Promatecme Home

Richard Singleton shines on F3 debut

F2 domination in France for Promatecme

Alex out for the rest of the season

Drive through penalty costs certain podium

Alex's stunning speach earns huge funds for charity

So near to a podium at Monza..

Promatecme win double on F2 debut

3 June Sneterton the weather was hot but the results not

20 May Promatecme cars finish incident packed Bucharest street races

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22 April Donnington Alex's nightmare start to season continues

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Promatecme test historic F2 car

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9 April Mixed fortunes at Oulton Park

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15 March 2007 Salman Al Khalifa sings for 2007

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18 Feb 2007 Alex Waters signs for 2007

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11 January 2007 Promatecme at Autosport International

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Formula Renault driver adapted well to the next step in his motor racing career with 2 races at Rockinham.

The 18 year old from North Wales quicly adampted to the Promatecme Dallara F3 car qualifying 3rd for race 1 and 4th for race 2 in the Nation Championship. Race day was a day of mixed fortune, the carbon fibre race clutch, new to Richard, caused a hesitated start but he still finished 5th in class. Race 2 from a lower grid spot netted a credible 4th, just 1 place off the podium. He also set the 2nd fatest lap in race 1.

The ex Jarier March - BMW 782, driven by former Formula 3, BTCC, and sports car racer Sean Walker, was quickest in both untimed test sessions, and duly took pole position for both races at the fast and challenging French Circuit.

The first race saw Sean make a less than perfect start, letting second place qualifer Steve Maxted into the lead. Steve pulled out a small gap, before Sean started to reel him in, but a close fight for the lead was not to be, as Maxted's Lola developed a misfire which resulted in his retirement. This left Sean with an untroubled win.

Race two and Sean made a better getaway, and by the end of the first lap was ahead by 1.5 seconds, Maxted again his nearest challenger. A stunning second lap saw Sean over a second inside his pole time, and left Steve appearing to have no response. The tiird lap saw Steve spinning on oil dropped by another competitor, which put him back to 6th place. He was able to claw his way back to 2nd by the end, but still 22 seconds behind Sean.

So 2 poles, 2 wins and 2 fastest laps brought a perfect end to a season which has seen the Promatecme built and run March take 4 poles and 2 second grids, with 4 wins, 1 second and 1 dnf / accident out of 6 races.

Promatecme team boss Chris Weller was also well pleased, "Sean's done a great job this weekend, and has been a pleasure to work with all season. We've really enjoyed our foray into historic racing this season. Hopefully we can continue to expand into this exciting area next year"

Promatecme driver Alex Waters (20) has been ordered by doctors to rest for around 6 weeks due to a virus infection. As a result, Alex will unfortunately sit out the remaining races of the British F3 Championship with a view to resuming testing and racing from mid-September onwards.

After having battled against cancer for the past three years Alex, who is now in remission, has successfully raised over £230,000 this year for CLIC Sargent - the UK's leading children's cancer charity. The ingenious campaign gives back to CLIC 50% of all of Alex’s sponsorship money.

Brands Hatch was a good weekend for Alex and the Promatecme squad. With great pace shown in both races, Alex looked good for the first podium of the year.

Race One, Alex made a good start and moved up to 3rd by druids (turn 2), then was boxed out going into Graham Hill bend (Turn 3), which dropped him down to 5th. The rest of the race was a fight between Hamad Al Fardan and Ali Jackson. Alex got passed Al Fardan with ease and caught Jackson within a lap, it was clear his race pace was good. Alex made a move and was sqeezed, before pulling out of the move going into dingle-dell, a lap later Alex mad another move on Jackson after a great run down the hill into Graham Hill, once again Jackson closed the door, but this time Alex was already alongside Jackson, Alex was pushed straight off onto the grass and dropped back behind Al Fardan. The rest of the race, Alex seemed to be struggling. He finished 5th

