in second car racing outing
It is easy to forget given the extraordinary progress he is making that Callum Bowyer is still only four races into his fledgling car racing career – and for one with so little experience under his belt, to already be knocking on the door of the top ten is impressive indeed.
Having demonstrated eye-catching race pace only to be lucklessly eliminated from both encounters on his single-seater debut in the 2011 Formula Renault BARC Championship curtain-raiser at Donington Park three weeks earlier, Callum headed to Brands Hatch for seconds out, round two with the principal goal being simply to see the chequered flag. The talented young Peterborough speed demon would do rather better than that.
Although he had tested at Brands over the winter, that was only in wet conditions – placing Callum at an immediate disadvantage in relation to many of his rivals. He would suffer another small setback during pre-weekend practice with a suspension issue, but still, he headed towards the competitive hostilities in quietly optimistic mood.
“It definitely helped having the practice day,” he underlined. “That meant I could re-familiarise myself with the circuit – as it had been quite a while since we had been there – and learn it in the dry, too! I certainly felt more confident after that – the extra track time is never going to do any harm.”
Qualifying would yield respectively 16th and 15th places on the 22-strong grid for the two races – notably, three tenths of a second nearer to the benchmark in session two, and more than a second closer to pole position than he had been at Donington.
However, with overtaking at a real premium around Brands Hatch’s tight Indy Circuit layout – one Callum enjoys driving, but that he admits can be frustrating to race at with only one real line all the way round the lap – the Gunthorpe-based hotshot knew he would have a mountain to climb, and in the opening encounter, he was one of very few drivers in the field to genuinely move forward.
“It wasn’t a great spot on the grid in terms of the gradient of the hill, but I got a really good start,” he recounted, having initially vaulted magnificently up into the top ten only to see his blistering getaway scuppered by a red flag for an accident involving two of his adversaries.
“Then after I got into a rhythm, I concentrated on trying to pick off the cars ahead one-by-one. With overtaking being so difficult around the Indy Circuit, it was always a case of trying to pressurise the driver in front into making a mistake – that’s the only way you’re ever going to get past someone there.
“I managed to make a move into Paddock Hill Bend, and then I later went around the outside of another driver into Druids. There was a train of cars right ahead covering each other on the inside line, which slowed them all down. I had to try something different – if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gained anything anyway – so I went to the outside and was able to make up a place. You don’t see that happening very often – but we pulled it off.
“Towards the end, we were catching the three drivers in front, but they were so close together they were almost joined, and even though I got onto the back of them pretty quickly, I knew it was going to be near enough impossible to find a way past. Our pace in the race was definitely a lot better than it had been in qualifying again, though – that’s one of our strongest suits – so we just need to work on our qualifying form now.”
Eleventh at the flag – and less than a second shy of eighth place – the result was an immensely encouraging one, and a fastest lap time barely three tenths of a second off that of his ultra-experienced Antel Motorsport team-mate Dino Zamparelli was, Callum acknowledged, a ‘massive boost’ since ‘Dino has so much experience in the car and he won race two...so we just need to keep chipping away now and start minimising that gap’.
In the second outing later in the day, the former British Karting Champion found his efforts stymied by Brands’ dearth of passing opportunities – with only two overtaking manoeuvres up-and-down the field throughout – and 14th position at the close masked another extremely promising performance in which Callum’s best lap time was a scant tenth of a second adrift of that set by the race’s runner-up. As he looks ahead to the next meeting at Oulton Park at the end of the month, he does so with ever-increasing confidence.
“The pace was definitely there in the races,” the 16-year-old concluded of his Brands Hatch weekend. “It was just that with it being so tough to overtake, we couldn’t really put that pace to good use. That was slightly frustrating, but it’s all a learning curve and we are getting there.
“By the end of the weekend, we were only a few tenths off the best. There are a lot of positives to take from that, and I’m really looking forward to Oulton Park now – it should be a lot easier to overtake there, for starters! We’ve made brilliant progress so far, and we’re getting closer every time we go out on-track...”
Callum is seeking sponsorship for the remainder of the 2011 campaign; if you are interested in supporting him, please contact Tracey Bowyer on 01733 701099 or 07960 400731, or e-mail: callumkf3@hotmail.com
