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BRItIsh F3
Teams face up to Brit F3 crisis
Leading lights pledge support as single-seater series is slashed to four rounds. by marCUS SImmonS
British Formula 3 International
Series teams Carlin, Fortec
Motorsport and Double R
Racing have pledged to support
the championship this year after
it was downscaled to four rounds.
The three teams will shift their
British F3 squads to the Formula 3
European Championship, but want
to contest the four British rounds
at Silverstone, Spa, Brands Hatch
and the Nurburgring.
Carlin boss Trevor Carlin told
AUTOSPORT: “We will shift all
our drivers [currently four] to
the European championship
because they believe F3 is the
best training car and that’s the
only game in town.
“We, of course, will do every
British round as well, and we’ll
put some extra cars out if we
have them available. We’ll run all
six – if we’re allowed to! [a series
ruling restricted the team to
five in 2012]”
Fortec boss Richard Dutton,
who was understood to be close to
a deal with Josh Hill for BF3, wants
to move the Formula Renault NEC
race-winner to his European team
– comprising Felix Serralles and
Pipo Derani – and run all of them
in the BF3 rounds.
“That would most probably
22 autosport.com January 31 2013
British F3’s new 2013 calendar
rd circuit date
1 silverstone (GB) May 25-26
2 spa (B) July 25-27
3 Brands hatch (GB) august 10-11
4 Nurburgring (d) september 21-22
work,” said Dutton. “Although it’s
a bit sad, you’ve just got to get
on with it, and it was no good
pretending we were suddenly going
to get 15 cars for British F3.”
Double R chief Anthony
Hieatt, who already had Antonio
Giovinazzi and Sean Gelael on
board for BF3, added: “We will do
Carlin, Fortec and others
will major on Euro F3
our best to do a four-round BF3.
We hope to have three or four
drivers in European F3 and we
could either get new drivers in for
BF3 or give our existing ones a bit
more track time. It’s a sad day.”
Meanwhile, T-Sport was already
set for a shift to European F3. Team
boss Russell Eacott is doubtful that
he can commit to the whole BF3
schedule due to the logistical
problems of rebuilds in Japan for
his ThreeBond Nissan engines.
“For us it’s rather difficult,” he
said. “But we will endeavour to
look at doing something. And if
BF3’s last race as a full
series, Donington 2012
someone wants to race our
National Class cars in BF3 we
could do that quite easily.”
Benjamin Franassovici, who
manages the series for promoter
the Stephane Ratel Organisation,
said: “We didn’t have enough cars
to go ahead with our current
format. No one wants to see BF3
disappear, so we agreed [SRO, the
teams and tyre supplier Cooper
Avon] to go down to four rounds
and try to make it attractive.”
“We need to keep the British F3
heritage going, and this is the right
move before it’s too late.”