Photo: FR NEC

Leonardo Fornaroli became FIA F3 champion without winning a race. Who else has taken an overall title in a contemporary junior single-seater series but never met the chequered flag first? Here are five notable cases

Formula Renault 2.0

Michael Benyahia 2017 FR2.0 NEC 1x 3rd

For many years, Formula Renault’s Northern European Cup was the Eurocup’s well respected sibling, with future Formula 1 and Formula E stars becoming champions. But after Lando Norris won the title in 2016, FR2.0 NEC’s stock dropped. It reduced from seven rounds to five in 2017, to remove date clashes with the Eurocup which had grown from seven rounds to 10.

Racing in both wasn’t feasible, and the effect was so extreme that the NEC grid shrunk from 16 full-time drivers to five. None of the five won a race, despite two going on to become world-class talents.

Tech 1 Racing’s Gabriel Aubry dominated round one at Monza, but skipped round two at Assen. There the victories went to MP Motorsport’s Red Bull juniors Neil Verhagen and Richard Verschoor, and R-ace GP’s full-timer Gilles Magnus – since a World Touring Car Cup race-winner – took pole for both races, a second place and the points lead.

Josef Kaufmann Racing joined for the rest of the year, and its drivers won all but one race. Sacha Fenestraz fought with Dan Ticktum to do the double at the Nurburgring, as Aubry returned to the top of the standings, then at Spa-Francorchamps the grid was shared with the Eurocup. Drivers’ entry forms could only have them down for points in one of the two series that weekend, and only NEC’s five full-timers stayed local. Aubry was a Eurocup title outsider, so priorirtised that over his NEC lead.

Fenestraz claimed pole for all three Spa races, and won a foggy three-lap race one behind the safety car which awarded half-points. Magnus claimed the maximum NEC score and the points lead in 14th place, then crashed out of race two while Aubry passed Fenestraz on lap one to win and keep his Eurocup title ambitions going.

Photo: Greogry Eyckmans/NEC Media

Fenestraz rebounded in race three, with Charles Milesi (currently racing Alpine’s hypercar in the World Endurance Championship) the top NEC-eligible entry down in 20th in race two while Magnus took the honours by finishing race three in 18th. That also put him back in the points lead, after losing it to Michael Benyahia in race two.

Aubry remained in title contention going into the Hockenheim finale, where Yifei Ye led home team-mate Fenestraz in two dominant wins that lifted him to eighth in the standings. That put him just behind Fenestraz and Milesi, with Aubry ending the campaign with a fifth place, a retirement and fifth in the points table too.

Two ninth places delivered Benyahia the title by two points over team-mate Magnus, and in the title-deciding race he was under pressure from his rival for many laps.

From 14th on the grid Magnus had a lot to do, and by half-distance he was already pressuring Benyahia for ninth but just couldn’t find a way past. The self-run Bartlomiej Mirecki finished sixth to end the season 10 points behind the champion.

“By far this was the hardest race with Gilles always behind me,” said new champion Benyahia in disbelief afterwards. “The whole race was about keeping track of Gilles and Bartek, because if he [Mirecki] had gone a little bit too far that would have been a problem for us. I’ve learnt a lot this season, like how to play a championship.”

Both he and Mirecki only made the podium once, each taking a third place at Monza.

• Read more: The statistical rarity Piastri matched with his FIA F3 title [September 2020]
• Read more: Where Formula Renault is headed next, and how it got there [November 2020]

Doureid Ghattas 2018 FR2.0 NEC 1x 8th

Photo: FR NEC

FR2.0 NEC’s problems somewhat worsened the year after, as although it landed a support slot at the Pau Grand Prix it had to share grids with the FR2.0 Eurocup four times to make a six-round schedule possible without having vanishingly small grids. The calendar for 2018 it originally announced looked very different to the one that ended up being used.

Drivers doing the 10-round Eurocup only needed to add two more weekends to their schedule to do a full NEC campaign, so there were more full-time entries, but they therefore only entered themselves for points in those two rounds.

MP’s Christian Lundgaard and Alex Peroni were the stars of Pau, pushing each other hard in qualifying and the races. Lundgaard claimed race one pole by 0.007 seconds, and was set for victory before an error late in the race let Peroni slip by.

Qualifying for race two was damp, and Peroni prevailed by 0.166s in a final lap shootout. The combination of the race starting behind the safety car, spray from the wet track surface and numerous yellow flags caused by backmarkers meant overtaking was at a minimum later in the day and Peroni held off Lundgaard by 0.125s.

R-ace came to the fore in round two at Monza, with the victories going to Logan Sargeant and Victor Martins and the pair moving to the top of the standings. However it was the drivers level on points down in eighth and ninth, R-ace’s Gabriel Gandulia and Anders Motorsport’s Doureid Ghattas, who were now the title favourites.

The rest of the season did have some twists and turns, and at least 28 cars in each round, but the title contenders never finished higher than 15th in the remaining eight races.

