Formula Renault champion Alex Lynn on his “incredible year”

The 2011 Formula Renault 2.0 UK championship was dominated by one man; ALEX LYNN won the title in fine style for Fortec Motorsport, and he talks about his amazing season in which he also set a new series record by winning 12 races in a single season…

From the start of the season, Lynn proved just what a threat he was going to be in the championship last year, snatching two pole positions and then taking two wins in fairly emphatic fashion, but in a sport where anything can happen, Lynn wasn’t going to get carried away.

“It was a very long year for me!” he said. “It has been really enjoyable but it was difficult to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to”. 

“When the team is putting in so much effort and hard work, you just don’t have the time to enjoy it all and while I had a good lead in the Championship, it remained too close for comfort to really make the most of that feeling of victory!”

When Lynn was under pressure it often came from Cypriot driver Tio Ellinas in the early stages of the season, and the rivalry made Lynn and his Fortec team even more determined to win each race that came.

“In a way though, that helped me and spurred me on and it took quite a while for what I had achieved to sink in. It was an incredible year.”

In the end, Lynn was untouchable and went on to win the championship in style, also eclipsing James Matthew’s record of 11 wins that had lasted 18 years with the race one victory at Silverstone, his 12th win in a year that saw him finish on the podium in 15 races.

“It was fantastic to win the Championship and it felt absolutely right to do it in style.

“To win the Championship with a record-breaking number of wins was just a fitting reward for a year of hard work and determination – it was a really, really great feeling.”

One of the factors that controversially kept the title mathematically alive until the final two races of the season were a number of exclusions – from a race win at Donington and then Croft – for technical infringements on his Fortec car (Donington being successfully appealled), setbacks that kept Lynn fired up throughout the season.

“It was very hard to maintain focus throughout the season. I think my season was made a lot harder by the two exclusions that we suffered (one was overturned) but in a way that also made me keep on my game as I didn’t know which way the exclusions were going to go.

“I just had to keep winning until the title was mathematically wrapped up and the team and I worked extremely hard to ensure that we were as prepared as we could be ahead of every race weekend.

“We never got complacent and we just had the best all-round package and I think that was the key to our success.”

The initial Donington exclusion was one that had hurt Lynn and the team after a great fight with Ellinas all weekend, but the bounceback they achieved at the next round at Thruxton was Lynn’s personal highlight of the year.

“The highlight for me was winning both races at Thruxton because it came off the back of our exclusion at Donington Park. It felt really rewarding for the whole team to bounce back as we did and we totally deserved the double-victory that weekend.”

Lynn’s next challenge will be a 2012 assault on the British F3 Championship with his Fortec Motorsport squad, a challenge he is both confident and already excited about.

“This year I move up to the British F3 Championship with Fortec and I’m really looking forward to it.

“It’ll certainly be a really hard challenge, but I’m confident that we can have a good season and I’ll learn a lot and develop at each race. With all new cars for 2012, there’ll be much more of an even playing field and I’m sure that with hard work from me and the team, we can do very well.”

Advertisement

---