New F3 award

[Francesca]

The BRDC British F3 Championship has announced an exciting new award for this season. The Everitt Boles Challenge will allow every driver the chance to win an impressive £15,000.

The award, backed by insurance specialists Everitt Boles, will be based upon a driver¹s performance in qualifying and the first race at each of the 13 double-header days in 2002.

The rules are simple: if a driver qualifies on pole position and wins the first race at a meeting he wins £500. The driver is guaranteed £250 of this with the additional £250 payable to the team, assuming they are insured with Everitt Boles.

However, if the driver wishes, he can gamble the full £500 and take up the Everitt Boles Challenge and try to win from pole position at his next two consecutive meetings. If he takes the challenge and secures these victories, he will bag a cheque for £15,000.

sounds good eh?

[Francesca]

Actually having thought about it, I'm not so sure!
Everitt Boles stand to get a lot of publicity and if the teams don't use that particular company for insurance then they don't get a penny, which means EB could make a lot of money from Insurance too.
Also, how likely is it that anyone will really be able to actually win the £15,000?

[Paul Rayner]

Exactly. I think it's an interesting idea, but I can imagine too many teams saying "Well, we've had a lovely weekend Jim, but we'll take the money".

How many drivers could have actually won this last year? If Sato wouldn't have won it then I doubt anyone will take it up.

I think it would be better to have something like in CART a few years ago (I don't know if this still happens). They put up $10,000 for each race to go to a driver if they get pole and win. If no-one does that it goes onto the next race, for $20,000, and so on. I'm not saying that they should put up £10,000 a race, but maybe £1000 per meeting for a driver to get two poles and 2 wins? Or maybe £5000 a race for 2 poles, 2 wins and 2 fastest laps?

At least it's something, and if anyone ever went for it it could be exciting.

[Sid The Manager]

If they had followed Paul rayners suggestion in scholarship, Robbie Kerr would have done well out of Brands Hatch GP circuit last year, two poles two wins two fastest laps ( I think maybe even lap records).
Interestingly thats the first race this year....

[AndyF]

I s'pose it adds an extra dimension to the series, although I can't see anyone getting the top prize