Maltese Lion Duncan Micallef to run in the FIA European Championship again
Duncan Micallef made headlines in 2017 by claiming the FIA European Top Fuel Championship, being the first driver from Malta to achieve this great sporting goal. For his great achievements in the sport, Micallef was crowned ‘sportsperson of the year’ in Malta for both 2016 and 2017 as well. After the 2018 season, Micallef, Rune Fjeld Motorsport driver for many years, took a break from the championship. This season the popular Maltese Lion is back. Micallef will make his comeback at The Main Event and will compete in three of the five FIA European Championship rounds.
After his FIA title winning season, Duncan Micallef finished fourth in the 2018 Top Fuel championship. That was the time to take a break for the family man who also wanted to spend some more time on the sunshine island Malta. But even without a full FIA tour, the businessman had plenty to do.
“My sons are active in karting”, said Micallef. When we spoke to him, he was with his son Jacob in Cremona, Italy, for a round of the WSK Super Master Series. “I made a comeback in karting myself as well, to keep fit and motivated. I even managed to finish in second place in one of the Maltese championship events at my age of 45, against youngsters of 18 years old.”
“But Top Fuel is something completely different. Every year I competed in an RF Motorsport car in the season final event at Hal Far Raceway, Malta. With 4.03 seconds at 312 mph I’m still the recordholder. Top Fuel is something you cannot describe if you don’t sit in the car and feel it. I think I can still do very well in a Top Fuel car, but I just need to prove it. In the last couple of years, when I was not in the championship, Rune improved a lot on the cars and the setup. The ETs of the RF Motorsport cars prove that,” said Micallef. The Maltese Lion will not do the full FIA European Championship tour. He will start the season with The Main Event and will also do the Hockenheim race and the European Finals.
Micallef’s involvement in motorsport goes far beyond his activities in karting and drag racing. Is there any sport where a president of the national federation is also participating in the number one class of the sport? Micallef is. “In 2020 I was elected as the president of the Malta Motorsport Federation. And I’m quite busy with that as well. Since my election I have worked with the government to invest in us, and in September 2020 the government launched an investment plan of 20 million euros to have a racetrack homologated for GT cars and Formula 3, a homologated dragstrip and a homologated karting track. After realisation, the FIA can host rounds for some of their European championships in Malta. Two years passed and we are still in the process of starting the work. It’s not an easy issue, but for sure the government want it badly, as it was promised. We get a lot of support from Keith Bartlett and his team to build our dragstrip up to an international level. In fact, Keith’s help has been there since 2018, and I would like to thank him for doing his best to help us.”
Text: Remco Scheelings
