The young driver Red Bull couldn't ignore
Igor Fraga has a more colourful career behind him than any other driver on the FIA Formula 3 grid, and now he's beginning to become as recognised for his talents in real racing as in the virtual world
You could forgive Igor Fraga for not knowing which country he's in or even which language to communicate via when he wakes up every morning.
Fraga put his name to the forefront of the junior single-seater world early in 2020 when he unexpectedly vanquished reigning champion Liam Lawson to win New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series title as a rookie. And then, just as Lawson had done when he did the same to Marcus Armstrong in 2019, Fraga got signed up by Helmut Marko to the Red Bull Junior Team.
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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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