Motorsport News

DOWN THE PUB

- WITH MATTEO FERRER-AZA

Historic F1 newcomer

Age: 23 Lives: Lausanne, Switzerlan­d

He started in junior single-seaters “I started off with the Intersteps single-seater category in the UK and then moved on to BARC Formula Renault and did two years of that. At that stage I was living in England as I was born and bred here, in London and then Suffolk. So it is a home away from home. When I was 15 or 16 I did a day of karting at Buckmore Park and caught the bug. I did Renault in Europe and some Formula 3 testing and that was about as high as it went.”

He was attracted to historics “Whenever we went to Donington Park for open testing I used to go on the pitwall and watch the old F1 cars. They had to drag me away to get into my car for the next session because I was so taken by these old cars. I developed a passion for the history of the sport and my manager Peter Collins was in F1 in that period.”

He decided to make the switch “I wanted to give it a go in the modern side of the sport but got a bit sick of it and in the end I didn’t enjoy it. I wanted to try my hand at historic racing so I decided to try and find something to drive, which is hard if you are unproven and not known in the historic scene.”

He tried some GT cars

“I drove a 1969 Alfa Giulia Sprint at a trackday in France and then a Shelby GT350 Mustang, which was my first taste of driving historic cars. I’d tried a round of the Porsche Supercup, but didn’t like it. As I’d enjoyed driving tin-top historics, I wondered how the single-seaters would be.”

Historic F1 beckoned “I wanted to race in Historic F1 and looked for a car for my family to buy as an investment and we were very lucky to find the Ligier JS11 at the beginning of the year. I went to see it in Paris with Rob Hall and it was love at first sight. It is unlike anything else and it is a dream come true. The plan for this year was to see how it goes and get the car set up. Next year, hopefully, we’ll have a proper crack at it.”

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