Henry Surtees' First Season in Single-seaters
Henry’s first season in single-seaters was an eventful one. We do not regret the decision to go to Formula BMW. This formula gave a very nice rounded experience and base upon which to develop his skills. The various training programmes associated with Henry having won a BMW scholarship this year, particularly within media and fitness, were very much appreciated.
I am only sorry that BMW for some reason has decided to put the formula onto an international basis rather than continue to have that valuable catchment area.jpg) within the host nations i.e., Germany and UK. I can well understand its desire to get involved with the euphoria and razzmatazz which revolves around Grand Prix and perhaps attract a little more exposure. But at the same time I think that there should have been a second stage in its development, and the feeder areas, such as the British BMW Series, should have remained. However, that is BMW’s decision and we were fortunate in being involved in the last year that it took place in the UK.
We didn’t think of going onto the international BMW programme because you just need to look at the programme, the cost and the time it involved, to see that education would have to take second place. That in my opinion is not acceptable for 16 and 17 year olds.
I do not believe that with youngsters in their teens it is right to put their motorsport activities first and thheir schooling second. Certainly something I have insisted on with Henry is that he has to perform at school. I believe it will be invaluable to him in the future, whether he continues with a career in motorsport or not. Education is something which you cannot in this day and age be without. I think that this is something which the Motor Sport Association should think very carefully about and look at the regulations regarding karting. They should not encourage young karters to spend extra time testing in the school week. They should ensure there is more of an even playing field and that those who carry on with an education are not put at a disadvantage. There are certainly many who obviously have the support of their parents or whoever is paying for the programme, who tend to ignore education thinking that motorsport or racing is the beginning and end of everything in their lives. That could be a very bad mistake and I believe the governing body should look at it very carefully relative to restricting practice, testing etc., within the school term.
However, back to Henry. It is Renault for next year. We didn’t end up with the result we had thought possible in BMW at the start of the year. We were more than competitive and Henry was certainly one of the top 3 fastest drivers in the country competing in the Series. In some ways perhaps, as a team, we were at a smalldisadvantage because Henry did not have a real team mate to go along and put pressure on him and also to help in the set up of the cars relative to the team knowledge as such. This is one of the areas where the team Fortec were very strong and so provided intense competition.
Unfortunately we didn’t only have to compete against other drivers on the track. We tended to have more than our fair share, I believe, of run ins with officialdom. Perhaps we should have seen the writing on the wall at the very first race meeting of the year when in the second race at Brands Hatch, after Henry had finished second in his first ever single-seater race, he put the car in gear at the start and let his wheels roll over the line on number 3 grid position. As people will know, there is a very steep angle on the track at that point at Brands Hatch and it is very easy to let the car roll on a little. So he was slightly out of position but at a standstill when the lights went out, whereas back on the third row Henry Arundel did a classic jump start and leapfrogged everybody and led into the first corner very comfortably. I didn’t think it was quite, should I say, fair that the same level of punishment should have been exercised for that sort of misdemeanour as it was for what was a plain error which gave Henry no advantage whatsoever. It continued in the same vane and ruled out our chances for challenging for the Championship. I was to see this not only for ourselves but with others and I thought that the particular official concerned was one who was frankly out of place within a junior motorsport activity. However, quality of officials is something that is being addressed by the MSA and other associated groups who are intent in trying to attract more good officials and generally uplift the standard that exists within the management of motorsport. It is certainly something which we could well do with.
Renault – there can be few better names than this within motorsport. After all they were there right at the very start. Certainly their support of motorsport over the years has been something which they must be very proud of. The Renault Formula, from our little knowledge of it, is somewhat different to the BMW. But perhaps that is purely the difference between a French and German nation and the way they go about things. It is going to be interesting to see how things develop as we become more knowledgeable in how Renault runs. We put a toe in the water with the Winter Series. It was not entirely a happy situation as we encountered a number of problems which were frankly not of our making. Certainly the sort of teething problems we had to develop out of the new car that was purchased was something that I hadn’t expected. But perhaps that is put down to the fact it is manufactured in Italy. As most of our problems centred round electrics the Italian scene has never had the highest reputation in the past on the electrical front although of course Magneti Marelli are in turn a world leader particularly within motorsport.
We ran initially with the Carlin team who we had been with for the Formula BMW season. It was in fact the old BMW team who turned over to do the 3 days of racing. I say 3 days as we also took the decision of doing one day at Thruxton, the final race of the 2007 Renault Series Championship. The opportunity of driving at Thruxton was something which I didn’t think should be missed. There is always limited time available on that circuit and I thought it would stand Henry in excellent stead this year when he comes to compete there. The times he was able to do in testing and some of the lap times that the computer told us he could have done without the odd mistake were very encouraging. It was a learning time for Henry but also the team and I think that it is to be hoped that the lessons learnt can be put to good use this season.
We have swapped from the hastily convened Renault team to one of the more experienced ones as we will now be joining Manor Motorsport run by Tony Shaw for the season.
Henry will be one of the youngest drivers on the grid, only coming up to be 17 on 18 February, the same birth date as Enzo Ferrari incidentally. He will encounter two strong team members with a full season’s Renault experience behind them. This will be good for him because with any Series your greatest competitor is always your team mate and with a bit of luck the competition which will exist in the team will mean that there will be a piggyback type of operation which will exist for each of the team members each trying to up their performance and introducing another competitive element into the team.
The important thing, however, is this has to be all worked around Henry’s education. With GCSE’s over he is concentrating on his AS levels and studies must continue. Any time which is taken off has to be made up. But again, as I said earlier, it is important that disciplines exist and the education factor must be maintained.
We look forward to a new experience running with the Renault Championship together with our new team and most importantly having a lot of fun whilst doing it.
We again welcome George Barber of the Barber Motorsport Park in Birmingham, Alabama, USA and the Scalextric company as two of our sponsors.
John Surtees
8 January 2008
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