SPEEDING UP THE LEARNING PROCESS
As the home of the British motor racing, Silverstone has played a key role in the careers of countless rising British motorsport talents. But, not many will have made their car racing debut at the Formula 1 venue, or returned later the very same year as the overall champion in one series and in the hunt for top honours in another.
Luke Constantine, son of former BTRDA 1400 rally frontrunner Mark Constantine, and following in the footsteps of older brother Tom, entered the Junior ranks of UK rallycross for 2018 aged just 14, the youngest a driver can compete.
With only just enough testing under his belt to familiarise himself with the single-make Suzuki Swift used in the MSA Junior Rallycross Championship, Constantine arrived at British RX’S Silverstone seasonopener (and the track’s first meeting) in 2018. While freezing conditions and rally legend Sebastien Loeb stole the headlines, Constantine delivered arguably the performance of the weekend and finished second to Norwegian Marius Solberg Hansen in the final.
Just a week later, Constantine was an event winner. Having initially planned to use the BTRDA Clubmans series as seat time, the Constantines joined several of the British RX regulars at Blyton Park for the BTRDA opener, where Constantine claimed his maiden win in his second event.
For the first time last year, Junior drivers were eligible to score points towards the overall BTRDA Gold Star rallycross crown. Remarkably, despite his lack of driving experience compared to the competition and visiting every circuit for the first time, Constantine made it through all nine rounds of the Clubmans campaign unbeaten and became the youngest overall BTRDA rallycross champion.
Constantine says: “At the start of the year me and my dad discussed that it was just going to be a learning year to get used to the tracks and the car. I was fine with that because I didn’t really have any experience, but the result at Silverstone was amazing and I think it really boosted my confidence.
“Then to win the next race at Blyton Park, I couldn’t really believe that and I think I was just on that high all year. I was so happy with how the year went.”
The teenager says, while the results came quickly, he didn’t even consider being in the hunt for either title until the middle of the campaign. “I didn’t have too good a result the first time we went to Lydden Hill for round two of the British Championship and that hurt quite a lot,” he explains. “I was really upset with how that had gone, especially after how the year had started. But a few results later I managed to climb up in points and I suddenly realised I was in the fight for it. It was hard because I wanted to win so much, but I still had this thought in the back of my mind that I still had so much to learn, and that was there the whole time. When it turned out I was leading the overall BTRDA championship, I didn’t even know about it, but that’s when I really thought about trying to win it.”
With the best seven rounds to count from nine in the BTRDA series, any tie-break in the points would come down to which driver had beaten most competitors over the year in their respective class.
While Constantine had his maximum score of seven wrapped in September, he had to wait until the final round to see if Super Modified campaigner Tony Lynch could also score seven wins, but Lynch was pipped to the post in the finale, meaning Constantine lifted the overall crown.
“It was amazing to win that title,” says Constantine. “We just had to see what Tony did with his results, but I also really wanted to keep the undefeated run and win every round, so I was still pushing really hard. At Croft in the last race of the BTRDA me and my brother had a really good battle, so I was pleased to come out on top of that to win all the races.”
In a year where the Junior division enjoyed its strongest field for some time, one of Constantine’s biggest challengers was indeed his brother who, having raced in the two previous campaigns, was competing in his last Junior season.
“We were very jokey with each other with fighting talk and stuff like that, but I think having both of us racing at the front this year pushed us both on,” says Luke of a seemingly rare bond the pair share, not dissimilar to that of World RX stars Timmy and Kevin Hansen.
“Obviously you want to beat your brother, but I think he got faster and I got a lot of experience by racing him.”
Entering the final round of British RX, the pair were spilt by just a single point at the head of the Junior standings, making for a winner-takes-all showdown.
“We said before the weekend we hoped we weren’t battling for it in the final because we didn’t want someone to get knocked off and then be upset at the end of the race,” Luke adds.
“We thought it would be pretty clear in qualifying who would win, and it was. I cracked my sump and damaged the suspension and that put me out of the fight. I was disappointed not to win both titles, but when I saw the smile on my brother’s face it made it a lot better and I’ve got another two years in Junior rallycross so I hope I can win it before I finish.”
Constantine will enter the 2019 campaign as the clear favourite for the title, but he isn’t letting himself get carried away on the success of his maiden season.
“I obviously want to win, but I don’t want to get over confident and try to push the boundaries too far,” he says. “I’ll just carry on with what I’ve been doing and hopefully the string of results can continue.
“The RX Academy test ( see sidebar) really opened my eyes for the future too. Even though the budget is not there to do something like that at the moment, all I can do is focus on doing the best I can this year, so if I do ever get a chance in something like that I can grab the opportunity by the horns.” ■