“Searching for a TOSFED Star” as the project has been dubbed, has now reached the final group stage at the end of the first year as the finalists - 10 men and 2 women, chosen from an inital one thousand applicants after an exhaustive process conducted over the last eight months - now go forward to a season of competitions and development next year to whittle them down to a winner.

“Searching for a TOSFED Star” is the first talent discovery programme in the history of Turkish motorsports. It was opened up last spring to anyone from 18 to 25 years old, with a TOSFED track licence, that were secondary school educated and whom complied with a specific weight/height index. The preliminary stage was open to the first 1,000 applicants with that being brought down ahead of the first stage.

Fiat is sponsoring the “Searching for a TOSFED Star” initiative and identical, specially-prepared Egea racecars are being used by the competitors.

The Egea sedan, which is assembled in Turkey by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' joint venture company Tofas, has been carefully prepared for its racing life and visually the enhancements include safety features as well as aero upgrades including side skirts, front spoiler, rear wing, bonnet and boot fastener pins, 17-inch Speedline racing forged alloy wheels and a new air intake on the bonnet. There are also brake air exits cut into the body behind the front and rear wheels.

Inside, the production cabin has been stripped bare and OMP race seats have been fitted along with a roll protection cage, ignition and kill switches and plumbed in fire extinguisher system. The centre trunking has also been removed and replaced with a composite section around the gearshift while there is further use of carbon for the door cards.

The Egea, the name by which the Tipo sedan is known on this market, is Fiat Turkey's best selling model, in fact it's the best selling passenger car in the country so far this year. Turkey is also the Tipo sedan's top global market.

The racing verion uses the Egea's 1.6 16v M-Jet II turbodiesel engine and it has been tuned to give out 180 hp and 450 Nm torque (well up from the production model’s 120 hp and 320 Nm standard). The 6-speed transmission is retained.

The braking is up certainly up to the new task with 4-pot calipers and 305 mm discs featuring at the front while at the rear there are 2-pot calipers and 280 mm discs. There is also a Quaife LSD.

The first ‘camp’ took place on 10-14 August at the ?zmit Körfez Racetrack with 320 candidates, including in 18 female, taking parts. After an intensive four day programme they were whittled down to 45 drivers (40 male/5 female) going forward to the finals.

The final stage of the contest took place at the ?zmir Ülkü racetrack on 24-26 November. The finalists were tutored by professional rally drivers Burak Çukurova, Murat Bostanci, Orhan Avcioglu, Yigit Timur and Burcu Çetinkaya and the two days comprised of theoretical work in the classroom as well as advanced and sporting driving techniques.

At the end the fastest ten male drivers and the two quickest females went forward to the 2018 competition, namely they are Onur Badur, Mert Kaya, Onat Telkenar, Erol Özteknik, Dogan Ergin, Emre Sentürk, Kemal Burak Özhan, Bugra Can Kiliç, Mert Becce, Tunahan Aktas, Zeynep Selin Erkan and Halide Kübra Urganci.

On Sunday 26 November when the final race of the 2017 Turkey Track Championship took place the twelve finalists also took part in their first 'race' played out in a four groups of three ‘knock out’ format. Özteknik, Telkenar, Badur and Can Kiliç were the quartet to progress to the semi-finals with Özteknik and Telkenar beating their rivals to reach the final where the latter took the win.

The twelve finalists now go forward into a year-long format in 2018 to find the winner of “Looking for a TOSFED Star” with the dates and format set to be announced at the end of the year.