£FREE - Ealing Media

XD
speed freak
PAGE 16
FEATURES
Our student Star
XD
henever someone says ‘Formula
1’ or ‘Michael Schumacher’, you Winevitably
think of noisy race tracks
with screeching tyres, buzzing engines
and the smell of burning rubber, as
cars race at speeds that often exceed
200mph.
Thousands upon thousands of F1 fans
follow the progress of the world’s most
talented drivers, but many people rarely
take a moment to wonder how someone
might actually achieve the status of a F1
driver.
To find out exactly what it’s like to climb
the ladder to F1 success, I spoke to
Marques Riddell, a 18 year old racing
enthusiast, currently taking a national
diploma in multimedia at Ealing and West
London College.
Ever since Marques was five years old he
has had a passion for racing, although
only able to race in small electric
go-karts. He told me that coming from a
family of avid motor sports fans meant
that he got to watch the sport often and
thus gained an interest in it.
However, the stimulation to actually start
racing, he says, came from his
admiration of Ayrton Senna, a widely
regarded, world-class racer, who
tragically died at the San Marino Gran
Prix in 1994. ‘He’s a bit of an idol. I
always wanted to be like him when I was
older,’ Marques told me.
After years of racing for fun, his passion
for the sport started to pay off when he
won his first go-karting medal, at age
11, as part of a school trip.
FEATURES
‘From then on I wanted to take it
seriously,’ he said. Quickly realising that
this ambition wasn’t going to go away he
began to enter tournaments regularly.
‘I’m just getting started now, and I have
to pay for all of the events, because
there is no sponsorship involved yet or
a team to race for. In all honesty it was
very hard to get into but I guess dedica-
PAGE 17