FLAME AIRIKKALA
The 17-year-old granddaughter of a rally legend is trying GB4 single-seaters and following Pentti’s footsteps
Ihave completed six days of testing in the GB4 single-seater running with the Preptech UK team during the close season just passed, including running in last month’s two official GB4 pre-season tests at Donington Park’s and Silverstone’s GP circuits. I’m new to single-seaters, having done Fiesta Junior for my car racing debut season last year, and I’m definitely learning a lot, and just trying to progress throughout each day. I’m really enjoying the car and hopefully I am progressing a lot.
I was attracted to GB4 as I want to switch to rear-wheel drive from the front-wheel drive in Fiesta Junior, and I also like the speed difference. Also I especially wanted to get into single-seaters with the girls that are coming through there right now; there’s a big push for them in the single-seater side.
The single-seater is a very big difference from the Fiesta, so I’m just still getting used to it. There are definitely lots of differences to learn and I’m getting my head around finding the limits of the car. It’s such a difference with the wings and slick tyres as well, because we didn’t have those in Fiestas.
My late grandad Pentti did rallying in the World championship and won the 1989 RAC Rally as well as the 1979 British Rally Championship. But he died when I was two, so I didn’t have that much time with him.
But definitely he taught my dad a bit, although my dad never drove. Also my mum Jo-Ann Airikkala (nee Breckon) used to race Ford Fiestas supporting the British Touring Car Championship, and as mentioned
I raced in Fiestas myself last year. I chose Fiesta Junior as it was the best option, but it was also good that it linked with my mum racing Fiestas as well back in the day. So motorsport is definitely in the family.
I also tried out rallying in Finland last month in a Rally3 car on the snow and ice, just trying a bit of what my grandad used to do and see if I had the passion for it. Obviously it was very different to a GB4 and a single-seater with getting it a bit sideways, but was great fun to try what my grandad did. And after trying it and having so much fun I’d definitely like to do more, so maybe I’m going to try that out and take part in a rally and see how it goes.
Even with the motorsport in my family, I actually started pretty late in karting. I started at 14 years old so I never got pushed into it when I was a younger child. My brother actually got put in a kart by my parents at three, but they never put me in a kart. So I discovered it later on, but
I’ve been racing for about three years now and I’ve loved it.
On whether I’ll race in GB4 this year, we’re just trying to see at the moment. It’s still not confirmed, but hopefully if I can get out for a couple of GB4 race meetings that would be good to just learn racecraft in a single-seater and how it’s different from in what I used to be racing. It would be great to get out this year to better my skills.
The decision on this has definitely got to do with sponsorship because motorsport is really expensive as everybody knows. So I’m just getting the sponsorship together, and if we can do that then just getting out on track as much as I can is my aim and the more experience I get the better.
It’s also really great that €30,000 towards a season in F1 Academy is on offer in GB4 this year to the top female. There’s not that many girls in racing, there still needs to be more, and the prize on offer will be inspiring for younger girls. It’s a great prize and I’m really grateful for it. If I had that opportunity that would be amazing.
My ambitions in motorsport are that I’d really like to progress on the single-seater ladder if I could, if the opportunities all align. But anything in racing would be good, because I just love racing. So if
I was to grow up and still race, in any country, and do it professionally to make a career out of it that would be great.
“I’d really like to progress in single-seaters and hope to do more rallying”