard Dolan shone through. “We were looking at it and [concluded] it was the track [conditions],” Smyth Jr explained. “The car came good in the final. It was the best I’ve probably ever had around here.”
Dempsey was right on Smyth’s tail in the earlier races but had no answer in the final
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
Having been closely matched until that point, Dempsey had no answer for Smyth’s pace in the crucial contest. The safety cars might have offered a lifeline, but “he just nailed them every time” Dempsey admitted.
“In fairness to him, he drove really well,” the runner-up added. “He just had great pace and I couldn’t live with him.”
Instead, Dempsey had to withstand Murray’s threat in the closing stages. Giving the BD26 chassis its race debut after Kirkistown’s Martin Donnelly Trophy was rained off last month, he undoubtedly had the pace to challenge. But, having led home Luke Cooper (Swift) and impressive debutant Ronan Doherty (RF00) by nearly 6s in his heat, a costly mistake in his semi-final left Murray on the backfoot.
That semi’s first attempt was red-flagged due to a pile-up at Druids that eliminated Murray’s fellow two-time winner Joey Foster. Oldfield Motorsport’s Ben Cochran tagged Spencer Shinner’s sister Van Diemen – Josh Smith’s winning chassis from last year – under braking. It flicked onto two wheels and came crashing down on Foster’s Firman.
“His wheel went through the sidepod and into the coil, so it broke the wires on the ignition,” rued Foster, whose quick fix didn’t last.
Hugh Esterson, brother of 2022 winner Max, was also eliminated. Shinner continued but had unknowingly split a radiator pipe and lost all his coolant, cooking his engine.
Murray (far left) was in the wars during his semi-final
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
At the restart, Murray’s car hesitated. “It just wasn’t fully in gear,” he explained. “Completely my own fault. As soon as I let off the clutch it just popped out.”
He dropped to sixth, returned to second within five laps, then was shuffled back to fourth by Nippers’ robust defence. “I just hate racing like that,” bristled Murray. “You give each other space.”
Nippers was unrepentant. “Whatever I had to do to keep [the lead] I was going to do it,” he said. “You’ve got to be brutal in this competition.”
Murray recovered to third, leaving him sixth on the grid for the final. A moment at the first corner cost him further ground before another overtaking masterclass. He picked off Alex Walker (Wayne Poole Racing RF01), Cooper and Smith, then cut back underneath nemesis Nippers at Paddock/Druids to take third, falling just 0.15s shy of stealing second from Dempsey.
Smith also passed Nippers when the latter ran wide, earning fourth. After an overnight engine change, third Team Dolan driver Morgan Quinn snatched sixth from Cooper on the line after getting a run in traffic. Walker was eighth, ahead of Oldfield pair Connor Willis and Cochran.
The experience of Dolan (right) was crucial to Smyth’s success
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
Without that mistake, could Murray have challenged Smyth? “I made my bed, so I’m lying in it now,” he said. “But at least a deserving person won it. Jason was just flying: 49.9s on his own, in the lead. So unless he fell off, or a backmarker took him off, nobody was catching him.”
Smyth was just pleased his dad no longer had the family bragging rights. “Whenever we’re slagging each other he always had that over me,” he laughed. “He says, ‘But where’s your Festival?’
“I actually can’t thank him enough because the amount of work he puts in is just unreal. Now I have to get the Walter Hayes because he’s never won that!”
From being the four-year-old boy scooped up in his jubilant father’s arms 15 years ago, now it was Smyth Jr lifting his father aloft in celebration.
Grant is another dominant winner in the Historic Final
There was to be no denying Grant in the twice-restarted Historic Final
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
The Formula Ford Festival’s Historic Final – for pre-1999 cars – produced another comprehensive winner in the form of multiple Historic Formula Ford champion Callum Grant.
A change to this year’s format meant that the 30-car grid was based on results from the main Festival’s heats, rather than its semi-finals. That left Tom Hawkins’ TM Racing Swift SC95 on pole position, joined on the front row by Irish veteran Noel Robinson in his newly acquired Van Diemen RF92.
Grant (RF91) started fourth, behind Oliver Roberts’s ex-Jordi Gene RF89, which had been newly restored by Souley Motorsport.
Robinson was a little slow away, and cut across to defend from Roberts. But that allowed Grant to sweep past both into second. Appropriately for a race in memory of commentator Brian Jones, Grant then went ‘high, wide and handsome’ around Hawkins to take the lead at the start of the second lap.
Two red flags, for incidents at Graham Hill Bend, were no obstacle for Grant, who finished 2.7s clear of a multi-car battle for second. Loose bodywork sidelined Hawkins, while Arnaud Dousse (RF91) spun exiting Druids, leaving Robinson to hold off Roberts and British Racing & Sports Car Club chairman Peter Daly (RF88).
Grant celebrating his latest Formula Ford victory
Photo by: Gary Hawkins
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– The Autosport.com Team
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