Dan Wells: Asia calling

The road to F1 is often bumpy, as Formula Pilota driver Dan Wells had found out. After the collapse of Formula Renault UK for 2012, he made the long move to Asia to chase his dream. Here is a great guest piece by Dan on the move.

All images sourced from danwellsracing.co.uk

Hello to everyone on the Jack Leslie F1 Blog! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Dan Wells; I finished 2nd in the Formula Renault UK Finals Series at the end of 2011 and am currently racing in the Formula Pilota China series having taken 3 victories and 5 podiums.Many of you would know me as the ‘Twitter Powered Racing Driver’ because when I was faced with the difficulties of finding the funding to go racing this year, I turned to crowd funding to get us off the ground – and I’m pleased to say we had over 100 different sponsors worldwide on my webpage www.gofundme.com/danwellsracing! Without this, I would not have been able to make the move to Asia and continue my career to Formula One.

Of course my original plan was to race on the traditional route – Formula Renault UK or equivalent, British/Euro F3 and then onto World Series or GP2 – but the reality really hit home in March of this year when I couldn’t raise the budget in the UK. It was at this period that BAM Motorsports (www.bam-promo.com) got in touch with me, and Dave Madgwick became my manager having seen what I was trying to achieve. He brought the opportunity of racing in the Formula Pilota China series with KCMG – and with some sponsorship from VISA Global Logistics, a golf day organised by my personal trainer Nat (from Parkwood Health and Fitness) and his father in law, and the Gofundme sponsorship, I was able to make the leap - and was lucky enough that my girlfriend Kerry (@KerryStack) was willing to make the jump too! The plan was for me to move to Hong Kong (where my team is based) and continue my business networking to continue my career. This way, my destiny is in my own hands and I truly believe I can make the right connections to make it to the top of motorsport.

It has been extremely difficult – finding money for the flights, hotels, and the apartment is hard enough – but then there is the racing too! I’ve got a great support network around me though, and with my partners Nearly Friday and Sideways Driving Club this is only going to get stronger. Looking back on the beginning of the year, I believe that all of this is happening for a reason. There have been some very low times, some very high times (i.e. winning 3 races so far this season!) but I know that whenever I get out on track I am the one who wants it the most.

The change in lifestyle is quite big – if I’m truly honest, I wasn’t the most domestic of people when I was living with my parents, and didn’t really appreciate the cost of food, bills etc, but out here I’ve had to grow up quite quickly but I’m thankful for it. I love the fact that when I walk outside it is always really warm, and best of all when I go out on track, you don’t need to mess about getting your tyres up to temperature! The great thing about Hong Kong is that you can be anywhere in about 30 minutes – lying on a beach chilling out on the weekend, in Central for a meeting, or up at the peak on a walk – I really love the place and the whole environment. There is a fantastic can-do attitude here too, so people are generally a lot more willing to have a meeting, even from a cold call, than back home. The only thing I dislike is the fact that my regular Thursday morning breakfast networking meeting (BNI) takes place at 6.30am!!

The biggest positive about this year is the racing in Asia. I have been very impressed by the whole setup – the organisers, the teams, and the standard of racing. It is very professional and I’ve just enjoyed every minute of driving, working with the team, or even going out in the evening, eating goat and singing some karaoke in the only night club that Ordos has ever seen (thankfully no videos have made their way onto YouTube!!). The Formula Pilota car is great to drive (it is a Tatuus Formula Abarth chassis) and I get to drive some fantastic circuits such as Shanghai and Sepang in Malaysia. The media coverage is great too – we have had extensive interviews with Australian television, Chinese television, an article in the South China Morning Post and soon to be in the Financial Times too! I’m really glad that we made the decision to race in Asia and would encourage any drivers who were interested in racing in the Formula Pilota series to get in contact with me to find out more about it.

You can follow me on twitter @danwellsracing, look at my website www.danwellsracing.co.uk or if you would like to get a taste of the racing action then take a look at my YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TqoIMGVKY . Also, if you know of any businesses who would like association with a British racing driver in Asia – then you can contact me at dan@danwellsracing.co.uk  – thank you!