The proof of the pudding is in the eating, they say. On this basis, the pudding served by the British Racing Drivers’ Club’s elite driver development programme BRDC SuperStars is serving up a particularly delectable dish.
BRDC SuperStars was founded in 2008 by Damon Hill, to aid the best British young drivers in their final transition to becoming a professional. The programme complements the club’s more introductory Rising Stars scheme.
And since BRDC SuperStars’ introduction pretty much all of British circuit racing’s driver great and good has been a member, from across Formula 1, Formula E, sportscar and tin-tops (see sidebar). SuperStars indeed have totalled 384 wins, 1558 podium finishes and 342 poles, with over 45 drivers becoming full-time professionals while on the programme.
SuperStars’ director is the still very much active sportscar racer Andy Meyrick; he took over the role from Tim Harvey in 2018. And, as Meyrick explains to Motorsport News, SuperStars is very much an elite selection. “We’ve got drivers as young as 15, 16 on the programme and some of the oldest are 23 or 24,” he says. “So you’ve got a nine-year swing there in age group, but you’ve got 13 drivers, so it’s just over one a year. It’s a very, very elite club.”
The selected 13 for 2024 represent the top of junior single-seater racing rungs on both sides of the Atlantic, plus various forms of sportscar competition
