18 since last month and doesn´t have a driving license, that’s the belgian racer Simon Pilate. Since he was 10 he is active in motorsport. He started to do karting competition in the team Kartingpro for two years. Then his parents had to move to a foreign country where there was no karting or any other motorsports activities. Five years later he moved back to Belgium but wanted to focus on his studies and after two years he finished his International baccalaureate.
Now he was able to go back to his passion: “I had always planned that after my studies I would go back to motorsports” Pilate told us. At this moment Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Lemarie founded FEED Racing and 2019 he took part of the 2019 selection.
“ I had never met Jacques Villeneuve nor Patrick Lemarié before going to Feed Racing but it was amazing how much they were open to all the drivers at Feed Racing.“, informed Simon Pilate.
It was the first time in 7 years that Pilate was going to sit behind a wheel, so it was very hard to compete with drivers that had a huge racing background in karting (world,European championship etc). With the tips of Jacques, Patrick, and the other instructors, he improved lap by lap and in the end he managed to qualify till the semifinals.
“After some discussion with Patrick and my parents I realized that single seater cars( F1,F2 etc.) are not for me due to the high budget and also because of my size ( especially my feet that couldn’t fit properly and made it very difficult )“, Pilate told us. But Lemarie offerd him the possibilty to share a car with him in the NWES where they wanted to start this year. Simon Pilate of course took this opportunity.
As there is no real racing at this moment he prepares himself with some fitness and a daily sport program. In addition to the daily workout, he has to get used to the gear shifter. He trains on the simulator with Euronascar Esport to learn to switch the gear. He had never driven a car with a manual gear box before, because he doesn’t have his driving license yet since he just turned 18.
He thinks that the EuroNASCAR Esports Series (short ENES) is a great idea and an amazing opportunity to learn how NWES works and an opportunity to already meet certain drivers with which he will compete in real life. They show much effort to improve a series like this in so a short time. But Pilates criticized “However i think that this virtuality takes off some safety barriers to certain drivers which causes accidents like what happened at Watkins Glen, ruining the races of many drivers. However, I am sure that the NWES will react to this and make the necessary changes for this doesn’t happen anymore.” With this series he will participate in iracing for the first time. Patrick Lemarie borrowed him the hardware he needed and helped him a lot to build all up.
“Concerning Daytona, i learned a lot from that race as i barely qualified for the main race due to many mistakes i did because of my impatience.”
In the heatrace he wanted to overtake so much that he crashed at the end. He missed to save his secure place in the final race. He needed to qualificate and he did it. Later in the final race he was the driver with most positions gained at the race. Therefore, for Brands Hatch and Watkins Glen he secured his place and it gave good results. So he thinks that his performance is good but the most important is to progress every time and so far he had managed to do so.
Simon Pilate summarizes the final race of Watkins Glen as a shame, as he did a good qualification and heat. Just in the first corner he got pushed from another car and left the course. As he comes back he saw the big one in turn 2. One car going the opposite way. He was driving slow but the other car was speeding up and hit him. His car was death. He needed a ten minutes repair in the pit.
His race was over but he waited and came back.He wa sable to gain 7 positions again. And this with a broken car, where he had problems to shift in the 3rd gear. “i didn’t give up but it was still frustrating“, so Simon Pilate.
For him the ENES is to learn so much as possible before the real season starts. Of course he wants to keep points for the team championship too. His goals for this season his to fight for the rookie champioship. But he already kow that a championship isnt won in one day.
More on Simon Pilate:
– Driver datebase with statistic on threewide.de
