The teenager proving Red Bull wrong
Failing to 'do a Max Verstappen' as a car racing rookie in Formula 3 cost Briton Callum Ilott the backing of Red Bull last year, but his response in 2016 suggests Helmut Marko might have been too hasty in pulling the plug
"When we put Callum next to Max or Charles, I think speed is nearly the same. As pure drivers, they are generally equal."
Those are the words of Frits van Amersfoort, the man whose team ran Formula 1 sensation Max Verstappen in the F3 European Championship in 2014, and followed that by launching next-man-most-likely Charles Leclerc in the category last season. This year, Van Amersfoort Racing has arguably completed a hat-trick of fielding F3's most-exciting talent - and by 'most-exciting' we don't necessarily mean the driver doing all the winning, but instead the most tantalising - in the form of 17-year-old Brit Callum Ilott.
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Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.
Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.
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