Harrison Newey clinches MRF Challenge title

40

Harrison Newey, the teenage son of Formula One car designer Adrian Newey, has won the MRF Challenge title after ending the season tied on points with his chief rival Joey Mawson.

He won the final race of the 2016/2017 season at Madras Motor Race Track in India by more than three seconds from Mick Schumacher, son of seven-time world champion Michael. Newey also took the bonus point for setting the fastest lap of the race - which proved crucial when it came to deciding the title.

Mawson started the final outing of the season from pole position, but made a mistake on lap 11 of the 15-lap race which allowed Newey to get past. With Schumacher also able to get around him shortly afterwards, the Australian was forced to settle for a third place finish.

That result meant both Mawson and Newey closed out their campaigns on 277 points apiece: Newey was declared champion on account of having won seven of the 16 races, while Mawson could claim only three wins to his name.

Newey had earlier won the penultimate race of the season with an impressive eight second victory over Juri Vips.

Red Bull's Newey: 2017 regulations are a guessing game

Any lingering faint hopes on Schumacher's part of pulling off an upset had already been extinguished in the penultimate race, when he crashed into the tyre barrier at turn 12 and was forced to retire. His runners-up position in the later race did mean that he was able to successfully clinch third place in the championship behind Newey and Mawson.

Newey is the third MRF champion to hail from the United Kingdom. Rupert Svendsen-Cook won the title in 2013/14, while Toby Sowery was victorious in 2014/15.

Newey, Mawson and Schumacher are all expected to move on and take part in this year's European Formula 3 championship. Schumacher has already confirmed that he will be driving for the Prema Powerteam.

GALLERY: F1 drivers' wives and girlfriends

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.