Liberty Lake, WA – Max Mällinen completed a perfect sweep of eight SCCA Majors Tour starts this past weekend at Michigan International Speedway as the 17-year-old took another set of victories in two starts, making him eight for eight on his U.S. racing season.
The aspiring American driver was fresh off a double top-five performance on the tight, twisting streets of Trois-Rivières in Quebec, Canada earlier in the month.
With the 2015 SCCA National Championship Runoffs just about one month away on the Daytona road course in Florida, Michigan offered a very similar track for Mällinen and his Swan Spectrum/Honda in the Formula F class.
“I really enjoyed MIS,” said Mällinen. “With the high banking of the oval and medium speed road course, it served as a perfect test looking towards the Runoffs at Daytona.”
Mällinen was fastest in every session over the Michigan weekend, taking two wins, two poles and resetting the Formula F track record.
“We knew we were fast on rovals based off our Kansas Speedway results, but it was highly reassuring to know we increased on that pace, dropping the track record over 4 seconds at Michigan International Speedway,” he continued.
In Saturday’s race, he was able to gap the field on the start, cruising to victory.
A day later, he repeated the same performance in heavy rain, lapping the entire field in the process.
“I am very happy with the season,” Mällinen noted. “Eight for eight. Plus no mistakes by the entire team from the crew to me as a driver. A very solid performance all around.”
Summing up his summer performance in the SCCA Majors Tour, it started at Kansas Speedway in June with two wins, with the same performances coming at High Plains Raceway in Colorado in early July, Pueblo Motorsports Park a few weekends later and most recently Michigan.
Add in two Canadian races at Trois-Rivières and the Montreal Grand Prix, and Mällinen has faced six new tracks in six event weekends in 2015.