Harrison Scott did all he could in the final race of the 2014 Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain, taking victory in a last ditch attempt at the title. A DNF in the penultimate round proved costly however and eighth place for the JTR Motorsport run Kruger was enough to secure the South African the championship victory. Falcon Motorsport’s Scott can still boast at being runner up in the series for two years in succession and one of six McLaren Autosport BRDC Award finalists.
Pole sitter Ashley Sutton led the first lap of the race for MBM Motorsport. He clipped a kerb on the opening tour however and bent a push-rod in his suspension system. The car continued on but the Scholarship champion opted to allow the faster Mygale from Falcon to claim the lead and follow from a safe distance. Sutton said, “I decided to let Harrison go and then follow him around. If he made a mistake I would have taken advantage but I wasn’t going to push it because if I had hit another kerb the push-rod could have snapped and that would have been game over.”
Despite his handicap, Sutton maintained pressure on the championship hopeful throughout the race after Scott took the lead through Dingle Dell on the second lap. When the rains came halfway through the finale things became even more interesting for the Falcon machine. Scott admitted a lock up which caused him to be much more careful in the way he ran his race.
Sutton’s idea of taking it easy apparently doesn’t include taking the category lap record, an accolade which will stand in perpetuity as the current generation EcoBoost Formula Ford cars make way for the new FIA Formula 4 specification open wheel machines from next season. Sutton added third in the overall championship to his Scholarship class title saying, “Third in the championship is what we were after and we’ve achieved that, so I am happy.”
James Abbott and his Radical Motorsport team mate could have deprived Sutton of the overall third if the final race went their way. So too could Kruger’s team mate at JTR Motorsport, Max Marshall. Abbot was the man with the best chance, running in third place throughout the race until he slipped up at Graham Hill Bend on the final lap and lost out to Ricky Collard. Rosso, followed by Marshall, swept past Abbott to force the Radical man down to sixth with Louise Richardson for Richardson Racing in seventh place as the final chequered flag of the season flew.
Newly crowned champion Jayde Kruger drove a reserved race to eighth place ahead of Chris Mealin and Jack Barlow who rounded out the top ten for Falcon and MBM respectively. Michael O’Brien headed SWB Motorsport’s Greg Holloway and JTR’s Clay Mitchell in a rare race where all who started made it to the finish.
The awarding of the championship title will wait until the MSA Night of Champions, especially as Falcon Motorsport have lodged a counter-appeal to the decision of independent stewards over the clash which effectively decided the title in round 29. The series stewards originally ruled against Kruger until an appeal by JTR had a penalty for causing an avoidable collision quashed. Falcon’s appeal to the MSA means Kruger’s title is currently provisional.
Kruger said, “We’re happy and we’ll be celebrating, but we know that there is an appeal pending and we’ll have to deal with that when the time comes. I’m confident that the outcome will support the decision of the stewards of the meeting.”
The now former champion Dan Cammish was on hand to watch the title decision unfold as he made his Porsche Carrera Cup GB race debut in the guest car. Having driven a GT4 911 all year in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship Cammish is no stranger to the rear engined setup but the GT3 Cup spec car was new. Still he managed to claim victory in the first race before watching his championship crown pass to a new holder.