On 11 November, the Formula G family headed to Caffeine and Machine to celebrate our champions and find out who won our other special prizes!

First up, The Sean Franklin Award for Sportsmanship. For those of you who didn’t know Sean, and for those who did, we lost Sean far too soon. A true sportsman to the end, this award honours him and his approach to life.

This year, the committee unanimously agreed that the Award should go to the one and only Matt Holder. Matt is a driver who without fail will offer time, expertise, advice and car parts to others. He’s relatively new to the Formula G family having started just last year, but in very short order he has become great friends with everyone in the paddock - always grinning, always with something nice to say, and always looking out for others. If a car is broken, it doesn’t matter whose, you’d be safe betting that the feet sticking out from under it belong to Matt. He’s lent his closest competitors wheels and rubber to give them a fighting chance out on track, he’s even towed another driver’s car to an event for them, even though he wasn’t driving himself.

Matt is Formula G’s staunchest defender of the vibe, and a most worthy recipient of The Sean Franklin Award for Sportsmanship.

Our next award was Driver’s Driver, decided by a vote! There’s no guidance on what makes the Driver’s Driver worthy of the award - it can be the popular vote, someone who’s impressed with their progression, someone who has overcome adversity…

It was super close this year, but just edging the lead this year was Stephen Gretton. We don’t know exactly why people voted the way they did, but if we were to guess, we’d say it was for their never-give-up attitude, fighting spirit, and their determination to win on the track and not lose in the pits. And, despite all of the adversity, he was still putting in incredibly quick times.

Congratulations to Drivers’ Driver 2023, Stephen Gretton!

Our third special award, Best Presented Car, was also a driver vote. We’ve got some stunning cars competing at Formula G, but there can only be one winner and this year the FG Family voted, once again, for Mantas Sliogeris with his Vazz Corp MX5s.

Yep, plural - Mantas and his brother have built two near identical cars, one the Gymkhana GRiD winning supercharged car, the other sporting a fire-breathing LS2-swap.

It’s a fan favourite, it’s always immaculate, and it breaks necks wherever it goes. And whether it’s the V8 or the supercharged, it is R A P I D too. As voted by all of you, congratulations once again to Mantas Sliogeris!

Our penultimate special award is the #justgonnasendit Award, in memory of Josh Pill.

Josh was the OG of FG senders, and to win this award, you have to drive 11/10ths 110% of the time. You have to push yourself beyond your comfort zone, and push your car way beyond anything it wants to do. And you have to do it from the first run, to the last. And if it breaks, you have to fix it, or not, and get back out there and do it all again. Last year’s winner Stephen Gretton set the bar pretty high - too high, in fact, because the committee once again unanimously voted that your #justgonnasendit winner for 2023 is, once again, Stephen Gretton!

Our final special award goes to our Team Member of the Year. Formula G is blessed with one of the best teams out there. These superstars turn up whatever the weather and make the show run like clockwork for all the drivers.

Big shout out to the #pinkarmy for making Formula G happen this year! We appreciate you more than you know 🥰

This year’s winner was so hard to choose that we awarded it to TWO team members. They’ve been at Every. Single. Event this year, from loading up the van to head to the track, to unloading it at the end of the weekend in the dark, and everything in between. The two of them basically run the whole show now, so this year’s Team Members of the Year are Abbie Smith and Josh O’Sullivan!

2023 has been an amazing year and, although not everyone could win a prize, every single person who is a part of Formula G, whether as a driver, marshal, team member or supporter, needs to know how much we appreciate their support in making it the best championship to be a part of! We love you all - have a great break, and we’ll see you in 2024!