With motor racing of various kinds set to return in the coming weeks, we decided to provide an update on Alex Peroni, the young Australian driver that Blundstone are helping to sponsor in the Formula Renault Eurocup.
The 18 year-old from Hobart, Tasmania, will go into his second year of the single-seat series, having impressed in his debut year by finishing 10th overall – the highest of five Australians contesting the highly competitive series for aspiring future Formula 1 drivers.
We know that motor racing fans the world over just can’t get enough of racing and love to watch up and coming drivers doing battle in equally matched vehicles. So, we think Alex Peroni will be one of the young guns to watch this year.
The Formula Renault Eurocup is raced across Europe at the same iconic tracks as F1 including Silverstone on 18 - 20 May and Monaco on 24 - 27 May where they will be the support act to the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The series kicks of on 13 - 15 April at Paul Ricard in France followed by Monza in Italy a week later, so it’s going to be an action packed start to the year and we wish Alex every success.
Over the season there will be a total of ten race weekends, with two races being run on each occasion. One change from last year is that the street race in Pau in Southern France has been replaced by Hockenheimring in Germany. This will likely disappoint Alex because he won at Pau last year after claiming pole position and setting a new track record in the process.
Alex’s motorsport background is like many other young drivers. He started racing karts at age 7 and moved on to single-seat cars in his early teens. The only difference for Alex is that in order to pursue his dream of racing in Formula 1 he has needed to spend three quarters of each year living away from home on the other side of the world. In the process he has become Australia’s youngest ever International kart racer, Australia’s youngest ever international single-seater car racer and Australia’s youngest ever European single-seater championship winner – 14 wins from 21 races in 2016 in the Formula Renault VdeV Series.
For the last three years Alex has been based in Italy while racing with Italian and British teams. This year he joined leading Dutch team MP Motorsport and will be based at their headquarters at Westmaas in The Netherlands.
Alex is excited at the move and looking forward to being in a strong team with a history of success across a range of motor racing categories right through to Formula 2. He said his goal this year is to be consistently on the podium and finish in the top five in the championship, while working on his skill, driving technique and physical fitness ready to move up a category in 2019.
“The competition in the Eurocup is incredibly intense. There are 30 drivers in every race and on any given weekend at least half the field have a good chance to be on the podium, the racing is that close”.
“I’m therefore really pleased to have joined a team as professional as MP Motorsport and I look forward to building a strong working relationship with my new engineer, mechanics and my teammates so that we can get the maximum out of the car under all circumstances and be amongst the top drivers at the end of the year”.
Good luck with the upcoming campaign, Alex. We will all be watching!