Race two the lights came on and up and down the grid cars were creaping, with front row starter Bird crawling so far, he was alongside Engel, on pole, before the lights went out! Alex along with many others had also moved away from their grid slots and the lights finally went out. At the end of lap one Alex was 3rd, by lap two he was 2nd and pulling a gap between him and 2nd place man Perez. Lap 3 Alex was catching Cheng in 1st and before long it looked like he could win, he was faster then Cheng and Perez and was a country mile ahead of the rest of the pack. Everybody was asking where this sudden pace came from from the Promatecme squad and Alex, it was great to see. On lap 10 Alex was given a drive through penalty from moving at the start, it was unbelievable. It was terrible, he drove in through the pits observing the 60kpm speed limit and returned onto the track behind his ex-team mate Salman Al Khalifa in 5th. Alex within a lap had passed Salman and was fighting to get back to his rightful position in the race, meanwhile other drivers accross the grid were also being given drive throughs here drive through there! With 5 laps remaining it was going to be very hard for Alex to reach Al Fardan who was now in 3rd. As he crossed the finish line he had pulled a 16 second gap over Salman and was close behind Al Fardan

" I cant believe it...I am so dissappointed at that final result. All the hard work for very little. It is great that we have shown some pace at last and it proved to everyone, that in a competative car I can fight for top honours, but I am dissappointed not to have been on the podium, we should have been."

The Royal Albert Hall played host to this year Grand Prix Ball, with music acts such as Lemar and Beverley Knight playing and special performances from Run DMC and the Geisha meant it was set to be an amazing night of entertainment! During the evening, which took place on Friday evening (6th July), Promatecme driver Alex Waters took centre stage and spoke alongside other speakers and singers including names like Barry McGuigan, Ronan Keating, Mica Paris and ITVs Britains Got Talent star, Paul Potts.

Over £1.2m was raised during the course of the evening, with £180,000 being raised due to Alex's speech and the totally unique lot of drawing he donated to the auction, in aid of CLIC Sargent and his motor racing career. Alex is pictured right with his Promatecme F3 car and former F1 boss Eddie Jordan

Monza F3

Race 1 Alex made a very promissing start and was up to p.4 by turn two. With the long straights at Monza there was plenty of time for the drivers to take advantage of the slip-streaming effect, Alex moved his way up to 3rd and it was looking good for a podium. The recovering championship cars, who had been forced off the track on lap one were rapidly approaching. On lap 12, Stephen Jelley made a move up the inside of Alex into Ascari chicane, it was a simple move and Alex gave way to the faster car, after all he was not racing with him, however, the move was late and it put Alex on the back foot, he was slow out of the chicane and the long straight that followed must have seemed to go on forever. With Meadows bearing down on him, and in his slipstream it was hard for Alex to stay ahead, he held position for 3 laps before Meadows made a late move into turn 1 to take 3rd. It was a clean move that required no avoidence, but it was that position that Alex remained for the rest of the race.

Race 2 The start was equally exciting, with accidents a plenty. Alex was able to get off the line extremely well and had made up 5 places before turn 1. Unfortunately he tangled with one of the Italian drivers in the invitation class in turn one and he droopped back to 9th, an agressive drive from all the drivers saw some pretty big accidents take place. Stephen Jelley was once again at the centre of it all, as he went for a position up the field Gonzalez was unlucky and too agressive and found himself rolling down the main straight instead of driving! Meanwhile further back in the national class battle, there was another tangle between Texeira and another Italian driver...It was the Italian this time, that ended up...upside down, the two cars had touched wheels and the car had gone over. It was a race that the officials were not pleased about and one in which a few drivers were punished with written warnings and penalty points. For Alex it was simple, he started 7th, had a great race, despite a few issues, and finished 6th..

Historic F2 Nurburgring

Sean Walker took his Promatecme – run ex Jarier March 782 BMW to 2 wins in the European Formula 2 Championship at Nurburgring GP circuit at the weekend.Testing had seen some typical Nurburgring weather, with a sharp shower and a quickly drying track giving unpredictable conditions for the 20 minute session. Nevertheless Sean was soon up to speed on his 1st competitive outing in the car, which has been totally rebuilt by Silverstone - based Promatecme.

