FRESH off sharing the spotlight with Lewis Hamilton last weekend, overseas based Guyanese Calvin Ming chalked up his two F4 podium finishes to putting in 120% percent.Ming, who finished third in the first F4 race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and then followed it up with a win on Sunday spoke exclusively to Chronicle Sport on Monday.
In race one, he had undergone contact from the competition which pushed him to last place but the introduction of the safety cars at various junctures in the race played a role in his monstrous drive from back.
“Luckily enough in the first race the pace car came out which helped me to catch everyone back. After the race started back, I managed to work my way quite up a bit until the second pace car came out. At this time I was not thinking about the podium but thinking about getting into the top eight for a reverse grid for race two,” he said.
The 20 year old continued, “After I saw the pace-car pull off and I was in P5, I thought ‘well ok, I’ve got a shot at the podium so let’s push to 120%’ and luckily enough, in the last corner I was able to take the position.”
He returned in Race two to complete the a podium filled weekend, saying thanking Ram Racing for the opportunity while adding, “the first race had set me up for a good second race, because I had more confidence in myself and the car in that it was able to take home the win.”
“Going into this weekend, I hadn’t really thought much about it; I was focusing on University and I wasn’t even aware I was going until Ram Racing gave me call on Monday (last) to tell me that they had a car for me to drive,”
“When I actually got there, I wasn’t expecting that much but after first practice going into qualifying, I knew it would be a tough weekend because every-one (the top 8-10 cars) were 0.5 (half a second) off each other. So the field was stacked a pretty close.”