Zane Maloney joins Radical Caribbean Cup in T&T

Zane Maloney, who finished second in the FIA Formula 3 Championship which ended at Monza in Italy two weeks ago, will race at the Frankie Boodram Wallerfield International Raceway in Trinidad & Tobago for the first time next month. He will face drivers from his home country Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and the host nation in the third round of the 2022 Radical Caribbean Cup (RCC), which showcases the fastest race cars in the region.

The Fast Parts Caribbean Circuit Racing Invitational, organised by the T&T Automobile Sports Association (TTASA) over the weekend of October 8/9, will feature three races counting towards the regional championship, which organisers anticipate will boast the biggest grids since the series was launched in 2018. The supporting programme will include TTASA championship races for cars and bikes, along with exhibition runs from the Drifting and Time Attack groups.

While it will be 18-year-old Maloney’s first visit to compete at Wallerfield, he is no stranger to the RCC. He contested the final two race weekends of 2019, winning all three races at Bushy Park Barbados, then two at South Dakota in Guyana, finishing fifth in the standings. In three of those five race wins, T&T’s Kristian Boodoosingh finished second, so the re-match at Wallerfield may give ‘BoodooStig home advantage. Maloney also claimed a hat-trick of wins at Bushy Park in March 2020, but the pandemic meant that only that first round was run, which therefore did not constitute a championship.

Maloney had headed in to the final three back-to-back race weekends of the FIA F3 season at Spa, Zandvoort and Monza lying 10th in the standings, after a string of promising results had been thwarted by a run of bad luck. But he turned his season round with a hat-trick of feature race victories to score a further 86 points – two-thirds of his total for the year – and emerge second in the title chase to Victor Martins, losing out by just five points. He is the only driver to have won three Sunday races on the bounce since the FIA F3 series replaced the European F3 Championship in 2019, also claiming two pole positions, a total equalled by Alex Smolar, and three fastest laps, more than anyone else.

A third-generation race car driver, following grandfather Doug, father Sean and uncles Mark and Stuart, all of whom have raced at Wallerfield, Zane was a Barbados Karting Association (BKA) champion driver by the age of 10, with five class titles to his credit, before heading to Europe to pursue his Formula 1 dream. After front-running seasons in the European and German karting championships, he clinched the 2019 British F4 title with his 10th victory in 30 races at the Brands Hatch finale.

Away from his European campaigns, Maloney has regularly competed in domestic events racing both karts and cars, adding rallying to his cv in 2021 at the wheel of a Skoda Fabia R5 owned by his uncle Stuart. In May this year, he became the youngest-ever winner of the Barbados Rally Club’s King of the Hill, the regular ‘shakedown’ event for Sol Rally Barbados, although he retired from Sol RB22 itself a week later on the opening stage of the second day while lying third.

Radical Caribbean Cup 2022

Points after round two – Drivers:

1st Kristian Jeffrey (GUY) 125 points

2nd Kristian Boodoosingh (T&T) 100pts

3rd Senna Summerbell (JAM) 56pts

4th Sean Maloney (BAR) 51pts

5th Justin Maloney (BAR) 50pts

6th Justin Campbell (BAR) 47pts

7th Stuart Maloney (BAR) 37pts

8th Suleman Esuf (BAR) 36pts

= 9th Ahmed Esuf (BAR) & Mark Maloney (BAR) 24pts

Nations Cup:

1st Guyana 130 points

2nd Barbados 110pts

3rd Trinidad & Tobago 105pts

4th Jamaica 63pts

Remaining rounds:

Round 3 – October 8/9, Frankie Boodram Wallerfield International Raceway, Trinidad & Tobago (TTASA)

Round 4 – November 12/13, South Dakota, Guyana (GMR&SC) (RB)