At last night’s Autosport Awards 18-year-old Paul di Resta was announced as winner of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award, the prize that helped catapult David Coulthard and Jenson Button to Grand Prix stardom.
Di Resta, a cousin of former Award winner and Indy Racing League star Dario Franchitti, will receive overnight recognition as motor racing’s next hot property, a £50,000 cash prize to help fund his next season’s racing, and the chance to test drive a McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 car.
Di Resta received his Award on stage in the Great Room of the Grosvenor House Hotel, on London’s Park Lane, in front of a 1,200-strong audience which included motorsport’s most powerful movers-and-shakers.
From Bathgate, West Lothian, di Resta finished third in this year’s Formula Renault UK Championship, winning four of the last eight races. He said on stage: “It’s unbelievable. I can feel my heart pumping. Without my Dad and Dario I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am right now, because they’ve helped me through my career. I had to win the Award to do what I’m doing next year, and I’ve won it.”
Jenson Button won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 1998, David Coulthard in 1989, and Franchitti in 1992. The most recent Award winner to graduate to Formula 1 is Anthony Davidson (2000), now test driver and official reserve for British American Racing, for whom Button raced to third in this year’s World Championship.
Franchitti said: “As a driver, it’s always a nervous moment before the [winner of the] Award is announced. Paul’s had quite a week; he’s been signed-up by Mercedes to do the European Formula 3 Championship next year, and now he’s Young Driver of the Year. It’s cool!”
Murray Walker: “If you’re a young driver these days, and you’ve got talent, it’s not enough. You need sponsorship and you need support and you need backing, and that’s what the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award gives. It’s absolutely invaluable. But it’s not just the money, it’s the fact that you’ve been recognised by people who really know what they’re talking about. We’ve seen some of the Young Drivers go on to achieve great things, and I hope Paul will.”
Button said: “Winning this Award is a real boost for a young driver. It brings you to the attention of everybody in motorsport, including the Formula 1 teams.”
Di Resta was one of six nominees (five men and one woman) invited to compete for the Award. All were assessed by a panel of motor racing experts during two days of rigorous driving tests and interviews at Silverstone circuit.
The other nominees were Tim Bridgman, 18 (Dunmow, Essex), winner of this year’s Formula BMW GB single-seater series; Mike Conway, 21 (Sevenoaks, Kent), who won the 2004 Formula Renault UK Championship; Jonathan Kennard, 19 (Tunbridge Wells, Kent), winner of this year’s Formula Palmer Audi single-seater series; Scott Mansell, 18 (Tamworth, Staffs), winner of the 2004 EuroBOSS series in a 1997 Benetton Formula 1 car; and Susie Stoddart, 21 (Oban and Northampton), also a frontrunner in Formula Renault UK.
