Callum Conquers in Valencia

Apr 20th, 2010

Callum Macleod and Speedsport overcame bad weather, cancelled flights and no sleep to win in Valencia!!!

 

The team arrived at the airport at 5 am on Thursday morning to leave for round 1 of the European F3 open to be told that the flights had been cancelled due to the Volcanic ash in the sky and that all flights were cancelled for the foreseeable future.

 

Straight away Speedsport boss Mike O'brien made the decision that they would have to drive to Valencia. Callum, Mike, and Mechanic Dave travelled over 1200 miles in 20 hours to arrive at the circuit at 5am on Friday morning. They slept in the car for just an hour befor having to take to the track at 9am for the first test session. Amazingly, Callum went fastest despite the lack of sleep.

 

The whole of the test day was dry and Callum was never outside of the top 3. The team arrived at the circuit on Saturday morning to find it was raining heavily. Having never driven the circuit in the wet before they were pleased to come away with P3 despite the car not being quite right for the conditions. Pole went to Renault world series podium finisher and 2007 Spanish F3 vice champion Marco Barba.

 

Callum made a great start to race 1 to exit the first corner in 2nd. He stayed here to the flag being able to comfortably outpace those behind him but with the car still not right he was not able to quite match Barba.

 

For race 2, Engineer and Team Manager Mike O'brien made some changes to the car taking into consideration what they had learnt from race 1. For the second race the top 6 finishers from race 1 are reversed, this meant that Callum lined up 5th on the grid. Another good start saw Callum exit turn 1 in 4th position. With the car being much more suited to Callum's driving style he was able to pick his rivals off one by one with some outstanding overtaking moves to take the lead on lap 9. Race 1 winner Barba was able to capitalise on Callum's hard work and follow him through to the front. With Callum's new set up he was able to pull away from the Valencian driver to comfortably win by the flag.

 

Callum Macleod:  'Having gone to such lengths just to get here I am delighted to have rewarded the team with this win, winning from P5 on the grid is almost unheard of in F3 so I am thrilled to have done so. We have done no testing at all and our immediate pace and succes bodes well for the rest of the season.'


  
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