The Lion is back

The Maltese Lion is ready to rumble again! After a one year break, Duncan Micallef will be back in action in the FIA European Top Fuel Championship this season. The 2017 FIA European champion will not be able to do the full tour, but will definitely be at The Main Event, the NitrOlympX and the European Finals. Micallef will get his first taste of nitro at the Festival of Power. The Maltese Lion will feel comfortable very soon as he will run his familiar red 2017 championship winning RF Motorsport car again.

“After a year out from the drag racing scene, I felt that I cannot live without it. Especially with so many ladies without having a Lion in the field,” Duncan Micallef starts the story of his comeback. Micallef claimed his first FIA European Top Fuel Championship in 2017, won three races, was crowned Maltese Sportsman of the Year for the second consecutive time and had numerous prize giving galas to attend with the official FIA Prize Giving ceremony in Versailles, Paris, as a highlight. In 2018 the Maltese Lion struggled with some bad luck and decided to take a break from drag racing. But that didn’t mean he was out of motorsport competition.

“In 2019 I competed in a different form of motorsports. I started monitoring my boys Jacob and Isaac in karting and they are doing very, very well. After a few weeks I ended up practising with them and I had a target. At my age, competing with teens at the age of 15 to 25, is not easy. I fractured my ribs four times during the year and at one point I had an accident and broke three ribs, which put me away for two months. One week to go to the World Finals and I was undecided to go or not, but finally decided to go for it. It was against the best of the best over 32 years old. I had eight days at the track and believe me, that was really painful. Doing over 400 kms at full contact in less than eight days is very hard. I ended up with painkillers and massages to keep myself there. I was placed mid-table and that was really good for me when you consider that it was my first time competing in a very professional way,” said Micallef about his year in karting.

“At the back of my mind I always kept saying that drag racing is a different zoo, and Top Fuel is an animal which you cannot describe, in terms of what we are dealing with. Top Fuel gave me a lot and after a year struggling to find my fitness in one of the most brutal physical motorsports (karting), I decided that now I am more than ever ready for the Top Fuel fight. Unfortunately I will not do the full championship as I have the Sicilian kart championship with my children at the same time. I will be doing Easter, The Main Event, Hockenheim and the European Finals.”

Micallef will be behind the wheel of one of the Rune Fjeld Motorsport cars. And it’s a familiar one as it is his 2017 championship winning car, the red car Antti Horto drove in Kauhava 2019. “I’m sure that the young chap with the white hair will give me a car to give my competitors a good challenge!”

“I hope that this Corona virus will pass soon and we say a prayer to those who are fighting to stay with us. We have to unite in this very hard time, cause when the sun shines again, we will rock the world with some 20,000 bhp on the start line!”

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