South African driver Callan O’Keeffe has been announced as the second driver for the Douglas Motorsport team. The 20-year-old will join Petru Florescu for a season in the BRDC British F3 Championship.
This will not be the first time that O’Keeffe has competed in a weekend, having finished third in the BRDC F3 Autumn Trophy at the end of last season. During his Snetterton campaign, he picked up two fourth places, benefitting from Dan Ticktum‘s retirement to secure the top three position in the standings.
Prior to this he has been a regular in Formula Renault 2.0 NEC, finishing seventh in both the 2014 and 2015 campaigns. With his age and experience, he’ll be in line for race wins this season, though will likely be the only Douglas driver to compete in all the rounds.
His team-mate, Florescu has committed to a full season in EuroFormula Open and as a result will only race at the rounds that do not clash with his continental commitments. This means the Romanian will miss the second to fourth rounds of the year.
O’Keeffe said: “I’m absolutely ecstatic to be back racing again. It’s a great championship and car so we should be set for an exciting year. It’s taken a lot of hard work to make this drive happen and I really have to say thank you to a few key individuals from South Africa who have helped enormously.
“Douglas Motorsport is a great team and I already feel really at home there. The hard work has begun and we will be doing everything we can to make sure that we get the South African flag flying above the podium this season.”
Wayne Douglas, Team Principal of Douglas Motorsport, commented: “It is fantastic to be able to welcome Callan to our team for the 2017 BRDC British Formula 3 season. He showed his talent and speed during last year’s Autumn Trophy and I am confident he will hit the ground running at Oulton Park.”
Unlike the other teams, Douglas only bought two Tatuus-Cosworth’s so will not run a third driver.