Season curtain-raiser just a week away for Formula Renault BARC
Donington Park National Circuit in the East Midlands will play host to the season opening event of the increasingly high profile Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship next weekend, 23rd/24th April, as the battle to succeed history making 2010 champion Alice Powell gets fully underway.
With an extremely healthy 21 car grid for the championship curtain-raiser, Formula Renault BARC is in great shape for 2011. Without doubt the best subscribed of the UK’s top junior single-seater categories, it boasts some of the country’s most promising aspiring Formula One talent.
Ahead of the first two rounds of 12, a strong quartet is expected to make the early running – Antel Motorsport’s Dino Zamparelli (Bristol) and Fortec Motorsport trio Josh Webster (Stowmarket, Suffolk), Archie Hamilton (Hook, Hampshire) and Kieran Vernon (West Chiltington, West Sussex).
Multiple race winner Zamparelli returns for a full campaign, having finished third overall in the 2009 championship, and will spearhead Antel’s attack which also features car racing rookie Callum Bowyer (Peterborough).
Fortec fields four cars in total with Spaniard Victor Jimenez joining Webster, Hamilton and Vernon at the Daventry squad. Hamilton is back in single-seaters after a year away in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship while Webster, the 2010 Formula Renault BARC Winter Series Champion, and Vernon, a multiple race winner in Formula Palmer Audi, both agreed late 11th hour deals.
Reigning champion squad Hillspeed has a less experienced three driver line-up but Indian-born Formula Ford graduate Zaamin Jaffer (Cardiff, Wales) has already proven his pace in pre-season testing, as has Howard Fuller (Kingston-upon-Thames). They are joined by car racing rookie Sean Walkinshaw (Chipping Norton, West Oxfordshire).
SWB Motorsport, which became a race-winning outfit in its first season in 2010, fields a four-car presence in the championship this year. Experienced campaigner Andrew Jarman (Milton Keynes) will be joined by three car racing rookies – South African born Raoul Owens (London), Macaulay Walsh (Northampton) and Jack Dex (Daventry).
