Andy Richardson will hope to make past knowledge pay dividends when the Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain heads to Knockhill this weekend for the seventh meeting of the campaign.
The South Lincolnshire-based 21-year-old – who will celebrate his 22nd birthday on Sunday – heads into the weekend hoping to end a recent run of misfortune, which has prevented him from repeating the front-running pace he showed earlier in the year.
With the Formula Ford series heading to the Scottish circuit for the first time since 2010, Andy goes into the weekend with more experience of the picturesque circuit overlooking the Firth of Forth than many of his rivals, having competed at the venue in both the Ginetta Challenge and the Ginetta GT Supercup earlier in his career.
Having been forced to run with a loaned Ford EcoBoost engine in his Richardson Racing-run Mygale at Snetterton earlier this month, Andy will hope that the return of his own engine – which has undergone work to resolve issues encountered during testing over the summer break – will allow him to run at the front of the pack as he seeks to add to his overall podium tally.
“We had a few issues with the loaned engine at Snetterton, but still matched the pace of the front-runners when we were running well,” he reflected. “Given that we now have own engine back this weekend, I’m confident that we’ll be able to put the problems we encountered there behind us and focus firmly on pushing for some strong results.
“Although there is only a limited amount I can take into the weekend from the racing I’ve done at Knockhill in the past, hopefully there will be some advantage over my rivals as I think Dan Cammish is the only one to have raced there before.
“I think others will have had the chance to test so they won’t be going into the weekend blind, but we are in a position now where the car feels good and we just need to work to maximise its potential. We know there is work to do, but we’ve been limited in terms of what we could do by some of the problems we’ve faced.
“A trouble free weekend will do us the world of good when it comes to making advances with the car and regaining the kind of form we showed earlier in the year, but when you consider we are a first year team running a single car against teams that have been running cars like this for a number of years, I think we’re doing a good job. Hopefully this weekend, that will be reflected in the results.”
