Essex teenager Alex Lynn is just a couple of days away from his first full season in car racing in the Formula Renault UK Championship, which kicks off at Thruxton in Hampshire this weekend.
After a successful karting career, the 16-year-old from Dunmow shone on his transition to cars in the Formula Renault UK Winter Cup late last year, with Fortec Motorsport. He has remained at Fortec, the reigning Formula Renault UK Teams’ Champion, for this season.
With brand-new chassis being introduced to the series in 2010, Lynn has faced the tough task of developing a new car and getting up to speed in an ultra-competitive new arena.
“I just wanted to learn as much as possible,” he said. “I’m playing catch-up against people who have learned all the techniques over the past year or two. I’m learning the hard way, because we’ve lost a bit of time with niggling new car problems and rain at some of the tests. But, since the first of the official tests at Brands Hatch, the car set-up and my driving have come on massively.”
Lynn is targeting the Graduate Cup title, for young rookie drivers, as well as a good placing in the overall Formula Renault UK Championship. “It’s 100 per cent that I’m going for the Graduate Cup – that’s a must. Harry Tincknell won it last year and he starts this year as pretty much favourite. The second thing is to finish races and get an overall race win under my belt, because I need to do that to get the foundations for going for the championship in 2011.”
Lynn feels that he has the environment necessary to succeed at Fortec. “My personality seems to fit in extremely well with the team,” he said. “The team’s track record says it all and I’m really happy with the team and my engineer Mark Godwin, who’s got so much experience.”
In 2010, the Formula Renault UK Championship once again enjoys live coverage on ITV4, with the second race at Thruxton this Sunday (April 4) due to start at 15.05. The race will also be streamed live on itv.com. Race action will also be shown in the Motorsport UK series, which begins a 34-week schedule on April 27 with two repeats each week on ITV4 and one on ITV1. A further showing will be made on the Men & Motors channel. The Motorsport UK audience figure for Formula Renault UK in 2009 was 4,750,000.
Each episode can also be viewed through the ITV player on the ITV website - itv.com/catchup - for up to four weeks after the show has been aired.
