Highwind

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23px-Flag of Ireland.svg-1-.png Highwind-Alfa Romeo
Highwind logo.png
Full name Highwind FV Racing
Base Dublin, Ireland
Team
principal
Ahmed Cheema
Technical
director
Kimi Young
Founder(s) Ahmed Cheema
Website TBC
Noted drivers 23px-Flag of Russia.svg-1-.png Nikolai Milkovich
23px-Flag of Portugal.svg-1-.png Carson Davenport
23px-Flag of Spain.svg-1-.png Diego Campos
23px-Flag of Finland.svg-1-.png Tumo Kinnumen
23px-Flag of Germany.svg-1-.png Karl Beckenbauer
23px-Flag of Poland.svg-1-.png Daniel Zientek
23px-Flag of Belgium (civil).svg-1-.png Thierry Xylander
23px-Flag of Australia.svg-1-.png Alexander McLaughlin
Formula Virtual World Championship career
First entry 2019 Australian V-Prix
Last entry 2022 Mexican V-Prix
Races Entered 65 (84 starts)
Engine(s) Alfa Romeo
Constructors'
Championships
0
Drivers'
Championships
0
Race Victories 0
Podiums 0
Career points 34
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
2022 position 10th (26 points)

Highwind or Highwind FV Racing (formerly Cheema FV Racing) was an Irish Formula Virtual racing team based in Dublin, Ireland. The team was founded and managed by Ahmed Cheema, although it was later owned by John Doe. Kimi Young remained as technical director throughout the team's existence and was responsible for the design of any Highwind car.

Highwind joined FV under the Cheema name in 2019 and scored their first points in the 2019 Turkish V-Prix thanks to Nikolai Milkovich who became a staple at the team for several years. They changed their name to Highwind after the team was bought by Doe following a poor 2020. Success was rare for the team, but points were scored in some chaotic races over the years, including Diego Campos finishing 8th in the 2019 Brazilian V-Prix and Thierry Xylander finishing 6th in the 2022 Malaysian V-Prix.

Across Highwind's stint in FV, they had a technical partnership with Ocelot, who supplied engines to Highwind as the factory Alfa Romeo team. Despite poor results, several prestigious drivers drove for the team - along with Milkovich, Campos and Xylander, former V-Prix winners Tumo Kinnumen and Karl Beckenbauer drove for the team. Current Porsche driver Alexander McLaughlin also made his debut in FV with Highwind.

Outside of Formula Virtual, Highwind were active in several racing categories - the team competed in the eVirtual series with moderate success, took part in the VTC World Cup and participated in both V24 races to date.

Origins

Ahmed Cheema was first involved in the virtual motorsport scene in 2018 with the founding of O'Connell Racing, a junior team in FV2. The Irish team, with Otso Toivonen and Pietro Silvestri, performed admirably on their debut and established themselves as a small yet capable team.

At the end of that year, a tender for new teams in FV was opened due to the departure of Westwood and the increasing of the maximum grid size to 16. Applying under the name of Cheema FV Racing, Cheema was accepted into the series by CEO Nic Morley. Cheema joined as the 14th team along with other new teams Andromeda and Excelsior as well as the returning Lucas team.

Cheema essentially took over the running of O'Connell Racing, using the original FV2 base in Dublin, Ireland, that was expanded in January 2019. Most of the employees of O'Connell Racing, including Cheema's close friend and technical director Kimi Young joined the new FV team. In addition to the factory in Dublin, a second minor factory was built in Kildare in early 2019 near Mondello Park, which became the official test track for Cheema.

Ownership

Team logo and identity

Racing history - Formula Virtual

Cheema (2019-2020)

Alfa Romeo engines (2019-2020)

2019 season

Before the 2019 season began, Cheema had struck a deal with FV stalwarts Ocelot to use Alfa Romeo engines. They signed former Ingram drivers Nikolai Milkovich and Diego Campos, while Carson Davenport joined the team on loan from Phoenix - Milkovich and Davenport raced for the team, while Campos acted as reserve driver. Despite low expectations from most, Cheema had a solid pre-season testing, though notably lagging behind the likes of Andromeda.

