Photo: Jakob Ebrey/Renault
A chronic lack of funding has made the F1 dream difficult, but Scott Malvern has impressed on the track by following up his dominance in Formula Ford last year with the Formula Renault BARC title at the first attempt…
Factfile:
Full name: Scott Aaron Malvern
Date of birth: 23 February 1989 (age 23)
Nationality: British
Currently: Formula Renault BARC champion
Scott Malvern clinched the Formula Renault BARC Championship title at Silverstone last weekend, adding a second straight single-seater title to the British Formula Ford crown he claimed in dominant style in 2011 and once again proving that he deserves a chance at a higher level despite the lack of money behind him.
Scott began his career in karting, rising through the ranks in the Cadet, Junior TKM and TKM Extreme classes and onto ICA and Formula A in 2006 and 2007. He looked to try and move into single-seaters for 2008 but struggled to raise the budget and settled for working with top Formula Ford squad Jamun Racing, taking Tim Blanchard to second in the championship as his number one mechanic. He used the knowledge gained to set some impressive times when he tested for various Formula Ford teams at the end of the year.
In 2009 he entered the Formula Ford 1600 National Championship with Cliff Dempsey Racing and won the title with six wins from 14 races. He moved up to the main championship in 2010 and thanks to some amazing consistency he finished every race in the points and 22 of the 25 races in the top five, outscoring Scott Pye by a single point. However, dropped scores meant that Malvern had to settle for second place as Pye claimed the championship. His performances were enough to see him nominated for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.
Scott remained in Formula Ford for 2011, now racing for Jamun. He dominated the championship, winning 18 of the 24 races. He was also the winner of all four EuroCup weekends, winning nine of the 11 races, and crowned his season with victory in the Formula Ford Festival. He was again nominated for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.
Scott at the GP3 test at Barcelona at the end of 2011 (Photo: GP3 Media Service)
He tested in GP3 and Formula Two over the winter but could not get the budget together to make such a step up. He instead had to settle for a last-minute drive in Formula Renault BARC and made the most of it, taking three wins and a total of 11 podiums from the 14 races. That allowed him to beat third-year driver and last year’s runner-up Josh Webster to the title, even though Webster won five times.
Talent rating: It’s hard to get a precise grasp of Scott’s talent without seeing how he stacks up in a truly competitive championship, but there’s little more he could have done in the past three years. With no testing and a mid-season change of teams, he’s proven that his Formula Ford success was no fluke. The only pointer we have to how well he could do in quicker machinery are the F2 and GP3 tests he did, where his times weren’t outstanding but it was a big step up for someone from the wing-less Formula Ford. 7/10
Chances of getting to F1: Scott’s lack of financial backing will make the next step difficult enough, let alone enable to him to go on to the top step of the junior ladder, and his age will probably deter driver development programmes from taking him on. Has been funded this year largely by businessman Patrick Cullen, also acting as driver coach for Patrick’s son Ryan in Formula Ford. Ryan’s eyeing a GP3 move next year and it’s not unthinkable that Scott could get a seat alongside him, although that would require a large outlay from Cullen Sr. Even if F1′s highly unlikely, Scott deserves a chance to show what he can do at the next level. And he’s certainly good enough for a long career in some discipline or other. 2/10
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Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography/Renault
Great piece Peter and very surprised to find this tonight as I didn’t know that you were writing it!
It is most definitely a fair evaluation of Scott’s career to date. I’m really proud of what Scott was able to achieve this season. Although he didn’t dominate quite the way he did in 2011 it was really a far more disjointed campaign with Scott literally rocking up at the opening round at Snetterton and driving the car for the first time and being tantalisingly close to a win first time out until the gear linkage broke late on in the race. He did very little testing this year (you could count the days on one hand) and of course none pre-season. Thruxton and Croft were completely new to him and he had to go straight in at the races with just a 15 minute warm up in each case to learn the circuits.
On the face of it Croft may have seemed a bad event for him as Josh Webster won both races to considerably narrow the championship points lead and but we actually came away very buoyant knowing how hard it had been for us there with Scott and his mechanic running the car themselves having split from Cliff Dempsey Racing a few days before and although we kept quiet about it at the time we had no data. Scott knew after getting through that weekend with damage limitation (he still collected fastest lap in race two) that he could go on to take the championship.
The final two rounds at Donington and Silverstone were great. With Cullen Motorsport now up & running and great help from Jamun Racing and top engineer Sarah Shaw the car really was so much better and Scott’s consistency (5 out of 5 podiums) saw him to the championship title.
One small point I’d like to clarify; you are right that on the face of it the end of 2011 the GP3 (Status GP) and FIA F2 tests looked a little disappointing but what is not so widely known is that in both cases Scott’s new tyre runs and boost run (F2) at the end of the day, when the fastest times were set, were compromised by yellow and red flags meaning that he missed out on the limited window of opportunity to set the best possible times when the car should have been at its fastest. Nobody’s fault, certainly not his, just bad luck.
Where does Scott go next? Unfortunately that is unknown and likely to be dictated by budget or rather lack of it but for now we’d just like to savour the moment of another great season of motor racing which Scott was lucky to be able to compete in at all. Only for the support and dedication of certain people was he able to continue his (to date) successful career so a big debt of gratitude to Cullen Motorsport, SDS, Baines Leasing, Pritchard & Cowburn, Allied Tanks, Contract Lift Solutions, MIR, Stratos Marcomms and a whole host of individuals who helped in any way that they could to keep Scott’s show on the road. You are all brilliant! Thank You!!
Dominic Malvern – Racing Dad!
Great to see Scott getting some recognition at last! Well done Paddock Scout!!
Obviously he has gone on to scoop the Autosport Club Driver of the Year Award since this piece was written and deservedly so. If there were any justice he’d have received a third nomination for the main McLaren Award but he was excluded on grounds of age. Complete Tosh!!
It must be so frustrating for Scott after what he has achieved to see drivers with nothing like his results leap frogging him into higher formula. Ironic that it looks as though the driver he was mentoring last season Ryan Cullen looks set to step up to GP3 while Scott will probably struggle to move on!
Motor Racing is all about money & it shouldn’t be!!