McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award winner Matt Parry profile
Matt Parry is only 19, but he has already taken two car racing titles and has connections with a Formula 1 team. And now he's added the McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award to his CV
Autosport Awards
The Autosport Awards are a series of awards presented by motor racing magazine Autosport to drivers that have achieved significant milestones each season. Some of the presentations are selected by the general public via a reader's poll.
After an impressive karting career, which included the Super 1 National Rotax Max Junior title, Parry stepped up to the British Formula Ford Championship in 2011.
It proved a tough baptism and the man himself now admits he underestimated the challenge. Occasional flashes of pace were as good as it got as his Fluid Motorsport-run works Van Diemen was overwhelmed by the Mygale hordes. Parry could only manage eighth in the standings.
He rallied though and bounced back to clinch the 2012 InterSteps Championship with Fortec, winning more than half the races in the series for ex-Formula BMW machines.
Along the way Parry was picked up by Caterham's driver development programme, which later became the Caterham Racing Academy.
With the F1 team's support, Parry stepped into Europe as part of Fortec's multi-car Formula Renault NEC attack for 2013.
He made a great start, with five wins in the first nine races. Things did not go his way thereafter, but Parry still took the title comfortably from Fortec team-mate Jack Aitken.
That was enough to get him selected as one of the six finalists for the prestigious McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award.
After two days of running at Silverstone in Formula 2, Mercedes DTM and McLaren GT machinery - not to mention fitness, simulation and interview tests - Parry emerged to win £100,000, a McLaren F1 test, BRDC membership and an Arai GP-6 RC carbon helmet.
Parry's plans are not yet confirmed for 2014, but a campaign in the Formula Renault Eurocup, in which fellow Award winner Oliver Rowland was runner-up this season, seems likely.
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