Manufacturer of the month - Mygale
The history of Mygale started in 1989, when a very young Bertrand Decoster decided to build the first French Formula Ford in the history of the category. In 1996 Dugal McDougall imported a Mygale Formula Ford to race in the Australian Formula Ford Championship, where he finished fifth for the year. This was the very first introduction of Mygale to the Australian market. The French manufacturer's partnership with McDougall gave them their first win in Australian Formula Ford in 1998 at Lakeside Park Raceway and their maiden Australian Formula Ford title in 1999 with Greg Ritter behind the wheel. The title win was then back-to-backed by Luke Youlden in 2000, driving a brand-new Mygale SJ00. The last few years of Kent-only racing in Australia, between 2001 and 2005, were dominated by the Van Diemen chassis. With the introduction of the Ford Fiesta Duratec engines in 2006, Mygale found themselves fighting in a completely new market, where Van Diemen wasn't as heavily involved anymore. After losing the first Australian Formula Ford title of the Duratec era to the local-built Spectrum chassis, Mygale won the 2007 Australian Formula Ford Championship and has since won eleven of the thirteen championships, including nine consecutive championships between 2011 and 2019.
In 2016 Leanne Tander was the first woman to clinch the Australian Formula Ford title, aboard a Mygale SJ10. This car has since become one of Mygale's most successful cars, being driven by Hunter McElrea in 2018, when he claimed his Australian Formula Ford title.
Mygale's success in recent years is not only limited to the Duratec class, in fact the French manufacturer has also won a pair of Australian FF1600 titles in 2014 and 2015, with James Garley and Cameron Walters in the Kent division. Some of the names who have started their careers in Australian motorsport driving a Mygale Formula Ford may be familiar to you, including current Supercars drivers Nick Percat, Cameron Waters and Anton De Pasquale. Recently, Mygale has concentrated its efforts into building carbon-tub wings and slicks racing cars, with the most known being their Formula 4 chassis used in various championships around the world, including Australia (until 2019).