Team Canada Scholarship Formula Ford Festival Walter Hayes Trophy

Brands Hatch
Silverstone Circuit
October 16th – November 5th, 2023
England, UK
Post-event recap

Hello, everyone in the Berg Brigade,

These past three weeks have been filled with exciting adventures.

As most of you know, I represented Canada in the Formula Ford Festival (FFF) at Brands Hatch and the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone, with Team Canada Scholarship (TCS), and Graham Brunton Racing (GBR). These are the two biggest Formula Ford racing events in the world, attracting the best drivers from North America and Europe.

This was an experience of a lifetime. I traveled to England for a day short of three weeks and spent most of the time with Kelly & Brian Graham from TCS. I would like to give huge thanks to Brian & Kelly from TCS for this life-changing opportunity. I am so grateful to have been selected to represent my country. I am very proud to be a Canadian.

Starting with the Formula Ford Festival, we had three days of testing (Wed-Fri). It was rainy for most of the testing, but we did get some dry running.

Brands Hatch Indy is quite a circuit. There is nothing like the elevation drop from Paddock Hill Bend (Turn 1).

The way that these events run are quite a bit different than in North America. Because of the mass amounts of cars entered (65+) the entries were split up into 3 “heats” or groups. The top finishers from there were entered into two semi finals (1 semi per group), and the top 15 of each Semi final gained spots for the final.

Now because of the amounts of races are held in a day, the heat races in the day, the races are very short.

Each heat race was 8 laps long, which on a 50-second track meant that each race was just under 10 minutes with some safety cars.

After qualifying P7 in my heat, I gained a few spots to finish in P4. The top 13 finishers of each heat were automatically moved into the semifinal. From the two semi-final groups, the top 15 finishers qualified for the final. This means I was to start P8 in my semifinal, and gained a spot to finish P7.

On Saturday, in my heat race, I set the fastest lap of the day, of any Formula Ford competitor.

I started P13 in the final, and that is where I finished.

It was not the result I wanted, but for my first time in Formula Ford, at the biggest FF race in the world, I cannot say it was a bad result.

Just testing out the steering angle on the car…

In between the two races, Team Canada went to Scotland, and I got to experience some amazing sights and places throughout the Scottish Highlands.

Below are some photos. Graham & Heather Brunton were so kind to give Team Canada a tour of the beauty of Scotland. We went to see the Edinburgh Castle and a few other sights.

We also went to the Jim Clark Museum, which was something very significant and inspiring experience. Jim Clark is a hero of mine. Doug Niven (Cousin of Jim Clark) gave us a personal tour of the Jim Clark Museum. Big thanks to him. He made the tour very special.

Moving on to the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone. Having done a full race weekend in the car, I now felt much more confident and comfortable. The results showed as well. The heat racing format was the same as the FFF.

For whatever reason, this event was much more chaotic, there was a lot more incidents and Safety cars / red flags. The track is also longer, and less technical than Brands Hatch, which allowed more opportunities to overtake, and more opportunities for wheel-to-wheel racing. At Brands Hatch, you are able to take a defensive line around every corner, and not be affected by it on exit.

I qualified P8 in my heat, and moved up a few spots to finish P4.

I started in P8 in my semifinal, and on the final lap, while I was battling for P5, I made a move around the outside of Brooklands (Turn 4). The car I was passing missed his brake point and slid into me. We made wheel-on-wheel contact, but thankfully I was able to continue to driver the next few corners and finish P7.

It made for a pretty spectacular photo opportunity.

Keep in mind, there were 90 entries at the beginning of the weekend and only 30 spots available in the final.

Come the final, I started P12, and while battling with the top 5 group, a red flag came out. Unfortunately, during the red, a small leak in my radiator showed itself, and coolant started coming out of my sidepod.

The team had to push me behind the pit wall, and although they were able to replace the radiator and get me back out to rejoin when the race restarted, I was black flagged/disqualified.

This was due to a miscommunication from the officials to my team. This was no fault of the team. Unfortunately, that is how racing goes sometimes, but I left the event holding my head high with the pace I showed.

I cannot thank everyone at TCS for the amazing opportunity I was given to participate in these two events. It was the experience of a lifetime, and I believe I matured as a driver, and a person, over the course of these couple weeks.

Berg Brigade, I need your help. I have plans to race in Europe next year, and more information will be shared in my next newsletter. Having said that, I am working on securing the financial support I need for my 2024 campaign. Several of my current supporters/partners have already committed to working with me next year. But I still have a ways to go to secure the complete budget I need.

I try to raise my funding through Business-to-Business Projects, and I have various that are in the works now, but I cannot rely on them until the funding is secured for 2024.
I have several investment opportunities for individuals and companies to return on investment and benefit for investing in my program.

If anyone reading this has any interest or ideas to help/invest into my program, please reach out.

Thank you, everyone, for your support. It has been an incredible 2023 season.

Alex Berg
“Making the world a better place, one lap at a time.”
You can follow me live Via the Race Monitor App or through my Social Media channels (listed below). I would like to thank my partners for supporting me throughout my career, you can find them listed below, without them, my racing would not be possible.

Make sure to follow my 2023 racing exploits on the MySim.CA chassis and on the real race track at the following:

Instagram: @alex8erg
Facebook: @alexbergracing
Linkedin: Alexander Berg
Twitter: @alex_8erg
E-Mail: ABJR@AllenBergRacingSchools.com

Doran Motorsports Group: https://www.doranmotorsports.com/
Rohde & Liesenfeld: https://www.roliprojects.com/
ATNA Consulting services: https://www.atnaconsult.com/
Penn Elcom: https://www.pennelcomonline.com/
EasyDrift USA: https://www.easydriftusa.com/
MySim.CA: https://www.mysim.ca
Stilo USA: https://www.stilohelmets.com/
Foxxr Digital Marketing: https://foxxr.com/
DAE Systems: https://dynamic-air.co.uk/
F1 Geeks Official: https://www.f1geeks.com/

Please feel free to contact me in any of the ways listed above to learn more about me or my partners who make racing possible!!