– and Europe
Matty Graham had never competed on the international stage prior to his appearance in the prestigious 2010 CIK-FIA European Championship Final at Genk in Belgium, but still that didn’t stop the highly-rated young Edmundbyers hotshot from firmly establishing himself as a top ten contender amongst almost 200 of the very best drivers in the world.
Matty travelled to Genk boosted by having successfully navigated his way through the western region qualification meeting at PF International in Lincolnshire, and knowing he would be pitting himself against the very crème de la crème of global KF3 class talent in the 81 of his rivals out of the original 185 entrants to have similarly made it through.
“I was really nervous at the beginning of the weekend,” he confessed, “and my main goal was just to get through to the finals on the second day, because I didn’t want to be out of it before the weekend was over. I was there against all the big names, so the competition was as tough as it gets.
“This is my first season in KF3 and I’d only raced at Genk in Cadets before, but this is a lot faster and the cornering lines are totally different – everything is just another level compared to Cadets. I enjoy the circuit, though; it’s fast and flowing with a lot of quick corners, which is what I like, and some tight, technical ones too – and with two long straights it’s important to have a good engine as well.”
Not only that, but on a baking hot weekend Matty had to adjust to Dunlop tyres – less grippy than the Bridgestones he is used to racing on in the UK, he revealed – though it didn’t take him long to get down into the groove, as it were, as he wound up 28th in qualifying, well in the mix and a mere three tenths of a second shy of the outright benchmark in a tightly-packed field.
“Just the slightest mistake would put you back five or six places, and I did make a few mistakes and kept getting held up,” the 14-year-old recounted. “As it was only a ten minute-session, there were so many drivers all out there at once that it was really hard to get a clear lap in, so I could have been a little bit higher but I was still close to the pace and happy with that.”
From the sixth row of the grid for all four of his heat races, three solid finishes – a fifth, an eighth and an 11th – as he made his way impressively through the pack were enough to counter a disastrous fourth heat as the Co. Durham star found himself shunted off at the start, leaving him to rue that ‘getting round the first two corners is often the biggest thing at Genk’.
Nonetheless, by placing 21st in the intermediate rankings as only the top 34 competitors progressed safely on to day two, Matty’s results saw to it that he achieved his first target of the weekend in making it comfortably through to Sunday’s serious business, when the third-quickest time in the morning warm-up would signal his intent and provide him with another timely lift.
From there, in a largely lonely pre-final, the RL Race Team ace skilfully negotiated his way past an opening lap pile-up and produced an excellent effort to classify eighth overall and third amongst his ten countrymen – but an unforeseeable touch of misfortune would sadly follow.
“I made up quite a few positions, but on the last lap Harrison Scott overtook me into the last corner,” he recalled. “I didn’t mind that and didn’t fight him too hard, because it meant I would be starting the grand final from the inside line in ninth – but then one of the drivers ahead got excluded which moved me to the outside. That’s quite a big disadvantage at Genk, because not that much rubber goes down on the outside of the track and it’s very slippery on the marbles out there. People push you wide, and if there’s a crash at the start it always tends to veer across to the outside.
“True enough, at the start of the grand final, Antonio Speedy came right through the middle of everyone, hit somebody else and then went straight into the side of me, pushing me onto the grass and knocking me all the way down to the back of the field. I was pretty annoyed at first, but then I calmed down, started to relax and slowly worked my way up the order again.
“I had some good battles in the middle of the race as I fought for position, and a few people came off towards the end which helped too. I was still angry at the end about what had happened at the start, but looking back now I think I did pretty well to come past a lot of the best drivers in Europe.”
There was no ‘pretty’ about it, as the Ponteland Community High School pupil made up no fewer than 19 places against the very best in Europe as he sliced his way back through the order like the proverbial hot knife through butter into 15th place at the chequered flag. That his assailant was black-flagged for his misdemeanour was scant consolation, as was the fact that the driver who inherited his spot on the starting grid following the post pre-final shuffle came out of the first corner in second and went on to finish up on the podium, clearly demonstrating what might have been.
Still, the speed was clearly there, and the performance did wonders for Matty’s confidence and no harm at all to his burgeoning reputation – especially coming as it did hot on the heels of a superb charge from the back of the pack in qualifying to the runner-up laurels in the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars Championship at Glan Y Gors in North Wales a week earlier, taking the flag less than a second shy of victory and setting fastest lap along the way for good measure to consolidate second place in the title standings – and his Belgian adventure has clearly whetted his appetite for further European outings in the not-too distant future too.
“I think it has helped to improve me as a driver,” he concluded. “Hopefully some of the big teams might have noticed me, and it may help in terms of attracting sponsors as well. Overall, it was a great experience and I really enjoyed it – and I’d love to race more in Europe!”
Having turned heads both in Britain and abroad, it is only onwards and upwards now, it would seem, for the north-east’s most promising young speed demon...
