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Following the disappointment of race 2 at Jarama I was determined to have a strong weekend at Spa.

It was my first race meeting at Spa, although I did a test there in April but due to problems only completed 30 relatively slow laps. With this in mind I had hoped for more than just the two 30 minute test sessions on the Friday.

It was hard to know how competitive we were in testing as we didn’t know where other people were with tyres. So even though I ended the second session down in P.15, I wasn’t too disappointed as the car had good balance and I was quietly confident of having good pace with new tyres.

Quali exceeded all my expectations and I put in one of the best laps of my career on the very last lap to take P.5 overall and comfortably the fastest of the ‘06 cars.

Race 1 took place Saturday afternoon. I made a great start to exit turn 1 in P.3, but during the run up to Eau Rouge I was forced to back out of the throttle and was swamped on the following straight by some pesky ‘08 cars demoting me to 5th. The racing was extremely tough as the rules state that the ’06 spec cars must run the high downforce wings where as the ‘08′s can run the low downforce. This meant that even when in the tow of an ‘08 car I couldn’t keep up on Spa’s massive straights. Despite this I got back up to 4th on lap 3 only to get a hit up the back at the next corner smashing my diffuser and relieving me of much of my down force at the rear. It’s a great compliment to the Speedsport/West-Tec team that the car was still competitive enough around the slower corners that don’t require as much downforce for me to be able to stay in 4th position.

With about 6 laps to go I noticed that my pit board had P.3 on it, so I radioed to the pits and was told someone was handed a drive through penalty promoting me to 3rd. As the race wore on and the tyres were going off I really started to struggle with the lack of rear end aero and P.4, 5 and 6 (Scalbi, Legris and Miguez) were closing in on me. Determined to stay ahead I gave it my all and albeit a little too sideways at some of the high speed corners for a safe race pace I hung on to 3rd place to take my first overall podium of the season and another ‘06 class win.

Due to the reverse grid system for race 2 where the top 6 finishers from race 1 get reversed, I lined up for Sunday’s race in P.4. An even better start than race 1 saw me exit turn 1 in P.2. Again on the straight following Eau Rouge an ‘08 car easily towed by me and demoted me to third. Having had such a successful race 1 I was playing it safe (ish) in this race to make sure I collected another class win to cement my lead in the championship. Around lap 5, championship leader Bruno Mendez towed by me putting me 4th. My pace in the lengthy, twisty 2nd sector was fantastic and I was able to pull enough of a gap through here to protect me on the long straights. I was able to stay in touch with Mendez and followed him home in 4th overall and another ‘06 win.

Two more class wins leaves me with a 21 point lead in the Copa D’europe Championship and I’m lying 6th overall just 5 points shy of 3rd. My first visit to the incredible Spa-Francorchamps circuit has been brilliant and I look forward to the day when I can tackle Eau Rouge in a much more powerful single seater as it is a little too easily flat in the F3 car to get the full hold-on-for-your-life experience!!

Donington this weekend so I’m back on home soil and hopefully I’ll be able to make up the difference to the ‘08 cars with a bit of home track knowledge…..

Talk soon all

Bye

Jarama was the venue for my second round of the European F3 Open Series. Due to noise problems there has been a complete ban on testing at the circuit pre-season and so we had no idea of what our car would be like at this circuit and i didn’t know what to expect either.

Free practise went very well considering the lack of track experience, i loved the circuit, it’s full of highly cambered corners and very little run off areas, it’s one of the old school style circuits and definately one that favours the brave. I ended up p.6 overall and p.1 in the ’06 class so not a bad first session.

Quali didn’t go so well, struggled with the balance of the car and ended up a disapointing 11th and 3rd in class with my team mate in the ’08 car an equally disapointing 13th. At least I had an exciting race to look forward to from row six.

My start was excellent and I moved from 11th to 9th by the second corner. Then, by lap 3, I was in 8th and 1st in class. My car was much better in race trim and I was all over the back of p.6 and 7. The aerodynamics of an F3 car can a real issue when it comes to overtaking, especially for an ’06 car having to drive through the huge hole in the air that the ’08 cars leave in their wake. I was pretty much stuck in 8th and there was very little I could do. Luckily, however, it rained for one lap towards the end of the race and this gave me my oppurtunity to progress. I passed Jonathon Legris as he ran wide exiting the hairpin and then on the same lap outbraked Neil Monserat around the outside of the final hairpin on the circuit to move into P.6.

I remained in P.6 and p.1 in class until the chequered flag. If your not in the top three overall in the first race then 6th is where you want to be as the top six finishers get reversed, meaning I would start race two from pole!!

My start in the second race was good and I led into the first corner, however, this was very short lived as i was forced onto the marbles and understeered off on the exit through the gravel and right down the order to p.18. I made up three or four places with some pretty daring overtaking manouvres only to be then taken out on the following lap…. Gutted, my first F3 pole hadn’t gone quite how i’d hoped. Still, I’m now 7th in the overall championship and leading the ’06 title. Looking forward to Spa where hopefully i can extend my ’06 championship lead and get right amongst it at the sharp end with those ’08 cars…

Talk to you all soon

Callum Macleod

Hi

I’m Callum Macleod and this year I’m racing in the European F3 Open. I’ve not had a full time drive since winning the British Formula Ford championship in 2007 and so much of last year was spent searching for funding and trying to get into as many different cars as possible to stay sharp.

My manager and sponsors have done a fantastic job getting the budget for this year and so hopefully it’ll be a very successful season.

I’m racing for Speedsport/West-Tec. My manager, Mike O’Brien, started Speedsport over 30 years ago and they have run winning cars in British F3 in the past and West-Tec have good experience in the re-branded Spanish F3 championship.

I’m racing a 2006 spec Dallara. Pre-season testing had been very encouraging, however, we were one of the only teams not to have attended the Valencia test two weeks prior to the race and so were on the back foot a little.

Friday practice at Valencia was tough as we struggled to find the balance of the car and were typically around P18 in the three half-hour sessions. We knew we had a lot of work to do in order to even make it into the super pole on Saturday – in the Euro F3 open there is a 20 minute session and then the top 10 do a further 10 minute session known as Super Pole.

In Q1 I knew the car was much better from the first lap out of the pits. With 2 minutes to go I was down in 13th but knew there was more time in the car. I found some space and on the last lap put in a solid time which moved me up to 6th. This pace carried on in the Super Pole and I lined up 6th on the grid for race 1.

Race 1 was okay, we had the pace initially but as the race wore on I struggled for grip and dropped to 7th in the closing stages. Still, not a bad result but you start race 2 from where you finished in the first race, apart from the top 6 positions that get reversed. As you can imagine, this makes 7th a very frustrating place to finish having ran in the top six for so long!!

In race 2 I got a great start and moved up to 5th place, only to run wide onto the gravel and drop to 8th. I had better pace throughout the race than in race 1 and worked my way up to 6th where I finished.

All things considered it was a solid first race weekend of the season but we still have a lot of work to do and I’ll be hoping for much better results in the remaining rounds.

I’d like to say a big thank you to Speedsport, Team West-Tec and all my sponsors for making this year possible. I’ll be back on here after Jarama in a few weeks time to let you know how it all went.

Callum