Valle Mäkelä Racing

After a very difficult winter, raising the budget for a full season of LMP2 or GT2 as planned, has proved almost impossible. However, we are all still working flat-out and hope to be able to see Valle back in a racing car, where he belongs, in the near future.

Valle was happy to accept his award from Oreca boss Hughes de Chaunac last saturday evening, at the official Le Mans award ceremony in Le Mans France. Valle and his team mate Mathias Beche finished 2nd in this years Formula Le Mans series and therefore received recognition for their achievements in front of a very distinguished gathering of Le Mans drivers, team owners and racing press.

Valle had his first taste of an LMP1 machine yesterday, as part of his prize for finishing 2nd in this years Formula Le Mans Team Championship.

Valle felt at home in the Oreca-AIM car straight away and was amazed to be driving 8 seconds a lap quicker that his Formula Le Mans car around the Paul Ricard Circuit! The Oreca-AIM car is one of the leading LMP1 cars of 2009 and has been driven by Ex-F1 racer Olivier Panis and F1 coming man Bruno Senna.

Well a great season has come to an end and now the hard work begins for 2010! With Valle having won 2 races in Formula Le Mans we have already received a lot of interest from LMP and GT teams for next season.

On behalf of myself and especially Valle of course, a very big thank you to all the sponsors/partners/friends/fans for their kind support throughout the year. I hope that you will all support Valle in whatever series he races in for 2010 and hopefully more of you might have the opportunity to come and watch some races live and offer Valle your full support.

To any LMP/GT teams who visit Valle’s website, please contact me or Valle as we are interested in any potential race drives for 2010, be it in Europe/USA/Japan..Valle will race anything anywhere, so please keep in touch!

A fantastic 2nd win in a row, at Magny Cours in France, saw Valle finish the season on a high. Together with his team mate Mathias Beche, Valle secured 2nd place in the team championship.

Congratulations to Valle and his team mate Mathias on a fantastic first win of the season, in saturdays second Formula Le Mans race on the very demanding Silverstone GP circuit.

The UK’s leading GP circuit is fast and demanding and after a strong 2nd place in race one, Valle and Mathias proved their pace to score a conclusive maiden win over their rivals.

Now it’s on to Magny Cours this weekend (Valle’s favorite circuit) for the final race weekend of the season. Fingers crossed for yet another victory.

A new partnership between Valle & the International watch brand TW Steel was concluded at Ahvenisto during the weekend. TW Steel is one of the fastest growing watch brands in the world and has been a major sponsor to the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport.

Another successfull weekend in the Nordic GT3 Championship, saw Valle and his team mate Jukka Ylitalo score 1st & 2nd place finishes, which in turn helped Jukka claim 3rd place in the overall standings.

Valle’s first ever visit to the Nurburgring again proved how quickly he can learn a circuit. After qualifying 3rd for round 6, Valle and Mathias managed to jump a place and finish 2nd, even after losing 6 seconds during their pit stop.

For round 7 they qualified 4th. Valle made a fantastic start to take 2nd position into turn one. Even with a serious lack of grip from the tyres he managed to keep 2nd spot up until the pit stops. Mathias unfortunately couldn’t keep the car on the track due to the tyre problems and drove off the circuit twice. The 2nd off damaged the radiator and over heated the engine, eventually leading to an engine failure.

Still a positive weekend and yet another strong 2nd place. As we head off to Silverstone and Magny Cours for the last 3 rounds in September, a win must be just around the corner.

Two fantastic races saw Valle and Jukka Ylitalo win both Nordic GT3 races at the Botniaring in Finland this weekend.

Pole position in race one led to a victory even after a long safety car period to remove oil on the circuit. Valle took over race 2 in 4th position and very quickly set a stunning pace which saw him take the lead, lap everyone up to 3rd position and win by almost half a lap – Brilliant!

2009: 7 races so far – 2 x wins 2 x 2nds 2 x 3rds 1 x 5th