April 2007

Formula BMW USA - Philip Major Set for Second Year of Competition
Ottawa driver finished with pre-season testing

	Philip Major Photo: Formula BMW USA

OTTAWA, ONTARIO Ottawa Formula BMW USA driver Philip Major has finished his winter testing program and is now looking forward to the first race of the year, which will be on May 17-18 at Miller Motorsports Park, Utah.

“Our whole Autotecnica Team is ready for the challenge of 2007,” Major said. “We have done a lot of work over the winter and now we are ready to race. The chemistry within the team is fantastic, and I know we’re all excited to get to Miller Motorsports Park for the first race.”

Autotecnica Team Manager Enrico Diano summed up the winter testing this way. “"With pre-season testing pretty much complete, Philip will approach the first race event in Utah as a different driver than he was at the end of 2006,” Diano said. “He's completed a significant amount of days on track and has done a lot of work over the past three months with the team. At the same time, he's been able to juggle his fitness training and regular school work to maintain an Honours-level ranking. Philip has experienced improvements in his driving technique, consistency, and speed while improving his communications skills to provide accurate feedback to the team. I expect Philip to reap the rewards of all his hard work and to be a top contender this season.”

A big part of the credit for Major’s development this winter has to fall on the shoulders of Christian Boudon, Major’s Racing Operations Director. He is very happy with the progress of his driver. “Philip and I immediately generated the first day on track a good flowing communication, which was an important key point to achieve his long term goals,” Boudon said. “The learning curve of Philip has been impressive test after test during our winter trail. After some adjustments on my teaching speed we found the learning pace Philip is efficient with,” Boudon added.

This season, with his new team, comes a new engineer for Major. Tristan Doherty has spent the winter working with Major and he will be the Ottawa teenager’s engineer this year. “Philip seems to have a good mix of speed and analytical ability,” Doherty said. “He's learned a lot from the people around him in the past few months and can now drive a series of laps at the limit then give accurate feedback not only about the car's behavior but also the root cause of that behavior, whether it's track or condition related, driver related or setup related. Having this level of detailed feedback has allowed us to make some good progress in the car's setup and his natural speed has allowed him to take advantage of that improved handling.”

With all his work done, Major is now focused on racing, which will kick off at Miller Motorsports Park on May 17-18.

Source: Russ Bond Agency