Across the first 3 races of the season, Cheema failed to qualify for any of them - missing out by a hundredth in Australia, a tenth in Japan and 2 tenths in China, following which sponsor Hype announced they would be retracting their sponsorship after 2019. However, in Malaysia, Milkovich achieved the team's first landmark as he qualified for the race. It ended in a DNF however, after a crash with Elroy Wagner kicked off some carnage in the pitlane.

Cheema always got at least one car into the race for the rest of the season - the next race in Britain saw both Milkovich and Davenport qualify and put on a very competitive showing, though a late flurry of pitstops for wet tyres at the end saw them lose out. Milkovich reached 17th in France, and came close to scoring the team's maiden points in Spain, before he was taken out by Felix Pérez. Davenport reached 15th in Canada which ended up being his last race for the team - he was loaned to Lucas for the rest of the season and replaced by Campos.

The Spaniard ended up failing to qualify in America but Milkovich drove a strong race to finish 13th - moving Cheema up to 13th in the standings, ahead of the likes of Lucas and AMR. The weekend also saw the announcement of the signing of Tumo Kinnumen for 2020, to partner Milkovich as a full time driver. Getting caught up in a pile-up in Austria cost the Russian a chance of a good result. Germany brought the team's best race of the season up until that point. Campos finally cleared Q1 and both drivers spent the race fighting in the midfield. Milkovich was once again taken out by Pérez but with a late move on Rodolfo de la Fuente, Campos took Cheema's best result yet with 12th.

After a sedate race in Bahrain, both cars qualified on what turned out to be a landmark race for Cheema in Turkey. Despite a spin early on, Campos recovered to run close to his teammate as Milkovich was embroiled in a fight for 11th. However, rain interrupted the race late on and Cheema took the initiative to pit first for wets, a decision that paid off handsomely as Milkovich was promoted up to 9th with a few laps left - and former teammate Jean Mattson bearing down his neck. After a tense battle, Mattson spun off on the last lap and Milkovich secured 9th and 2 points - the first points in Cheema's history, backed up by Campos in 11th.

Despite struggling with straight line speed in qualifying during the Italian V-Prix, Milkovich took advantage of some top team retirements to take 11th. Belgium was a bump down to Earth as the team recorded their first double DNF due to reliability issues, while Mexico almost yielded a second points finish for Milkovich, until he was overtaken by Viktor Östberg at the death to deny him 10th. At the final race in Brazil, Milkovich crashed in Q1, however Campos progressed through to the race - a hugely chaotic affair. Weaving his way through it all, the Spaniard finished in 8th, an astounding result to pick up his first points in 5 years and give Cheema their best result of the year.

Strong races for both Lucas and Ocelot in Brazil was well saw Cheema nevertheless drop down to 12th after the final round of the season, however it was nevertheless a strong debut season, with 6 points in the hands of two drivers who defined the team's early years.

2020 season

Cheema entered their second season with Milkovich staying on in the #17 car and Kinnumen joining him in the #18 car, Campos moving back to the position of reserve driver. During pre season testing, it seemed that Cheema were in a close fight with the returning Westwood team.

This was confirmed in Japan, where Kinnumen topped Q1, the first time Cheema had led a session. Milkovich backed that up by qualifying 17th and running a fantastic race on the extra softs, including a double overtake early on. He eventually passed Westwood's Karl Beckenbauer on the last lap to reach 13th, putting Cheema in the dizzying heights of 8th place in the standings.

Kinnumen went one better in Malaysia, beating the Westwoods to 12th, but Australia was a disaster - both cars failed to qualify, the only two DNQs for Cheema in 2018. They were both back into the race at South Africa but with a much more subdued showing, Milkovich only 18th and Kinnumen suffering an engine failure.

Britain saw a strong race from Puccio Giodano help Westwood leapfrog ahead, and a point from Nick Addison put the returning Franklin ahead of Cheema as well. The team nearly dropped into the bottom 4 teams by the end of the race, but for an incident that hampered Lucas. Cheema itself started the race off strong but both drivers fell back and were eventually involved in a collision with Adrien Simon.

France saw Cheema's first race without Q1, but despite challenging for points for most of the race, a late brake failure for Kinnumen put him out of the race as he was chasing down 10th placed Mattson. Westwood scored more points to put them out of reach, while in Spain, 10th for Lucas dropped Cheema back into Q1, after another race marred by a general lack of pace.

