04.12.06 TURVEY WINS MCLAREN AUTOSPORT BRDC AWARD Cumbrian racing driver Oliver Turvey has won the most prestigious prize in British junior motorsport - the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award. The award is presented annually to the driver judged to be the most promising rising British star. The winner not only receives £50,000 in prize money, but a Formula One test with McLaren-Mercedes. Previous recipients include F1 racers David Coulthard, Jenson Button and Anthony Davidson, and virtually every award winner has gone on to a successful career in international motorsport. Turvey earned his place on the final shortlist for the award after a remarkable year in the Formula BMW UK Championship, in which he missed the first third of the season due to a lack of finance, but then stormed to second place in the standings with a string of victories for Team Loctite when he did join the fray. By the end of the championship Turvey and Team Loctite were the undisputed benchmarks, and went on to finish sixth in the Formula BMW World Finals in Spain - comfortably beating the rest of the British contingent. The six drivers shortlisted for the award were then put through their paces in a test day at Snetterton, where they drove a Porsche Carrera, a Mercedes DTM touring car, and a World Series by Renault single-seater under the watchful eyes of a judging panel that included ex-world champion Damon Hill, former F1 racer, sportscar champion and leading television commentator Martin Brundle, and a host of F1 engineers, experts and former winners. Their off-track capabilities were also assessed in interviews at McLaren's F1 factory the following week, where the candidates met double world champion Mika Hakkinen. After that thrilling but gruelling series of challenges, Turvey and his five rivals had to wait a fortnight until the annual Autosport Awards event at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on Sunday night (3rd December). The Young Driver Award is the traditional highlight of the evening, and it was only after the likes of Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Loeb, Andy Priaulx and Lewis Hamilton had collected their awards in the miscellaneous other categories that Coulthard and Button stepped up to announce that Turvey was the latest recipient of the award that had launched them towards F1. "This is the perfect end to the year for me," said Turvey. "I only did 70 per cent of the races in Formula BMW this year but I still finished second in the championship. "I didn't drive a racing car for the first five months of the year, but then I won my first race of the season at Brands Hatch and things went really well from there." The 19-year-old from Penrith has always struggled to secure the level of sponsorship required to progress in motor racing, but knows that as part of the elite band of McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winners, his prospects now look significantly brighter. "Finding the budget has always been the hard bit," he said, "but hard work and determination has got me here. "I'm hoping to do Formula Three next year, and the £50,000 prize will help with that. The prestige of this award is also a great help, and I hope to be able to get to Formula One in the future." << back to news