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Sorry for my flippancy guys, but I'm just trying to inject some realism. Tourlegend is talking of a career path. I've been involved with sponsorship, drivers and I'm a shareholder in ateam, so I know what the cost and likely chances of success are.
For every Jenson Button there a 1000 kids who get nowhere, some of whom are equally motivated. Yes JB is very talented
but he has always been placed in the right environment to shine. How do you think he would have done with a back street FFord team run from a transit van? Would he have won races and the festival, for example.
A year in Formula Ford will cost around £100 K with a good team. FRenault will set you back £140K with a top team. F3 will cost up to £250-300K with a top team and two years is becoming the norm. This means that somebody has to part with
around £750K to put a driver in a good team throughout the lower formulae and you're still no further than F3.
My point is that of all the drivers racing in the UK major national single seater series,virtually all the race wins came from drivers in the top teams in each series. How many other drivers do you remember form FFord, outside the Mackie, Haywood and Van Diemen teams?
By going other routes you are often wasting your money, and before anybody mentions sponsorship at this level of motorsport the driver (or father) pays and sponsors generally aren't interested in lower formulae.
So Touringlegend its very tough to make it anywhere and the costs I have mentioned are before you've spent several years in Karts which to be competitve are becoming increasingly expensive.
Yes, if a driver is exceptionally talented, he will get picked up by a professional manager/backer, but putting yourself in that position to shine, is not easy. Look at Derek Hayes he ran Button very close as his team mate at Haywood back in FFord, and actually beat him in the Eurocup series, but only now has he made it to F3...and who mentions him in the same breath as button now?
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