Waters continues cancer quest.
Having endured a difficult season on-track during 2007, British racer Alex Waters looks set to take his charity message overseas for the 2008 campaign.
Having endured a difficult season on-track during 2007, British racer Alex Waters looks set to take his charity message overseas for the 2008 campaign.
Waters, in remission after suffering from skin cancer at the age of 17, was only able to undertake a part-season in the British F3 International Series after falling ill mid-way through the year but was still able to continue his charity quest for the Clic Sargent organisation and successfully raised more than ?120,000 to help young children and families affected by the disease - meaning it was a year that went better away from the track than it did on it.
"We started the season under-funded with the hopes that we would raise the money," he told Crash.net, "and while we raised a large proportion of it but couldn't get the full budget required. As a result of that, we were unable to sign for the team we wanted to join in the first place which put us in a difficult position throughout the year as far as performance went. Then I caught glandular fever in the middle of the season which put an end to the racing for me.
"We came back after I was ill and I had a competitive test with Double R which led to me being selected for the Red Bull driver evaluation at Estoril which went well, although I didn't get one of the places.
"However, it was a really successful year for us off track. I massively raised my own profile and worked hard on fundraising for the charity. Clic Sargent is a British charity that supports children and families affected by cancer. When I was 17, I was diagnosed with skin cancer and there were kids in hospital with me who were half my age in far worse condition than I was. That is really hard for me to take, life is unfair and I wanted to give something back.
"We tried different things and different concepts and they all worked really well. We raised ?127,000 for the charity in total and for this year I aim to raise at least that much again. Touch wood I can raise the budget for the racing and then focus again on raising money for the charity."
For the new season, Waters looks set to continue his charity quest in Spain, having tested for leading Spanish F3 outfit Team West-Tec prior to Christmas.
With the possibility of opening doors into GP2 or Formula 1 if he proves to be successful, Waters said he was excited about the prospect of heading to Spain as he continues to work towards taking the Clic Sargent message all the way to F1.
"I did a test just before Christmas at Valencia with a team for Spanish F3 looking at it as an option and we were top of the times straight away and four seconds clear in the wet," he said. "In the dry the gap wouldn't be so big, but it shows there is potential out there for winning. The prizes are huge with potential F1 tests and certainly GP2 tests as part of the deal which you don't get with British F3, which doesn't offer much to the winners except the prestige of winning the title - the same goes for the EuroSeries. In an ideal world, with the budget we'd be in the EuroSeries with a front-running team but we can't do that and have to look at the next big thing.
"The negative thing for me with Spanish F3 is being British as with the whole Hamilton and Alonso thing, it could work against me if I was to win the title. But you sign a contract and if they were to promise an F1 test, they'd have to stick to it. But if you look at the history of drivers coming through, Spanish F3 has provided more drivers for GP2 than the British championship has which is an interesting statistic. There is money is Spain and there are ways to get into GP2 which might not be possible from British F3.
"My one goal is to use Formula 1 as a global platform to spread the word about cancer as people do not understand enough about it and how it can be prevented or cured. I think F1 would be the best breeding ground to get that idea across and that is my aim."
