News

As the reigning British Champion, Callum Bowyer has a lot to live up to this year – and having stepped up to a new class, he also knows he has a lot to learn. In his latest outing at Shenington, the young Peterborough karting star proved that not only is he learning fast, but he also has every intention of repeating his staggering success story of 2008.

In lifting the title laurels in national series’ Super 1 and BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – the latter being the championship from which a certain Lewis Hamilton first leapt to public recognition – as well as the prestigious annual ‘0’ Plate, Callum achieved the rare feat of three major crowns in the same year last season.

Spurred on by that, the Gunthorpe teenager has made the jump to the more powerful KF3 class for the forthcoming campaign, and with Shenington also being the second round on the Super 1 schedule in 2009, his winter series trip to the Oxfordshire circuit was essential preparation – and an opportunity to add to the fourth place he had achieved on his maiden appearance with new team JKH at Rowrah last month.

“The aim really is just to get all the teething problems out of the way before the main season starts and get used to everything,” Callum explained. “Shenington is a really good track – it’s fast and flowing, but still has some good tight and twisty bits too.

“It was a bit up-and-down in practice, with changing conditions all the time – though it got drier as the day went on. That meant that every time we went out the kart felt different, but I was still confident for Sunday because the chassis was strong and set up well.

“We went out on wets in the first heat and I was starting 23rd. I was up to ninth by the second lap, but then Ben Barnicoat spun me around on the straight. I was facing the wrong way with everyone coming towards me, but fortunately no one hit me, and I rejoined dead last and was able to get back to 14th at the end.

“It was a bit frustrating, because being so early in the race when the accident happened the field was still all bunched up and nobody had managed to make a break. I would have stood a good chance of finishing inside the top five or maybe even top three, I reckon.

“We were the quickest on the track over those first two laps – and that was coming through the pack! Still, I knew I had the pace and it was just one of those things – it’s good to get it out of the way now when it doesn’t really matter rather than during Super 1.”

Though he ironically crossed the finish line one spot in front of his assailant Barnicoat, still all of Callum’s hard work had been undone, and in the second heat he would find his progress hindered by a lack of engine power – a characteristic that is punished at Shenington like practically nowhere else, as the 14-year-old acknowledged…

“That’s a big disadvantage at Shenington,” he explained. “There are four long straights and only four corners to gain all that time back again. It was really hard work, just cat-and-mouse all the way through – I would catch the others into the corners, but then down the straights they would just pull away again. I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Still, seventh position at least earned Callum a tenth place start for the all-important final out of the 23 drivers present, and he entered it in positive spirits. Indeed, a determined approach would pay dividends, as the Ken Stimpson School pupil refused to let a frantic opening tour knock him off-balance, and set a fastest lap just over two tenths shy of that of the race-winner en route to fifth spot at the chequered flag,

“I was pretty confident we had made the kart a lot better than it had been during the heats,” he related. “I was simply aiming to get round the first corner and get the first lap out of the way, and then start working away.

“The first lap turned out to be very hectic, because everyone was bumper-to-bumper and knocking into each other, but I survived that and just picked them off one-by-one. In the second half of the race I was just about hanging on to the top four, but I didn’t quite have the power to attack them.”

The highest finisher with a 2008-spec TM engine in his kart, Callum certainly made his mark, and with new powerplants on their way and more testing planned ahead of round four of the winter series at PF International, he is aiming to up the ante as the main season approaches, eyeing a podium performance – if not even better…

“It was a really good weekend overall,” he summarised, “even though we didn’t quite get the result. I felt like I really took a step forward both in the KF3 class and also with the team, and achieved a lot more than the final outcome showed.

“After PF, the last round of the winter series is back at Shenington again, and hopefully we’ll be able to get a better result then. We’ll be that little bit more prepared engine-wise too after the lessons we learned this time, and we know the chassis goes well round there.

“I now know how everything works a lot better, I’ve settled into the team very well, the kart is good and the set-up is very professional, and we’ve had two meetings together to get used to each other and how we both work. It feels more natural now. It’s all coming together, and thanks to that I think the results will definitely start coming too.”

Photo by Chris Walker