Irish teenager Lucca Allen has become the first driver to commit to the British F4 Challenge Cup, after the 14-year-old passes his fifteenth birthday on 29 June. He’ll join the Falcon Motorsport team who will look to feature more in the series after just two appearances last season.
Son of Celebrity Chef Rachel Allen, the 14-year-old has made a significant impact in the national karting scene, winning the Ireland Cadet Championship, the Irish Karting Club Championship and the Southern Irish Karting Championship in recent years.
Despite his wealth of karting experience, Allen will be held back by the fact he’s already going to miss half of the season, while his rivals gain race knowledge. Furthermore, Falcon do not have a shining career behind them, collecting just one top eight finish in the past two years.
“I’m going to be the first Irish driver to make the step up to British F4 so I hope to be able to set a high standard and be right up there,” said Allen.
“Coming from Cork and racing in British F4 which has manufacturer backing from Ford is very special, especially as Henry Ford’s father came from Cork. It was also home to the first Ford factory in Europe.”
After his national success, Allen will be looking to build on his Irish Race of Champions trophy last year.
“Testing has gone really well. We’ve been improving every time we have gone out on track so I’m hopeful we can be on the pace soon and aiming for wins.”
All this means that he’ll make his race debut at Snetterton on 29-30 June, while almost certainly committing himself to the final five rounds, which conclude at Brands Hatch at the start of October.
The Falcon Motorsport team boss, Nick Streatfield was excited about the Irish star. “Lucca contacted us in the middle of 2016 and the relationship has developed from there. He tested with us last year which went well, he’s done another test since then, as well as the first official pre-season test of 2017.
“He’s had very little time in the car and we are trying to get him up to speed as quickly as possible. We are going to do as many of the official tests that we can. He’ll be back out at Brands Hatch on 16 February.”
