Whitworth mingles with F1’s top guns on prize British Grand Prix trip
Luke Whitworth rubbed shoulders with the great and the good from the world of F1 on a prize trip to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone earlier this month – and the talented young Rotherham speed demon hopes the experience will serve to inspire him to go on to achieve success in his own burgeoning career, too.
Luke was invited to attend the race as a special guest of the sport’s supremo Bernie Ecclestone – his reward for winning one of just 12 coveted ‘Driver of the Day’ accolades in last year’s Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship when he took the chequered flag third in the season finale at Ellough Park Raceway in Suffolk, his maiden national podium. FKS is officially endorsed by both Ecclestone and 2008 F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, and is the very same series as first catapulted the latter on-track for the big-time a decade-and-a-half ago.
Over the course of the weekend at Silverstone – the celebrated ‘Home of British Motor Racing’ – the Wickersley-based hotshot was shown around the rarely-glimpsed inner sanctum of the paddock and pit garages and met the likes of F1 legend Michael Schumacher, defending world champion and current runaway world championship leader Sebastian Vettel, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh and colourful BBC pundit Eddie Jordan.
He also got the opportunity to chat to Jenson Button’s father John – who spoke to Luke and his fellow FKS prize-winners about the 2009 F1 World Champion’s own stint in karting and rise through the motor racing ranks to where he is today – and gleaned invaluable career tips and advice from former grand prix-turned-sportscar star and Radio Five Live favourite Anthony Davidson. The whole atmosphere was, the 16-year-old confesses, a veritable hive of buzzing activity.
“It was really good,” he enthused. “It was amazing seeing the size of the motorhomes. McLaren’s one was a three-storey building, in which Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button had their own personal rooms! There was quite a lot of rushing around in the garages with the last-minute regulation changes that took place that weekend, but everybody made time for us.
“It was a completely new experience for me going into the pits. We got shown around the McLaren, Mercedes GP and Hispania garages – the set-ups they all have are just incredible! There were about 50 people in each of the garages working on the cars, the electronics, the computers...
“They told us all about the cars, which was exciting and really motivates you to try to do well yourself. They showed us the floor of the car, told us about the different types of carbon fibre they use and really went into detail about it all, and about how the tiniest aspects can make such a big difference when you tweak them. I couldn’t believe the front wings cost almost £100,000 each!
“In the Mercedes garage, we were shown Michael Schumacher’s steering wheel, and it’s really impressive how much the driver can do just from there. It would be like me trying to race around Buckmore Park, for example, whilst all the time having to fiddle with buttons on the steering wheel! You wonder how they manage to concentrate on it all.”
After getting his fill of the ultra-sophisticated pit-lane and glamorous, celebrity-populated paddock, it was time to settle down for the weekend’s real purpose – the on-track action. Luke watched Friday practice from the grandstands overlooking the new start/finish straight, Saturday qualifying from the ultra-fast Becketts complex – beyond doubt one of the best corners the world over for witnessing the sheer raw power and poise of an F1 car at full-chat – and the race itself from the pit straight again. It was, he admits, phenomenal.
“We got to see the start of the grand prix, which was unbelievably loud, as well as the finish, when Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa clashed in the last corner and had to race each other to the line,” revealed the Wickersley School and Sports College pupil. “We could hear the drivers shifting down through the gears for the first corner, and it was amazing to see how fast they actually go. You don’t really get to appreciate that properly on TV; they’re a lot faster in real life.
“I just felt so privileged to have experienced it all, and I want to say a huge ‘thank you’ to FKS Director Carolynn Hoy, Bernie Ecclestone and the whole FKS team.”
Having mentioned Buckmore Park, that is precisely where Luke is set to head next, for the resumption of hostilities in the fiercely-contested national Super 1 Series. As a warm-up, the highly-rated Yorkshire ace competed in a well-attended club meeting at PF International, rising as high as the top six from 34th and plum last on the starting grid in the opening heat before a small mistake cost him ground and left him a still far from unrespectable 11th at the chequered flag.
After leading for a while in heat two, he ultimately wound up fourth, barely three-quarters-of-a-second shy of victory following a fraught battle and with a better fastest lap to his credit than the race-winner. Heat three then yielded another strong fourth position from 18th on the grid, again outpacing the winner in terms of lap time as he fairly scythed his way through the high-calibre Junior Max class field. That meteoric progress earned Luke fourth on the grid for the all-important final – and he would convert it into an excellent and encouraging third-place finish.
“There were a lot of Super 1 drivers there, but we’ve been to PF a fair bit now so we knew we could be fast,” he mused. “As we’ve had some bad luck lately, I was really eager to get a podium. The racing was really close all weekend, and in the final, there was a train of seven of us all battling over first place – so I had plenty of opportunity to practice my racecraft!
“It’s always good to come away with a trophy, and it gave us a bit of a boost ahead of Super 1, too. I’ve finished second at Buckmore before in a club meeting, and I’m targeting the top ten in Super 1. We need our luck to turn so that we can finally get a few good finishes in the championship before the end of the season. It’s mainly about gaining more experience now – and about building up towards next year.”
