lready widely recog-
nised as one of British
motorsport’s bright-
est young talents,
when Parry received
the 25th McLaren
Autosport BRDCAward a little over 12 months
ago his reputation was elevated to another
level. An award win is always welcome, but
this one is really something to savour, partic-
ularly when you consider that previous win-
ners include the likes of Jenson Button, David
Coulthard, Paul di Resta and Dario Franchitti.
Thanks to the award win, 12 years after get-
ting his first taste of motorsport on a
motocross bike at the age of just eight, Parry
found himself in the cockpit of the McLaren
INTERVIEW
18
MOTORSPORT DAYS ANNUAL
MotorsportDays.com
Living the dream
.
A
In the 12 months since winning the prestigious 25th McLaren Autosport BRDC Award,
Matt Parry has been busy competing in the Formula Renault Eurocup championship,
guest driving a Caterham R300 and even achieving a life ambition by getting behind
the wheel of a McLaren Formula 1 car at Silverstone.
MSD
caught up with him to look
back on an exhilarating year.
MP4-26 – the very car that Jenson Button
drove to victory in the Canadian Grand Prix
back in 2011.
“You hit that throttle pedal at the exit of a
corner and before you know it you are on the
lights and in third, fourth, fifth…so quick,”
Parry says, recalling the moment he realised
his biggest ambition. “It’s like releasing a
rocket, continuous acceleration until you
reach the braking point. In the first session I
was on new tyres, so I was trying to get some
temperature in them and the brakes and the
engine, so I had to hit the engine limiter a few
times to help warm it up. But once I was
down past Arena 1 and 2 towards Brook-
lands, that was the first time I hit the pedal. I
gave it full beans in seventh gear heading
towards Brooklands at God-knows-what-
speed and it felt fantastic!”
As you would expect, Parry admits the car
took some getting used to. “I tested the F3
car, which doesn’t have the speed to get to
the corner, but it’s got similar downforce lev-
els, but with the F1 car you approach it at
180mph and you just need to do a little lift or
brake and you trust the downforce and tyres
to get you round the corner. With the carbon
brakes you just hit that brake as hard as you
can. Even I was looking at my braking points
in the Renault at Silverstone and when they
tell you how late you can brake and how hard
you can hit that brake pedal you are actually
quite worried the first time, as you are think-
ing ‘is this thing going to stop?’ It’s just so