Germany was a similar affair, but in the US, Cheema finally got their first points of the season thanks to a hard tyre strategy with Milkovich, yielding 9th, putting them back ahead of Lucas and Franklin. That was the last high point of the season however - Cheema had a sudden downturn in pace afterwards, slipping behind their rivals. A late flurry of points for Lucas and Franklin saw Cheema slip back into Q1 before the end of the season.

Due to the lack of performances, and an overall weaker season than 2019, Cheema began to slip into financial issues, as stakeholders pulled out, citing no clear improvement over the team's debut as the reason. Eventually after some rumours, it was confirmed that someone had bought the team and its future was secured.

Back at the French V-Prix, it had been announced the Kinnumen and Beckenbauer would swap places at the end of the year - the Mexican V-Prix ended up being Kinnumen's last race in Cheema as Campos was given a cameo appearance in Brazil.

Highwind (2021-2022)

While the identity of the new owner of the team was initially kept secret, it was later revealed that former racing driver John Doe was the one who had invested in the team. Cheema was kept as Team Principal and majority of the running of the team was kept the same, however the name was changed from Cheema to Highwind FV Racing. A new logo was brought in and the team changed from their usual red and green livery to green and blue.

Alfa Romeo engines (2021-2022)

2021 season
2022 season

Other Virtual Motorsport

Highwind Driver Academy

Main article: Highwind Driver Academy

Like most Formula Virtual teams at the time, Highwind operated its own Young Driver Academy. The aim of the academy was to support young drivers in their development and expose them to as much racing as possible - as such, Highwind juniors would often be run in other series outside of the junior categories. Long-time test driver Campos played a large role in running the academy and mentoring young drivers.

The sole member of the Highwind Driver Academy was Henri Ruotsalainen, a Finnish driver who saw great success initially in VERS and VARS before becoming champion in the VWRS in VWRS. He also drove for the team in both V24 races and was earmarked as a future Highwind FV driver before the team's departure.

Complete Formula Virtual results

(results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Chassis Engine Tyres No. Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Points WCC
Cheema
2019 Imad-01 Alfa Romeo
NS-19
G AUS JPN CHN MAL GBR FRA ESP CAN USA AUT GER BHR TUR ITA BEL MEX BRA 6 12th
17 23px-Flag of Russia.svg-1-.png Nikolai Milkovich DNQ DNQ DNQ Ret 19 17 Ret DNQ 13 18 Ret 16 9 11 Ret 11 DNQ
18 23px-Flag of Portugal.svg-1-.png Carson Davenport DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ 24 DNQ 17 15
23px-Flag of Spain.svg-1-.png Diego Campos DNQ DNQ 12 DNQ 11 Ret Ret 17 8
2020 Imad-02 Alfa Romeo
NS-20
G JPN MAL AUS RSA GBR FRA ESP GER USA CAN BHR TUR BEL ITA MEX BRA 2 12th
17 23px-Flag of Russia.svg-1-.png Nikolai Milkovich 13 Ret DNQ 18 14 13 17 19 9 Ret 21 21 18 22 18 16
18 23px-Flag of Finland.svg-1-.png Tumo Kinnumen 15 12 DNQ Ret 18 20 16 20 20 19 22 20 15 15 Ret
23px-Flag of Spain.svg-1-.png Diego Campos 19
Highwind
2021 Imad-03 Alfa Romeo
NS-21
G JPN MAL AUS RSA GBR FRA ESP GER UAE TUR BEL ITA CAN USA MEX BRA 0 15th
17 23px-Flag of Russia.svg-1-.png Nikolai Milkovich DNQ 26 Ret 23 DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ 19 DNQ 24 DNQ DNQ
18 23px-Flag of Germany.svg-1-.png Karl Beckenbauer DNQ DNQ DNQ 20 24 DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ
2022 Imad-04 Alfa Romeo
NS-22
G JPN AUS MAL RSA FRA GBR GER CZE TUR UAE BEL ITA CAN USA BRA MEX 26* 10th*
17 23px-Flag of Poland.svg-1-.png Daniel Zientek DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ 22 19 Ret 14 Ret 11 21 13 21 22
23px-Flag of New Zealand.svg-1-.png Alexander McLaughlin 22
18 23px-Flag of Belgium (civil).svg-1-.png Thierry Xylander 15 17 6 24 DNQ 15 18 21 16 11 Ret 12 22 4 7 11

* Season in progress.