Formula Ford
Formula Ford is a single seater,
open wheel class in
motorsport which exists in some form in many countries around the world. It is an entry-level series to motor racing, in which in the past many drivers aspired to one day reach
Formula One (today karting is more likely to be a young driver's entry to serious formula car racing). Formula Ford racing is mainly an amateur, club-racing series attracting serious enthusiasts. The car can provide drivers with their first insights into how a racing car feels to drive and how to properly set up a car, or it can provide a relatively inexpensive way for drivers to campaign purpose-built racecars for many years. The first Formula Ford car was
Team Lotus'
1966 Type 51. Unlike its great rival as an entry level formula,
Formula Vee, the Formula Ford cars use full racing suspension setups.
A Formula Ford car is one of the more distinctive-looking open-wheel race cars because it does not have wings to create
aerodynamic downforce, one of the reasons the series has persisted for so long in motor racing. Top speeds are not high, handling is excellent, and the lack of wings ensures that cars following another are not aerodynamically disadvantaged. Series' rules may permit slick tires or treaded tires. As the rules limit modifications, all cars are relatively equal and close racing results. Still, Formula Fords allow suspension and braking bias changes--if not aerodynamic options like winged cars.
Formula Ford cars weigh less than 450 kg (1000 lb), so their engines, which typically develop about 115 hp, are capable of propelling them from 0–100 km/h in less than five seconds, reaching top speeds of nearly 220 km/h (140 mph). The engine is usually a stressed member of the chassis, as in larger and more advanced Formula cars.
Several famous race drivers have used the formula as a step up to international competitions. For example,
David Coulthard and
Jenson Button were both British Formula Ford champions; Danica Patrick, the American IRL racer, finished second in the British Formula Ford Festival early in her career. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
Emerson Fittipaldi and
Jody Scheckter were both competing in Grands Prix within a year or so of starting Formula Ford in Britain.
In order to reduce cost, chassis are steel space-frame, unlike the
monocoques found in other types of single seater racing. The more popular marques are currently
Van Diemen and
Mygale, but smaller manufacturers such as
Ray or
Vector have had some success. In recent years, in the United States, Pipers have also been campaigned with strong results. Historical designers who have made a mark on the series have included:
Titan,
Lotus,
Swift,
Elden,
Reynard,
Crosslé,
Lola and
Bowin.
Formula Ford racing cars can be fitted with different engines. When the formula was introduced, the engine was the OHV 1600 cc
Ford Kent engine, using production blocks with little special preparation. In 1994, Ford replaced its Kent block engine with the more modern and more powerful 1800 cc 16-valve
Zetec. The advent of the Zetec created a new class of Formula Ford cars popular in some countries, although the increased weight of the engine was felt to adversely affect the handling of the cars. The formula originally mandated production gearboxes, wheels and tyres (and a maximum cost for the rolling chassis, although this was long since abandoned!), although Formula Fords now use racing gearboxes and slick tyres.
For the 2006 season, the Zetec engine is being superseded by the 1600 cc, DOHC 16v
Duratec engine. The Zetec was criticized by engineers and designers as less than ideal because of its bulk and weight. The move to Duratecs has brought Formula Ford back to using 1.6 L capacity motors. Despite the capacity decrease, the new engines are more powerful than the Zetecs, and weigh more than 20 kg less, reducing overall weight and increasing performance significantly.
Unusually for any racing formula, one Minister Racing Engines-built engine became a legend - known as "Patch" after the number of times its
cylinder block had been repaired, the same unit won several Formula Ford festivals in different hands.
Ford administers some of the national Formula Ford championships around the world, but older cars are very popular with club racers, providing the ground for several organizations to run their own series. Many racing schools offer driver training in Formula Ford cars. However, in many countries,
Formula BMW and
Formula Renault Campus have superseded Formula Ford as the main entry level class. In the UK there are many less important regional series aimed at the amateur enthusiast, as well as championships for older FFords.
For many years the highlight of the Formula Ford season was the
Formula Ford Festival at
Brands Hatch. Entries of several hundred cars from all over the Formula Ford world were common into the 1990s, with racers competing in knockout heats to decide the grid for a grand final. Entries have been declining and recent Festivals have struggled to attract more than 40-50 cars, enough for two heats and a final — more "historic" FF1600 cars have been turning up for the supporting races than contemporary Zetecs.
Formula Ford has given birth to several other categories of racing:
Formula Ford 2000 evolved in the 1970s to use a
Pinto engine and although it used basically FFord chassis, permitted use of slicks and wings; it was seen as a natural step up from FFord and a stepping stone to categories such as
Formula Three. FFord 2000 engines and tranmissions were married to sports-racing chassis to produce
Sports 2000.
Older Formula Fords, with outboard shock absorbers, race in the United States as Club Formula Fords in SCCA and other club racing series.
Formula 100 was a misguided attempt in the late 1960s to create a sportscar-bodied version of Formula Ford; despite being extremely pretty, the cars were heavy and slow. The proposed
Formula Turbo Ford (an attempt to update FF2000) of the mid-1980s was limited to one Reynard that ran a few demonstration laps.
Formula Ford remains immensely popular at grassroots level in its 1600 cc form, though — the cars are widely
raced, sprinted and hillclimbed. Formula Continental, the modern name for
Formula Ford 2000 is also a popular choice in the USA and Canada. Formula Continental cars employ aerodynamic effects (front and rear wings) along with 2000cc engines.
Formula First was a partly successful attempt to get back to the roots of Formula Ford, with a spec FFord-like car running a transversely-mounted Ford engine in a very low state of tune; it was designed as an introductory formula and racing school chassis, and served in this capacity for some years.
