Hywel enjoys Superleague chance

Corwen racer Hywel Lloyd took a break from the 2010 Cooper Tires British Formula 3 season by jetting off the Italy for a guest drive in the PSV Eindhoven car run by AtechReid team in the latest round of the Sangol Superleague Formula at the Adria International Raceway near Adria in Northern Italy. Superleague is concept that marries the worlds of motor racing with the world of Superleague football and Hywel found driving the750 horsepower V-12 cars an exciting experience "It was good. It was big car to learn, but it was nice to have the opportunity. The track was bit small for the cars and that made it a good physical race. It was nice for Anthony and the AtechReid team to give me the chance" Lloyd was unlucky in the latest Formula 3 round at Snetterton and narrowly missed out on scoring more points but is still only 4 points behind his old rival Jay Bridger, who moved into F3 at the same time as Lloyd. There are only 3 more races to go on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit at the end of September.

Hywel in Italy for Superleague Formula

Racing driver Hywel Lloyd has signed a special deal to drive for Dutch football giants PSV Eindhoven and will take on Liverpool, AC Milan and Flamengo this weekend.

Welsh star Lloyd jetted out to Italy today (Friday) and was today taking his place at the wheel of a V-12 750 horsepower Superleague Formula car.

The 25-year-old from Corwen has been called up by top superleague team Atech Reid to substitute for Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan in the 18-team series, Europe’s richest motorsport championship with a 333,000-Euro jackpot for each event.

He will take Narain’s seat in the PSV Eindhoven car – each of the teams represents a major football club including Liverpool, Brazilian sides Flamengo and Corinthians, AC Milan and Spurs - at the Adria International Raceway, near Venice, this weekend.

Lloyd, Wales’s leading single-seat racing driver, competes in the F3 International Series and he and his CF Racing team were just back from last weekend’s meeting at Snetterton when he received his call-up from fellow Welsh racing team Atech Reid boss Anthony Reid.

He said: “I was invited to take part and stand in for the regular driver who has had to go back to India. We had a phone call from Anthony Reid offering me the chance of a drive this weekend.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity because this is a really major racing series with a lot of money at stake and some very high tech cars with ex-Formula One drivers.

“Each team has the same car and they are 750 horsepower flying machines which will do nearly 200mph. They are bigger cars than I’m used to, maybe even bigger than F1 cars and they’re heavy and built more for straight line speed.

“It’s really exciting. There are two main races on Sunday with compulsory pit stops and each race is 44 minutes plus one lap, the second with a reverse grid and there’s a third five-lap Super Final race which follows for the top six drivers.

“I don’t know much about the Adria circuit but it is quite short and twisty with some difficult turns but it looks as though there could be some overtaking opportunities as well.”

It’s all go for Lloyd who was being fitted for his driving seat on Friday morning when he would meet the Atech Reid team of engineers and mechanics for the first time.

Superleague Formula was launched in 2008 and features 18 teams competing at 12 major venues across Europe and also in China. Each team is linked to a major football club and the drivers come from all over the world.

Last year’s championship was won by Liverpool’s car, run by Atech Reid and driven by Spaniard Adrian Valles, and again this year Atech Reid lead the way with the AC Milan car driven by Dutchman Yelmer Buurman. And there are serious sums of money involved. Leading money-winner this year is Spanish driver Davide Rigon who has already banked 425,000 Euros – over Ł350,000 – and the winner of each race earns 100,000 Euros, over Ł80,000.

CF Racing Team Manager, Hywel’s father, Harry, said: “It came out of the blue but it shows that people in racing know what Hywel is capable of and recognise his ability. We look at it as a fantastic opportunity to gain experience which will stand us in good stead for the future.

“There’s just the two of us going out there so there will be a new team to meet and work with but that will be good experience too and at least Hywel knows how engines and cars work.

“He knows one end of a spanner from the other so that will help make things easier when they work on the set-up together.”

All this weekend’s qualifying and race action are live on http://www.superleagueformula.com, and UK viewers can see coverage of all three races on ESPN (Sky 417, Virgin Media 529, BT Vision 34) from 10.45am and 5.45pm. For more on Hywel Lloyd and his CF Racing team go to http://www.f3racing.co.uk