Australian single-seater racer and BRDC Rising Star Thomas Randle has signed with well renowned Formula Renault outfit Comtec Racing to race at the penultimate round of the Formula V8 3.5 Championship at Jerez in Spain.
The 20 year old driver from Melbourne who was a double winner in the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship this year will take part in a two day test at the Spanish circuit with the British based team on the 10th and 11th of October before heading to the 4.4 kilometre Jerez circuit on the 28th - 30th of October to contest the second last round of the championship.
This comes just a week after Randle announced he will be racing a current spec LMP3 in the British Prototype cup with Douglas Motorsport.
Alongside his driving duties, Randle has been working at the Bunwell based team this year, who won the Formula Renault 3.5 championship in 2006 and have ran well-known drivers such as Max Chilton, Louis Deletraz and current Manor Formula One driver Esteban Ocon.
“I am incredibly excited and fortunate to be racing a Formula V8 3.5 after a successful season of racing overseas. I have been working at the team as a data engineer and helping out where I can this year, and when the opportunity to drive the car came I almost had to beg them to get me in the seat!
It has been a dream of mine to drive a Formula Renault 3.5 so to finally get the opportunity to not only test, but race one is amazing.
Comtec are a very successful team in what was previously known as the World Series Renault 3.5, winning the championship in 2006 and having enormous success, so I know that I will be working with a world class team and hopefully I can acclimatise to the car as quickly as possible. It will be my first time driving a car with DRS aswell.”
This will be Randle’s first outing in a current spec Dallara Formula Renault, which contains a 3.5 litre 530hp V8 Gibson engine with a top speed of 300kph.
“We’re really thrilled that we have signed Thomas, “said Phil Blow, Comtec Racing team manager.
“He is a very exciting driver and has done very well in his first year in Europe.
Obviously this is a big jump for him but we feel that it shouldn’t be a problem for him.
We have worked with him for a little while now and we got on really well very quickly, so it should be really good to work with him on a different level.”