Getting to know: Luke Browning

We’ve heard from Luke Browning about why he joined the Williams Racing Driver Academy and his thoughts on his Formula 3 season so far, but now it’s time to get to know him a little bit better.

So, when the Hitech Pulse-Eight driver joined us at Grove recently, we asked him the following questions.

Read on to learn how the 21-year-old responded.

Usually wet driving, this has been a strong suit throughout my junior career.

Usually, if it goes wet, I go quite quickly so wet driving has been really good for me.

General racecraft has been a strong suit too and hopefully that continues this season in F3.

Outside of motorsport, I like a lot of sim racing, I like to keep myself busy with sports.

I also enjoy spending time with family. Often you do so much flying and travelling in motorsport, but I’m really good at relaxing when I get home with my parents.

I really like to take my mind off everything, I think it’s good to have that reset away from the track because often you can overthink things and get way too into it.

And, although you need to be as focused as you can, I find that often for my headspace, it’s good to take a step back sometimes, relax and go about normal life.

There have been a lot of sacrifices - financially, schooling, spending a lot of time away from friends, and not being able to do the normal teenage things.

As an aspiring sportsperson, you can’t do normal things and have the normal experiences that you would do going to university for example. Having Freshers Week etc - that kind of thing just wasn’t an option for me.

I’ve certainly missed out and sacrificed a lot, but I think it’s definitely been worth it.

Sim racing for me is big, so I quite enjoy sitting online either playing some games like iRacing or even Call of Duty.

I also have a really good relationship with my parents - I spend a lot of time cycling with my dad and like to take my mum out for dinner.

No, to be honest, I used to and I just came to the conclusion that they were complete rubbish [laughs].

At one point, I even had lucky underpants, but I just proved it wrong.

I went through a phase of wearing everything unlucky and I started winning so I decided that it was a bit daft!

I’m notoriously horrendous with my food, I’m the fussiest eater ever. Only my mum can cook for me properly. I turn my nose up at a lot of things!

So, cheat food, I like pizza, pizza’s good. But you know what, I think my favourite cheat meal is actually fish fingers and chips!

I love fish fingers and chips - you can’t get much better than that for me. As a cheat meal, I’d be a happy boy with that.

Monaco. I’m going to be driving it this year so I’m excited to do it, ultimately there’s a lot on the line when it comes to winning at Monaco and I think there’s something special around the paddock about winning there.

Obviously, it all comes from Qualifying and it’s such a drivers’ circuit - you have to get so close to the barriers and you really have to be on the limit to find that extra little bit of nothing there.

So Monaco is one I’m going to be really excited about, I’ve never been there before, I’ve only driven over it I was heading all the way up the coast for racing at some point and I was gutted that I’d never been there.

So, I’m really grateful that I’ve got the opportunity to race there this year.

I passed it the day after my birthday. I didn’t have any lessons - I think I had one lesson on the way there - so the way I looked at it, I had so much pumped into me at racing that I had to pass my driving test first time.

The amount of driving that we’d done around and I’d watched my dad driving up and down over the years, so if I failed that I’d have a lot to answer for!

I did yes, I got two for speeding!

No there isn’t actually, but there are people that I respect and I like to take little bits from everyone.

The racecraft from [Max] Verstappen when he first came to F1 was incredible - that aggressiveness, that anger - I think I have a certain bit of that in me.

But then you’ve got to think about the consistency of Lewis [Hamilton], for example - being able to hold onto it for so many years and to keep his mental headspace is really impressive.

The raw pace of [Ayrton] Senna was amazing and looking back at [Michael] Schumacher too.

There are a lot of people that I respect and look at and think ‘that was an incredible achievement’ but I think idolising and putting people on a pedestal isn’t the way forward.

I like looking to shoot for the stars and I feel like given the opportunity I can beat anyone.

I think the championships are in a tie, but the out-and-out complete and utter euphoria moment for me was winning the Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award.

I looked at that for years and years as a kid and thought to be rated the best driver in the UK and everything that comes with that is ultimately the biggest achievement a young British racing driver can have.

That for me, was just complete euphoria - you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for the next two or three weeks! So yes, the Autosport award for me was pretty big.