Dan Wells, Singapore diary

Young British racing driver Dan Wells writes about his trip to Singapore, and updates fans on how his title challenge is going in the Formula Pilota China championship.

Hello to all the readers of the Jack Leslie F1 Blog! I hope you all enjoyed the Singapore Grand Prix, whether you were at the Grand Prix or watching from your televisions at home. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to the GP with Kerrie, my girlfriend, and boy did I enjoy the racing! I had only seen F1 cars at a soggy Silverstone from Club corner in 2009, before I had even started racing, so this was a real eye opener!

It has been a really busy time of late – the week before Singapore I was in Guangdong (of all places!!) racing in Formula Pilota. We were very quick in testing, about 0.3s up on everybody and qualified on the front row twice, however I was hit 3 times throughout the weekend which kind of dented our chances of getting a good finish! Unfortunately my best result was 4^th which wasn’t what we had gone there for. I’m sitting 20 points behind in the championship but with two rounds to go, both in Malaysia, a circuit we will really excel on, I am confident that we will win the title.

Anyhow, back to Singapore! Kerrie and I arrived in our ‘compact’ (!!) room on Selegie Road on the Thursday and we had a couple of Premier Walkabout passes for the Friday. This entitled us to rides on the Singapore Flyer, which being scared of heights was a bit interesting, but this had gone by my 3^rd trip around! Being stood about a metre and a half from the F1 and GP2 cars was just amazing. Every single bone in your body vibrates and you can feel the engine and gearshifts through the ground – this feeling will never leave me! We had a good walk around the circuit to see the cars from various angles but my favourite place had to be from Turn 5 – the cars come straight at you at top speed before braking and changing direction for the next straight – an awesome sight.

On Saturday and Sunday, we were in the Wooloomooloo Restaurant on turn 9 of the circuit, which gave us a great view of the action with some fantastic TV screens to see the rest of the action. It was great to welcome the winners of the Sideways Driving Club competition Kris and Tessa Laue who won free flights, accommodation and tickets to the Grand Prix too.

My partners Choctails were out in force for the event too – Simon and Hilary came all the way from the UK and thoroughly enjoyed their weekend in the Wooloomooloo Restaurant and Paddock Club! I had the best time after the Grand Prix finished on the Sunday night – Kerrie, Simon and Hilary from Choctails, and I went down to one of the gates as everybody was leaving the venue – and handed out free Singapore Sling Choctails (www.choctails.org.uk) which had my helmet colours and a chequered flag on! We had a huge gathering around us and we were handing out leaflets and chocolates shouting ‘Dan Wells: British Racing Driver promoting British Chocolates!’ It was one of those nights where it was a little bit crazy, but genius at the same time and Kerrie and I are preparing for some more promotional nights in Hong Kong!

As I write this it is 1am HK time, having been up since 8 and working all the way through with a couple of meetings. Today has seen the launch of www.gofundme.com/wellsfrontwings - whereby supporters will bag themselves the Limited Edition Dan Wells Racing Choctails box with, yes you guessed it, 16 chocolates in (my race number)! Simulator drives and car logos are also available so be sure to check it out! You can follow my partners at @choctails, @LetsRace1 and @SidewaysDrivingClub.

Anyhow, I am going to be up all night sending emails and preparing sponsorship proposals so should probably get back to it! If you know anyone who would be interested in sponsoring a British racing driver who is fighting for a Ferrari backed title in Asia, then please get in contact at dan@danwellsracing.co.uk – thank you so much!