Villeneuve delivers first Feed Racing prize to young charger

Feed Racing founders Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Lemarié welcomed the winner of their inaugural young driver scheme, 21-year-old Dutchman Marijn Kremers.

Villeneuve and childhood friend Lemarié set up the young driver programme with the ambition of picking up where former schemes like the Volant Elf or Winfield programmes left off.

Forty candidates had signed up back in April for a chance to be selected among the happy six drivers that took part in Feed's grand finale which took place at Magny-Cours on Tuesday.

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Contenders, driving identical Mygale single-seaters, were judged on speed with drivers taking to the dry but cold track by groups of two, with the fastest drivers over an average of three laps knocking out their counterpart before moving on to the next round.

The final confrontation pinned Kremers against 18-year-old Frenchman Etienne Cheli, with the former narrowly beating the latter.

At 21, Kremers is a late bloomer by today's young driver standards, but the Dutchman will nevertheless enjoy a fully funded season in British F4 with front-running team Carlin, the outfit that guided Lando Norris to the junior series title in 2015.

"The age isn’t important," said Villeneuve. "He is the fastest guy. I am sure he will be able to win races in Formula 4 in Britain next year."

Third place in the Feed Racing contest went to 20-year-old Alexis Giroux, a young man whose skills particularly impressed Villeneuve given the fact that the Frenchman had no karting or competition experience prior to signing up for the programme.

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