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Britain isn't called the home of motor racing for no reason. Over the years the island has produced a wealth of racing talent with the likes of Jim Clarke, Sir Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, Nigel Mansell and Lewis Hamilton to name a few all winning world championships.
Whether this is due to the ultra competitive karting grids or the fact that Britain is home to a legion of racing teams competing in Formula 1 and other championships remains anyone's guess, however given the fact that British drivers have always been a feature in Formula One, this season sees Lewis Hamilton being the sole driver on the grid to fly the Union Jack.
The most successful British driver of all time, with four world titles, 64 wins and a record 74 pole positions, Hamilton is one of the sport's all-time greats. Michael Schumacher's dominance of the sport in the early 00's paved the way for a wave of German drivers to make their way into the sport, with the likes of Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg going on to win World Championships.
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Similarly Britain is on the brink of seeing some truly remarkable talent make their way on to the grid in the next few years. Most of the drivers on the list have an existing link to a current Formula One team. Whether they can make it all the way or not remains to be seen but expect a few of them to make a serious name for themselves based on what they have accomplished so far.
Lando Norris
The first driver on our list is Lando Norris. Currently signed to the McLaren as a reserve and test driver, the 19-year-old has tasted success at every single level he has competed in.
He was the youngest ever Karting world champion in 2014, won the MSA Formula 4 title in 2015, won a hat-trick of championships in 2016, by winning the Formula Renault Euro Cup and NEC championships along with winning the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand. He won the 2017 FIA F3 European Championship and is currently leading the FIA Formula 2 championship this year.
Norris is also a winner of the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC award in 2016.
Signed by McLaren in 2016, Norris has already tested the team's F1 car on a few occasions and remains the prime candidate if Fernando Alonso was to look for a challenge elsewhere. What's impressive is that all of Norris' titles have come at the first time of asking. If he can do the same in F2, then there is no reason to believe why he won't be on the F1 grid come 2019.
George Russell
George Russell like Lando Norris is currently competing in the FIA F2 championship. 2017 saw Russell join the Mercedes AMG Petronas Team's junior driver program and he duly rewarded the team's faith in him by winning the 2017 GP3 series in a thoroughly dominant display of driving.
Prior to his exploits in GP3, Russell won the 2014 BRDC F4 Championship and finished a respectable 6th and 3rd in the 2015 and 2016 FIA European F3 Championship respectively. Russell also managed to put his car on pole position for the prestigious 2016 Macau Grand Prix though he would ultimately finish the race in 6th place. Like Norris, Russell is also the winner of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 2014.
Russell is currently the official test and reserve driver for the Force India Formula One Team and tested the team's F1 car, during the practice session of the 2017 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Currently 4th if the FIA Formula 2 championship after a disappointing weekend in Monaco, Russell is a serious championship contender winning two races so far and given his ART team's pace so far you can rest assured he will add to his two wins.
Dan Ticktum
After a moment of madness which saw him get banned for a majority of the 2016 season, Dan Ticktum returned to racing with a bang. The 18 year old won the 2017 Macau Grand Prix after a fantastic move in the closing stages of the race.
Currently signed to Red Bull as a junior, the former British Grand Slam Karting Champion took his first win in the FIA F3 European Championship yesterday and is currently leading the championship at the time of writing in what is turning out to be an extremely close fight for the championship. Like the two other drivers on this list Ticktum won last year's McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.
Ticktum made his foray into cars when he competed in the 2015 MSA Formula 4 championship. A title contender for most of the season, a deliberate collision with a fellow competitor during a safety car period saw Ticktum receive a two year ban (the second year was a suspended sentence) which somewhat stagnated his career.
He returned to full time racing at the back end of 2016 and only managed to find his form towards the latter half of 2017. Prior to his win in Macau, Ticktum also managed to finish on the GP3 Series podium, when he finished third at the final race of the 2017 season at Abu Dhabi.
Much is expected of Ticktum this year and ongoing performance at Hungary this weekend shows that he is living upto expectations.
Jack Aitken
Currently a test driver for the Renault Formula 1 Team, Jack Aitken is also George Russell's team mate at ART for this year's F2 season and like Norris and Russell made his debut in F1 machinery earlier this year.
The 22 year old is currently 5th in the F2 championship and has one race win to his name so far. Aitken also finished 2nd to Russell in the 2017 GP3 Series and has tasted success in the 2014 Formula Renault championship, winning both the NEC and Eurocup titles the same year.
Though British-Korean does have the pace to be be amongst the front runners, he has somewhat been overshadowed by George Russell. He finished a whopping 79 points behind Russell in last year's GP3 driver's standings and though he has bridged the gap somewhat in F2 this year, he will need to start beating his teammate on a more regular basis if he is to put himself at the forefront of Renault's ultra competitive young driver academy.
Enaam Ahmed
While they were karting together as teammates in 2014, many considered Ahmed to be up there with Norris. Last year the British-Pakistani stated his claim as one to watch out for when he broke Ayrton Senna's record of 12 wins in a single British F3 season.
Currently competing in the FIA F3 European Championship, Ahmed already has one podium to his name. He is also set to start both races at this weekend's Hungarian round which is scheduled to take place later today (at the time of writing) from the front row and is starting pole for the third race of the weekend.
Prior to his exploits in the European F3 series, Ahmed completely dominated the 2017 BRDC F3 championship, wrapping up the championship with a round to spare. He was so dominant that he took 13 wins out of a possible 24 races and managed a further 5 podiums enroute to winning the championship by a staggering 164 points.
Enaam also has one of the best karting resumes of any British driver winning a stunning 5 different karting championships in his final year of karting (2014). This includes the CIK-FIA European and World Championships in the Junior category.
If he can continue to show rapid improvement there is no reason why he won't be in contention for a F1 seat in a few year's time.
Other notable future prospects from Britain include a triumvirate of GP3 hopefuls including Callum Ilott who is a Ferrari junior, Jake Hughes who is the 2013 BRDC F4 champion and Will Palmer who won the 2015 BRDC F4 series along with finishing second in last season's Formula Renault Eurocup. Palmer is also the McLaren Autosport BRDC winner in 2015 and is the younger brother of ex-F1 star Jolyon Palmer.
Despite only currently having one driver on the grid, British motorsport seems to be in great shape. Though some of the names on this list may not fulfil their potential other's may go on to exceed expectations. One thing is for sure, as long unless there's a seismic shift in the way motorsport is currently run, Britain will continue to produce a conveyor belt of top talent.
