The indie precursor to F1's talent development craze
For 10 years an independent talent development scheme set a generation of underfunded young British racers on the path to professional motorsport careers. The Racing Steps Foundation didn't quite get a driver on the F1 grid, but it has plenty to be proud of. This is its inside story
He's probably the least recognisable of the most significant figures in British motorsport of the past decade. The philanthropy of Graham Sharp, a wiry, bespectacled 58-year-old Lancastrian, has taken seven talented-but-underfunded young Britons to professional racing careers (six on four wheels, one on two), and has aided countless more.
He's always stayed in the background, rarely attending races - except to watch his stepson, reigning Blancpain GT Sprint champion Stuart Leonard - yet without him the UK racing landscape would look vastly different.
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Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.
Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.
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