Team Dolan | Formula Ford 1600 Race Team

Welcome to team dolan

Team Dolan is a championship-winning single-seater team led by Bernard Dolan, who won the 1989 RAC British Formula Ford Championship against a field that included David Coulthard, Gil de Ferran and Michael Vergers.

Since taking that same competitive instinct into the pit lane, the team has become the benchmark in Formula Ford 1600. Six National Formula Ford titles ('15, '16, '18, '19, '21, '23), three Walter Hayes Trophy wins ('16, '23, '25) and two Formula Ford Festival victories ('16, '25) — including Jason Smyth's Festival/Hayes double in 2025, a feat achieved by only three drivers in the event's history.

That record is built on hands-on engineering and driver coaching in equal measure. Bernard sets up every car as though he's still the one driving it, and every debrief is aimed at making the driver quicker, not just the car.

Historic race support

Alongside our junior single-seater programme, we provide testing and race support for historic drivers and their cars. For the past three years we've run a 1960s Lotus Cortina for Jack and Ian Fraser across two UK historic series.

Ian Fraser: "Bernard and his team have provided superb support for us. His knowledge ensures the car is perfectly set up for the next race, and he's continuously improved its performance, as well as giving us expert advice on the best approach at each track. We've achieved 7 class wins and 3 second places in the past 3 years."

Bernard DOlan

Team Dolan is led by Bernard Dolan, a driver who knows exactly what it takes to win in Formula Ford — because he did it against one of the strongest fields the category has ever produced.

In 1989, driving a Fulmar Reynard 89FF, Bernard won the RAC British Formula Ford Championship. His team-mate that season was Gil de Ferran, later an Indy 500 winner and McLaren F1 sporting director. Elsewhere on the grid were David Coulthard, Michael Vergers, works Swift driver Dave Coyne and works Van Diemen man Niko Palhares. Bernard beat them all, taking wins at Brands Hatch, Donington Park and Cadwell Park on his way to the title.

That autumn he went to the Formula Ford Festival and was the only driver to go unbeaten through the heats and semi-finals, breaking the Brands Hatch lap record several times along the way. A poor start in the final cost him the win.

Bernard progressed to Opel Lotus and British Formula 3 before stepping away from the sport in 1993. He returned in 2000 — this time running cars rather than driving them — and found the same drive to win from the pit wall that he'd had in the cockpit.

His first Formula Ford driver, Noel Dunne, set the tone: Irish champion in 2005, Formula Ford Festival winner in 2006, and Irish champion again in 2009. In the years since, Bernard has developed drivers from Ireland, Britain, the United States and beyond — among them Niall Murray, Matt Round-Garrido, Ross Martin, Chris Middlehurst and Jason Smyth.

What hasn't changed is the method. Bernard still sets up a car as though he's the one about to drive it, and every debrief is aimed at making the driver better, not just the lap time smaller.