This weekend Olli Caldwell will get his first taste of what it is like to be racing in a Formula One paddock with the fifth round of the ADAC F4 Championship taking place at Hockenheim. With an average attendance of 200,000 spectators per event in last years F1 season, Olli has the chance to make his name familiar amongst Motorsport fans as well as impressing as the big bosses in the industry.
Hockenheim went missing from the F1 calendar last season, but it’s back this year and it’s come at a perfect time for Olli who currently sits 7th in the championship. It’s coming off the back of a lengthy mid-season break which has seen Olli not racing for over a month. But Olli has kept himself up to speed with testing and lots of training off circuit and is raring to go!
The championship has already paid a visit to Hockenheim this season back in May for round two where Olli picked up a podium in race one after qualifying 4th before his luck fell apart. He’ll be able to take great confidence from that result and will certainly be hoping to add to that on his biggest race weekend as well as for his championship.
One test that the drivers will be faced with this weekend is the lack of track time and breaks between each session. There will be just one practice session for the drivers on Friday, rather than the traditional two, and there will be two races rather than the usual three. That means there can be no mistakes in practice nor qualifying with no reverse grid race over the weekend.
As for the breaks the timetable (found at the bottom of this article) shows that the ADAC F4 grid will often be out either at the very start of the day or at the very end of the day leaving a break of just under seven hours between qualifying and race one. It may be a challenge for some, but something Olli is used to back in his Ginetta Junior days in 2016.
For the entire grid this will be the weekend they want to win on more than any other. To say you have won at a F1 weekend would be a fantastic tool for Olli to use
in the future. Championship wise bad luck at times means Olli is in 7th but he’s still very much in the fight for a top five finish sitting just 43 points behind 3rd place.
Both races will be streamed live on https://www.ollicaldwell.com/live with updates also going out on social media.
Timetable:
Friday
Free
Practice 1 - 09:45 (30 mins)
Saturday
Qualifying 1 - 09:50 (15 mins)
Qualifying
2 - 10:10
Race
One - 17:00 (30 mins)
Sunday
Race
Two - 10:10