A sign of things to come?

When the South African F1 driver, Jody Scheckter, became World Champion way back in 1979, a lot of people predicted that it would be just the start of a procession of young South African drivers into Grand Prix racing. After all, didn’t South African have its own National F1 Championship between 1960 and 1975? It was obviously a motorsport loving country to be able to not only fund its own championship but introduce so many expensive F1 cars into the championship. They included models from Lotus, McLaren, Cooper and even boasted a few F5000 cars. The last ever South African F1 Championship Winner was Dave Charlton.

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When a host of young South African Formula ford drivers packed their bags and headed for the UK in the footsteps of their new World Champion Jody Scheckter, the future had looked positive.

Formula ford 1600 in the UK was the proving ground for young drivers from around the world and entry lists of 120 cars per round of the various Championships were commonplace. It would mean a tougher lifestyle, cold weather, rain and grey skies, but what an opportunity in motorsport. Right at it’s very heart, it was also a reasonably priced series, due mainly to the fact that drivers could look after their own cars, probably with a friendly mechanic and the days of the professional teams such as Carlin, Rushen-Green and Fortec hadn’t hit the scene at that time. The racing was dramatic and exciting, with little difference between the various marques ensuring close racing.

The brigade of South African drivers who shone in this highly competitive era included Roy Klomfass, Rad Dougall, Kenny Gray, Bobby Scott, Basil Mann, Mike White and Trevor van Rooyen amongst several others. Surely this would result in more South African racers into F1? Amazingly and for many reasons, some political and some financial, the expected stream of South African F1 drivers into F1 has never materialised, not even one!

Here we are, some 45 years on since Jody was crowned World Champion and we haven’t had a single South African F1 driver. For a country so passionate about motorsport, that really is surprising. There has been South African success in sports car racing, rallying, touring cars and off- road events including the Dakaar. In the USA another South African Wayne Taylor…