For a car racing rookie, Callum Bowyer is making impressive progress indeed, and that was never more in evidence than at Oulton Park last weekend, as the talented young Peterborough speed demon came within a whisker of a podium finish in what was unquestionably his finest outing to-date.
Following a double non-finish in the 2011 Formula Renault BARC Championship curtain-raiser at Donington Park – Callum’s car racing debut off the back of an ultra-successful six-year karting career that had yielded the coveted British crown – the Gunthorpe-based hotshot took a step forward at Brands Hatch and headed to Oulton with the intention of maintaining that upward momentum and keen ‘to show everyone what I’m actually capable of’.
“I didn’t have a great experience at Oulton in winter testing,” he confessed. “It was only my third day in the car so I wasn’t all that confident at the time, and it was wet all day, too. It’s very undulating and demanding, though, and a real drivers’ track – for me, it’s one of the most enjoyable circuits in the country.
“During practice, it was just a case of settling back into it and re-familiarising myself with the track in different conditions, because that was the first time I had ever driven it in the dry. It didn’t take too long to adapt to it all, and we actually got quite close to the leading pace pretty quickly and then every time we went out, we improved – the gap got dramatically smaller with every session.”
Praising the work of his Antel Motorsport team in establishing a solid set-up for his fearsomely-fast single-seater, Callum targeted a top 12 qualifying position to put himself inside the upper half of the 23-strong grid – a target he comfortably exceeded with an excellent ninth place for race one and eighth for race two. To put that into perspective, his previous best starting spot had been 15th – and the performance left him eagerly anticipating the races and ‘ready to get cracking’.
“Just as we were lining up in our grid positions, the heavens opened, soaking the whole circuit very quickly,” he recalled of the opening encounter. “We were all on slicks, so the start was delayed to allow us to change tyres – and then a few minutes later, the rain stopped and the track began drying again really fast. We all changed back over to slicks, but the problem was that whilst half the lap was dry, the other half was still wet, which made things really tricky – it was a challenge for everyone simply to stay on the track!
“After the start, going into the hairpin on the first lap, a few cars came off – I was quite lucky not to get collected in it – and there was a red flag to recover them. At the re-start, everyone took it very cautiously on the damp track; I got quite a good start to move up to sixth, and was able to break away from the pack behind.
“I closed the gap to the championship leader ahead of me, overtook him to move into fifth and pulled away. I then concentrated on chasing down the drivers in third and fourth; I had just got onto the back of them when there was another red flag, and as there were only two laps left to go, they called the result there. Looking back at it now, without the red flag, I daresay it would have been a podium.”
Less than a second shy of the rostrum and with the third-fastest lap time to his name – behind only the top two finishers – it was a magnificent result, and one that belied the fact that it was just Callum’s fifth competitive start in cars. By some margin the leading rookie to-boot, the treacherous conditions that caught out a number of his rivals only served to highlight the 16-year-old’s superb car control and prowess, and his pace was exceptional throughout. Sadly, race two would prove to be rather more short-lived...
“I was on the outside of the grid which was the dirty line and as such a disadvantage, but I got a good start again,” he revealed. “I was in seventh place with the championship leader behind me, when going down the main straight at about 120mph and completely out-of-the-blue, I suddenly got a massive whack from the rear, which spun me right round. You never expect to get hit on the straight, and it left me facing backwards at the fastest part of the track, with the oncoming traffic all speeding towards me.
“They were arriving just over the brow of a hill, too, so it would have been quite a shock for them seeing me in the middle of the track facing the wrong way! If any of them had hit me, it would have been an impact speed of more than 200mph, but fortunately, I managed to regain control and get off the circuit to a safe spot as fast as I could to avoid any further damage.
“You have so much adrenaline pumping through your body that you don’t really have time to think about the danger, to be honest – it all happens so quickly at that speed, and it’s only afterwards that you start to think, ‘that could have been a really nasty one’. Ok, we didn’t finish the race and it could have been another really good result, but I was just thankful that I came out of it all unharmed. There was a little bit of damage to the car, but nothing that can’t be repaired.”
The fact that Callum’s assailant was excluded for his misdemeanour was little consolation to his victim, whose race had been needlessly wrecked, but that should nonetheless not take the sheen off an otherwise tremendously encouraging weekend.
Having hitherto taken the chequered flag no higher than 11th, the former Ken Stimpson School pupil’s fifth place has seen him more than double his erstwhile points tally and move up from 17th to 15th in the championship standings. With his confidence boosted, he is bullish indeed heading to the next round at Croft, having evinced promising speed there during winter testing – and now being very much more the complete package.
“Despite the way it finished, it was still a great weekend with the pace we had and the result in race one, in tough conditions and around a difficult track,” Callum concluded. “We took another big step forward, and I’m just really looking forward to Croft now.
“After a rocky start to the season with the double DNF at Donington Park, we had a better weekend at Brands Hatch and then at Oulton, we were really knocking on the door. We’re continuously improving and getting ever-closer to the podium. That has always been the goal – and it’s really looking achievable now.”
If you are interested in sponsoring Callum, please contact Tracey Bowyer on 01733 701099 or 07960 400731, or e-mail: callumkf3@hotmail.com