Lundgaard won race one at Spa, and Martins took race two while finishing 18th delivered Phil Hill the points lead. Ye had to work hard to deny Lundgaard another win in race one at the Hungaroring, where Ghattas drew level with Hill on points by finishing 20th. He improved to 19th in race two, won by Lundgaard, which then made him points leader.

Photo: Gregory Eyckmans / DPPI

Title outsider Sargeant was victorious in the opening Nuburgring race, but spectators would’ve been focusing on the close battle for 22nd involving the three ahead of him in the standings. There was lots of swapping positions, and the trio were often split by less than a second. Ghattas prevailed, leading team-mate Hill and Gandulia.

Hill had to miss race two, and a run to 20th place meant Ghattas now had a huge 44-point lead. R-ace’s Max Fewtrell won that race, and both at the Hockenheim season finale. There was title drama boiling in the lead-in to that event, as Hill left to join ScoRace Team.

He needed to take maximum points in race one with Ghattas retiring to keep the title fight going, but it didn’t work out as Ghattas was crowned by finishing 16th and Hill crossed the line in 21st. Finishing 15th in race two, the best result for a points-scoring driver since round two, was little redemption for Hill.

Formula Regional’s European arrival in 2019 initially looked like good news for FR2.0 NEC, with Renault wanting it to grow and teams wanting to continue running their cars as the Eurocup switched to chassis from another category yet kept its name. However Renault lost the tender to run the FIA’s European championship for FRegional, and the co-existence of two series at that level pushed the Northern European Cup into non-existence after 18 years of action in various forms.

Third-tier single-seaters

Philipp Peter 1992 Austrian F3 Cup 2x 2nd

The Austrian Formula 3 Cup shared grids with German F3 for six of its nine rounds in 1992, as this was a time when the competiton featured the same F3 machinery as other nations.

Jacques Isler Racing’s Philipp Peter, in a brand new Alfa Romeo-powered Dallara F392, ended the season atop the points and he also started the year on top at the Nurburgring in mid-April.

Peter in 1997 (Photo: Audi)

The first qualifying session took place while it was sleeting, and Peter mastered the conditions to take pole by 1.13s. As fog then immersed the circuit, and having been fastest, he was invited back on track to run at a reduced speed and assess whether conditions were suitable for Q2 to run. Peter reported he couldn’t see the marhals, saying it “would be far too dangerous” to be lapping at a representative pace. The session therefore was cancelled.

Race one did go ahead that day though, in the wet, and Peter took the points lead despite falling 2.54s short of victory. He fell to third on lap one, while his own team boss went from third to first as one of few to gamble on using wet weather tyres. Pedro Lamy and Peter then passed Isler on lap three and held their positions until the end.

Lamy, driving for the Wili Weber-run Opel factory team WTS Racing, was only entered for German championship points. The win earned him pole for the next day’s race, which he led the first half of before getting a puncture by going off. Peter then held first place, but only had it for one lap before GM Motorsport’s Marco Werner came through. Werner had started 19th due to needing a push-start, but was already third by the end of lap one.

His Opel power gave him the advantage on Peter in the corners, but the latter’s Alfa Romeo unit was faster for the straights. It led to an astonishing lengthy wheel-to-wheel duel, and both had offs. Peter reclaimed the lead, but a second trip through the gravel meant Werner came back through and he later fell behind Bongers Motorsport’s Jorg Muller and factory Volkswagen driver Diogo Castro Santos, who had started 20th. But fourth still meant a maximum score.

Peter missed the next two rounds at the Osterreichring (now known as the Red Bull Ring in its shortened form), and at Brno finished sixth in both races. Once again, he was the leading driver entered for Austrian F3 points.

Next on the schedule was the Diepholz Airfield circuit, where it was an identical story for Peter with two fifth places. He missed the trip to the Salzburgring, meaning he did none of the races in Austria, but was back in action at the Alemannenring street circuit in Singen (watch a simulated lap in a modern F3 car here) where he was the only Austrian F3 entrant. That meant his race one retirement had no impact on his title hopes, and he finished fourth in race two.

Photo: Roger Gascoigne

On the return to the Nurburgring he had far more opposition, and while seventh in race one [pictured above] earned him maximum points his gearbox failed on the formation lap for race two and so he was a non-starter. His rivals’ results meant however that the title fight would continue on to the Hockenheim finale.

Here he made a return to form with two podiums, becoming champion in race one then going for that all-important first win in race two. He initially pressured leader Lamy, who had celebrated becoming German F3 champion in the previous day’s race, before becoming more focused on defending second from VW’s Sascha Maassen.

Peter ended up fifth in the German F3 standings, and factored in the next two title fights on this list but thanks to a bunch of outright victories while his main rivals could not find the podium’s top step…

Max Angelelli 1993 TOPIC F3 Cup 4x 2nd

For 1993 the cup added a round in Belgium, and gained title sponsorship from Austrian front door manufacturer TOPIC, with Zolder hosting the season opener in a shared event with German F3.

