THE Island’s Formula 3 racing driver 20-year-old James Walker continues to progress up what he describes as a ’steep learning curve’ to such an extent that the Renault F1 team invited him not once, but twice, to their human performance centre.
They only do so when they believe a young driver might become something special, the first of Walker’s visits taking place over two months ago.
At the centre in Enstone, north of Oxford, Walker was put through a day’s tough testing which began with a thorough medical, including weight ratio to body fat, lung function, heart rate and reaction times, and then continued with a huge range of exercises including mountain biking, swimming, endurance rowing, gym work, weights and, according to James: ‘The hardest part of all - the 2,000m road race’.
Yet so impressed were Renault that he was one of only two drivers to be invited back for a second visit; the other being leading F3 driver, Nelson Piquet Jnr who already has a BMW Williams F1 testing contract.
That was less than a fortnight ago.
And again Renault were impressed by Walker’s improvement since his previous visit.
After they had given him a tough schedule to follow, he proved fitter in all repeated exercises, including the 2000m run.
‘Over that two-month gap I’d worked hard at it,’ said Walker, pointing out that Renault would expect to see an improvement and that time means money to them.
Why would they want him back, to repeat the exercises, if he hadn’t made a real effort in between? And he is improving, continually, for his team, Hi Tech Racing.
As he packed his bags before setting off today to compete in the next round of Formula 3 at Zandvoort in Holland, on Sunday, he spoke about his progress.
Back in February, when testing at Silverstone, he was losing time at virtually all of the corners against his fellow team mates.
Just a day or two ago he was testing again, but this time he was regularly setting a faster time than them on the corners - with the exception of one.
‘What I need to do now is to put it all together,’ he said.
‘But I know now that I can sit with, and pull away from people in a race and our fifth place at Donington proved what we can do as a team.
‘In Holland we will be racing against the world’s top 50 Formula 3 drivers.
My first aim is not to do anything stupid - simply to qualify.
‘Am I enjoying it? - I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.’
Article posted on 5th August, 2004 - 12.00am
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