He always gets in the car from the left side and never from the right. That is perhaps the only superstition that keeps the Ecuadorian-American pilot Juan Manuel Correa, 22 years oldbefore getting behind the wheel of his race car and hitting the track for a race. Everything else is hard work, and you don’t want to leave anything to chance.
“ANDI am in a very important stage of my career”, commented Correa, who currently competes in Formula 3, via Zoom for La Revista. “In the next two years I will define my professional path and where I will run for the next ten years”.
This means that the results he obtains in his next competitions within Formula 3 will allow him to continue making his way to Formula 2 and aspire, in the near future, to occupy a privileged place among the greats of Formula 1.
“These are two super important years and I think they are also very excitingbecause reaching this point is the dream of any pilot who starts racing from a very young age. And I, with my age and with my experience, am reaching these categories”.
Correa defines 2022 as his first 100% competitive year after the accident he suffered on August 31, 2019 at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit at the Belgian Grand Prix. Although the Quito-born pilot reappeared on the tracks in February 2021, Correa aims to achieve better results by the end of this 2022 and fight for the Formula 3 championship as part of the ART Grand Prix team.
With 22 points, Correa occupies 12th position in the Drivers’ Championship before the competition in Hungary on the Hungaroring track where he ran yesterday and will also do so today, Sunday July 31.
Juan Manuel’s athletic profile was evident from a young age in sports such as soccer or tennis, although he immediately stood out in sports. go-kartinga discipline in which he enjoyed his first moments, spellbound by speed. In 2013 he became champion of go-karting in the United States, a country to which he moved with his family when he was 10 years old, due to his father’s job; and, soon after in the same year, he won the world championship in that discipline. And at the age of 14 he moved to Italy to look for opportunities in the world of motorsports.
What positive lessons did the accident leave you?
On a personal level I have become a more focused and calm person, and with a slightly broader vision of life and what really matters. As a driver I feel freer and I enjoy what I do in many ways. When I had the accident, many thoughts went through my head, including that I would never race again; and I realized that I did not appreciate enough what I was already doing, the life I had and the privilege of having this profession. And after the accident I understand how lucky I am to be back on the track at this level, to be in a very good position again. I feel like I enjoy it more now, because at the same time I know that it could end at any moment.
What other pilots do you admire or follow?
When I was about 10 or 12 years old I was a big fan of Fernando Alonso; It seems to me that it was the time when he raced in Ferrari. And I’m still a big fan of Fernando Alonso; I like his driving style, and I have been lucky enough to meet him, and he is a very good person. I am also a huge fan of Sebastian Vettel. He is a spectacular person, because he is a four-time world champion, but when you talk to him, you think he is just any person because of his great simplicity, And I love that. I also have a lot of friends who are in Formula 1 now and who I obviously support, and many of the youngsters who have entered in recent years, such as Pierre Gasly, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
What attracts you most in the world of motorsports?
Every time I feel that what I definitely enjoy the most is driving. I feel there are some drivers who enjoy more of what is around the world of racing: the lifestyle, the traveling, the parties, the allure of being an athlete in such a glamorous, international sport. But it happens to me the other way around, and all of that attracts me less and less, because there are many things behind it and it is a context with which I do not feel identified. So now I go to the races, I drive, I enjoy it and then I go home. And I love that adrenaline, the speed of the competition. And I like the fact that we live for that moment, and everything you do is to improve every day by 1%. It’s an incredible feeling to have something so great that you work for and then see the results and have the satisfaction, you also lose. There are many emotions.
The world of racing is about much more than speed. What other factors influence?
Each driver has an engineer who works exclusively with him to fine-tune the car, and it’s always very funny to see the difference between how an engineer who did study physics and mathematics thinks and how a pilot thinks, because in the end we find ourselves saying the same things, but with very different language. So, yes, driving is knowing which line to take, at what point to release the accelerator, at what point to put in gear to get the best performance from the car. It is an extremely complex sport. You have to think a lot and you have to to have a very high ability to be under pressure, to be tired and sweating on lap 30 and still be thinking about all these different things and making decisions at that time.
What results would you like to end this 2022 with?
I want to fight the championship. I know it’s going to be hard; It has been a season with its complications, but I feel that I can fight perhaps for the top five in the championship and from now until the end of the year I can recover little by little, and that is my goal. For me the most important thing is to be in a position to sign with a competitive team in Formula 2. We know how the teams work and what they are seeing. So I have to finish the year with good results, being competitive.
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
