OCTOBER 22, 2002

Heylen wins Formula Ford Festival

Belgian Jan Heylen won the Formula Ford Festival at the weekend at Brands Hatch. Victory in the event is a major step forward for any young driver and Heylen joins a distinguished list of former winners which includes F1 starsÊDerek Daly, Roberto Moreno, Julian Bailey, Johnny Herbert, Roland Ratzenberger, Eddie Irvine, Jan Magnussen, Mark Webber, Jenson Button and Anthony Davidson.

The Final of the competition proved to be action-packed and had to be stopped when pre-event favourite Westley Barber crashed after a collision with Ben Clucas. The British Champion was unhurt in what was a big accident. After the restart Heylen was chased all the way to the finish by Christian England but the British driver was later penalised for starting the race out of position on the grid, which dropped him down the order to seventh place, although he had the consolation of having set the fastest lap of the event.

This meant that Swede Richard Goransson was given second place after a fine drive through the field after losing a lot of places at the start of the Final. Third place went to Holland's Jaap van Lagen in a Mygale. The minor positions featured Sweden's Alex Danielsson in fourth, Clucas in fifth and Japan's Yuya Sakamoto in sixth.