School boy racing driver Damani Marcano is impressing Team HARD team boss Tony Gilham with his performances in the VW Cup this season.
The 16-year-old has been progressing round by round in the competitive race series, and last time out at Snetterton looked to take some massive strides forward.
He equalled his best qualifying of 14th but with a larger grid than at Spa, it meant that it was a real improvement for him.
Speaking about Damani, Gilham said: “I’m incredibly proud of Damani’s performance this weekend, as he can’t drive a car on a daily basis he doesn’t have the same level of exposure as the other drivers all have and I feel the way he enters a race and begins afresh each time is very impressive. This weekend was particularly special as Damani’s pace, race craft and lessons learnt have all come on leaps and bounds from when he began.”
Damani qualified this weekend matching a lap time, which over the previous couple of years, would have seen him very much towards the front of the pack.
In race one he had some gearbox problems on the start and dropped some places and had to regain them. After passing several drivers he caught a driver (Ewing) who held Damani up for several laps.
In a move into the left hand corner Brundle, Damani got ahead of Ewing, but as they approached the right of Nelson, their cars got tangled up and Damani suffered suspension damage ending his race.
With the DNF in race one, Damani had to start last, however, he quickly passed the first few drivers and soon found himself battling with Ewing again. Lap after lap went by and Damani couldn’t find a way past.
Learning from his previous experience, he put the same move around the outside into the left of Brundle, squeezing Ewing and making the pass stick through the right of Nelson on the penultimate lap.
While stuck behind Ewing their times were 2m13s. Damani immediately pulled a gap with his last lap in clear air four seconds faster than Ewing on the same lap. Having battled for so long, and despite this final lap being faster than the next car ahead Laura Tillett, time ran out for Damani to close the gap, leaving him in 18th.
With such strong pace, his relative pace was faster than the same lap from the driver placed in 13th. This would have put Damani behind a list of 12 former Volkswagen Racing Cup podium sitters and ahead of drivers with years on him in experience. Not bad for a kid still too young to drive on the road.
Gilham is clearly impressed with the progress of Marcano, he added: “The progression that Damani has made in this weekend alone is astounding, he really came of age as a racing driver. His pace, his technical ability and his skill at mastering difficult manoeuvres is all testament to his natural ability and he really demonstrated the talent I first noticed in him. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do next weekend, and indeed in the future.”
Supported over the weekend by Team HARD, The Clever Baggers and RiverGlide, Damani really put his racing skills to the test, competing against drivers with 16yrs + more experience than him. To train for such races Damani uses ProSim simulators to learn the course, this helps immensely but cannot fully prepare Damani for taking the turns at speed and the g-forces that come with this!
Giving his thoughts following the Snetterton race weekend, Damani said: “The highlight of the weekend for me was definitely when I achieved my fastest lap of the weekend in race 1. Knowing that this was approaching front running pace a couple of years ago in this championship really boosted my confidence. I feel more at home on the track now and I’m really looking forward to what the future holds. To hear from Tony that I ‘came of age as a racing driver’ this weekend is amazing and I’m really proud of myself and my progression. I’m itching to get back out there!”
Damani is the youngest driver in the Volkswagen Racing Cup, a major UK racing series held as part of the British GT Championship race weekends. He began his first step into racing cars this year with the backing of Team HARD Racing, the largest team in the Volkswagen Racing Cup and a fan favourite in the British Touring Car Championships. Up against experienced adult drivers, Damani is the only competitor in the series who is too young to hold a road driving license.