20-year-old former kart star Jess joins Falcon Motorsport for Oulton Park racesHawkins seeking budget to complete the season
Twenty-year-old Jess Hawkins is set to step up to the Ford EcoBoost-powered MSA Formula Championship next month. She will join the Falcon Motorsport team for the Oulton Park rounds of the UK’s leading talent-training single-seater series and has started a crowd-funding campaign to help her raise a budget to see out the season.
“VCM Motorsport has been working on my behalf and has helped me to get the funding in place for me for Oulton Park, which is fantastic,” said Hampshire-based Jess. “Now I am aiming to raise the finance for the rest of the season.” Hawkins has started a Twitter campaign – #imbackingjess – with the campaign message “Driven by Jess, powered by Ford, funded by you!” and has set up a fund-raising page on gofundme.com
The successful former karter and British Women Racing Drivers Club Gold Star award finalist made her single-seater debut in an EcoBoost-powered Formula Ford at Silverstone last September, claiming a brace of top-10 finishes. “I have not raced anything since then and I’m keen to get out there again and show what I can do,” added Jess. “I have never driven at Oulton so it will be a big ask – new car, new track – and I will be taking things as they come, hopefully making steady improvements during the weekend and if I could make the top 10 that would be fantastic. I am looking at this season as testing and preparation for a full campaign in 2016.”
Nick Streatfield, Falcon Motorsport team principal, said: “We are delighted to have Jess on board for Oulton Park, and hopefully beyond. It will be tough for her to learn a new car and a new track, but we look forward to working with her to help her get to grips with it all, as we have with her team-mate Darius Karbaley, who has come on in leaps and bounds since the start of the season.”
Hawkins will be the third female driver to sample MSA Formula this season, and will join Richardson Racing’s Louise Richardson on the grid at Oulton. Romanian teen Alexandra Marinescu is expected to return to the series later in the season.
The Oulton Park rounds of MSA Formula – races 10, 11 and 12 of the championship – are scheduled for the first weekend of June, the 6th/7th, with extensive coverage of Sunday’s track action on ITV4.
