02.11.06 TURVEY NOMINATED FOR MCLAREN AUTOSPORT AWARD Oliver Turvey is one of the six finalists for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award for the most promising young racing driver in the UK. The award is the biggest single prize in junior motorsport, with the winner receiving £50,000, and testing days with not only a leading team in Formula One feeder category GP2, but also the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team. British F1 star David Coulthard was the first ever McLaren Autosport Award recipient in 1989, with his fellow grand prix winner Jenson Button picking up the 1998 award. McLaren and Honda F1 reserve drivers Gary Paffett and Anthony Davidson are also former winners, and virtually every driver who has received the award has gone on to a career in international motorsport, if not in F1 then in sportscars or American single-seater racing. McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winners are universally recognised as the cream of rising British racing talent. All British racing drivers aged between 17 and 23 and competing in the junior categories were eligible for the award, with a judging panel whittling down that selection to the elite six finalists, including Turvey. The sextet will now go head to head in a day of intensive testing and interviews later this month, before the identity of the winner is revealed at the annual Autosport Awards at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on 3rd December. Many suspected that Turvey would be amongst the finalists this season after his remarkable performance for Team Loctite in the Formula BMW UK Championship. His perennial lack of sponsorship meant that Turvey could not join the series until the seventh of the 20 rounds. Yet despite missing a third of the season, Turvey finished the year a remarkable second in the championship, having won five races, taken a string of podiums and pole positions, and dominated the latter rounds. << back to news