The ex British F3 driver qualified the car in second place behind seasoned campaigner Martin Stretton, and trailed him for 3 laps before making a decisive move on the pit straight which put Sean into the lead, which he was able to increase to 2.8 seconds by the flag, taking fastest lap along the way.

This result gave Sean pole for the second race, but a tardy start due to confusing red light signals saw him leave the line only in 5th place, with Stretton once again taking the lead. Sean was up to second by the end of the first lap and started eating into the 4.5 second gap. He caught Martin after 9 laps, and overtook the leader with 2 to go, crossing the line 1 second ahead, setting another fastest lap along the way.Next outing for the March is planned for Brands Hatch at the Autoglym HSCC Historic Festival 30th June.

Snetterton

This weekend, Snetterton played host to rounds 7 and 8 of the Lloyds TSB British Formula 3 International series, with a forecast of rain and the continuing 33 car strong grid, it looked to be yet another weekend of exciting racing. Friday the weather didnt seem to be playing to the forecasters predictions, with temperatures hitting almost 30 degrees it was going to be quite a different story. It was hot, very dry and for Promatecme, it was a struggle. Both cars were near the tail end of the field, but why?

'We dont seem to have a set-up for these temps, at the last test here, we were 3rd in the times and with the same set-up today we are nowhere, the car just isnt working, I cant push as I want to because the car is not stable. We found a crack in the bellhousing, so we replaced that, but we just havnt got the pace of the leaders...I am really struggling with understeer' said Alex As far as the races were concerned neither car performed as hoped; Sal taking a 5th and 8th, Alex 10th and 6th. The second race was marred by a safety car incident, the behaviour of certain drivers robbibg Alex of a possible podim. he was passed by 3 cars before he had crossed the start line, (which according to the rules means they should all be penalised), they were not penalised and as a result Alex had to work hard to get back up the order. Sal also had his fair share of bad luck picking up a puncture after the safety car period when he too was looking good for another podium finish

20/21 May Bucharest Street races

It was Romania that played host to rounds 5 and 6 of the British F3 International series this year, with the largest F3 grid in over 5 years and a street track like no other, it was sure to be an exciting weekend for all. Bucharest played host the the FIA GT race as well as local race series Formula Dacia Logan. Bucharest-ring as the track was named, is the furthest European race away from the UK in the histroy of British F3, and it was a weekend of ups and downs for all the drivers

Race 1:With the condition much like qualy 2 the race was started under the safety car, it was a procession, slightly embarressing for the organisers, with 16 of the 20 laps behind the safety car, and with positions hardly changing at all. Alex made up one place during the four laps of racing due to a mistake by Pablo Garcia.

Race 2:The track was fast drying prior to the race and yet again the organisers decided it would be best to start the race behind the safety car, it was a race packed with incident and Alex was able to capitalise on the risk taken on the set-up:

"We had nothing to loose from the back so we went a bit crazy with the set-up and tried a making a big step in the spring rate...it was brilliant, the car was so much faster through the slow sections where we had struggled all weekend and without compromising the fast sections, it was a shame it came so late on, but it shows we can have the pace when we get the set-up right. I was able to fight for position and made several good overtaking moves and kept out of trouble, so I am relatively pleased."

22 April Donnington Alex's nightmare start to season continues

Despite a solid qualifying performance and 2 excellent starts Donnington resulted in a single 5th place for Alex Waters. In the 2nd race especially Alex's bad luck of 2007 continued when running 3rd he was again involved in another car's accident robbing him of a certain podium " It is frustrating to not finish again, in two meetings to have only finished two out of four races is not the way to win a champiomship"

Salman Al Khalifa continued his solid start in F3 finishing both races well ahead of his grid spot

Promatecme test historic F2 car

The ex-Jean Pierre Jarier F2 car had it's first very sucessful test in Donnigton. Completely rebuilt by Promatecme over the last few months it will race at silverstone on 12 May