The risk of a 1992-style repeat existed, and while there were many more drivers entered for Austrian points, and in new cars, the highest placed of those in the first race of 1993 was Franz Woss Racing’s Andre Fibier in ninth. In race two it was Peter, who finished third, as G+M Escom Motorspot’s Michael Krumm and VW’s Max Angelelli were one-two both times.

After that, VW decided they fancied a shot at being the best of Austria too.

In round two, on Hockenheim’s short circuit, Peter took pole and was on course for race one victory until Krumm crashed him out, leaving KMS’s Markus Liesner to take a big win ahead of VW’s Maassen. Angelelli was fourth, sandwiched between Roberto Colciago and WTS’s Jos Verstappen after a thrilling race-long battle with both. Maassen led home WTS’s Claudia Hurtgen in race two, as RSM Marko’s Alex Wurz moved into the points lead.

Photo: Roger Gascoigne

At the Nurburgring, Maassen won race one, Angelelli was fourth, Peter recovered to seventh after stalling and Wurz somehow finished 20th after a visor tear-off entered his airbox, caught fire in his engine, led to him trying to pull it out and then spinning.

Race two was calmer, with the ineligible Krumm winning while Maassen and Angelelli [pictured above] were third and fourth after Hurtgen was penalised for jumping the start.

Wurz won at the Osterreichring, then at the Wunstorf Air Base pole went to Maassen but he and Angelelli had to stand below Verstappen on the race one podium as he claimed his maiden F3 win. Success was repeated in race two, Angelelli came third and Wurz was a non-starter after crashing out of race one.

Peter pipped Wurz on their return to the Osterreichring, with the VW duo absent, then beat him to victory by 15.7s at the Salzburgring. Maassen now led Wurz by seven points, with Fibier and Peter 19 behind. Angelelli sat 23 points off the top with five races remaining.

Krumm returned to winning form at the Nurburgring, by just 0.05s over Verstappen in race one. Angelelli was top points scorer in fourth, holding off Maassen by 0.32s and just missing out on third to Abt Motorsport’s Christian Abt. Wurz crashed again.

Angelelli got the better of Abt in race two, moving two points ahead of Maassen at the top of the standings, while Verstappen struck back against Krumm.

Hockenheim hosted the penultimate round, and Angelelli edged Maassen to pole by 0.02s. Colciago came through from sixth on the grid to win race one, leading Angelelli by 0.44s and Krumm by 0.74s.

Krumm had briefly passed Angelelli on lap one, but by the end of the lap was behind Colciago in third as a seven-car lead battle formed. Verstappen got to the front, but then was dropped from the fight after spinning, and at the last corner of the race Angelelli tried passing Colciago, who had to weave to the finish line to deny his Italian compatriot.

Peter’s title hopes ended on the formation lap of race two due to a gearbox failure, and on lap one Angelelli took the lead straight away. Verstappen pressured the VW man until he got a slow puncture, but the fastest man on track was Maassen and he overtook Angelelli with three laps to go to close back to within five points. Wurz ended his title ambitions by finishing 19th.

When the paddock reunited for the Osterreichring season finale a month later, Maassen was not among them and so Angelelli was crowned before turning a wheel. But he still needed a win.

Dashing those hopes was F3 debutant Oliver Tichy, entered by Franz Woss. The 18-year-old Austrian denied Angelelli pole by an impressive 0.412s, then romped to victory by 11.917s over Wurz, with Angelelli a distant third.

Angelelli and Maassen went on to conquer America’s sportscar scene, Verstappen and Wurz reached F1, while the little-remembered Tichy became a factory VW driver in F3 then was picked up by Helmut Marko (latterly known for scouting teenaged talents with Red Bull) for his International Formula 3000 squad and made the podium as a rookie.

Second-tier single-seaters

Oriol Servia 1999 Indy Nxt 5x 2nd

It was crazy enough that Servia won the 1999 Indy Nxt title without ever standing on the top step of the podium, but the fact his title rival and Dorricott Racing team-mate Casey Mears didn’t either makes this a huge statistical anomaly.

There were two drivers who took two wins each, but ended up third and seventh in the standings, while Servia’s title charge was built on five second places and Mears split his four podium results into two seconds and two thirds. Two drivers outside of the top 10 in the standings won races, and for both their victory contributed to around a third of their total points.

Photo: Oriol Servia

Servia came seventh in the 1998 season as a rookie, getting two podiums, and of the drivers ahead of him in the standings all but the champion returned for 1999. Mears meanwhile had two seasons of experience and in ’98 was 17th in the points.

The year began with Mario Dominguez laying down his title credentials with victory at Homestead-Miami, with Mears and Servia a very distant fifth and sixth. Domingues came nowhere near close to replicating that result thereon, but still led the points after round two in Long Beach which Philipp Peter won. The Dorricott drivers finally looked competitive at Nazareth, with Servia taking pole and finishing second, just ahead of Mears. But an 18-year-old Scott Dixon now led the points.

Mears made the podium at Milwaukee to move to the head of the championship, then Servia went on a run of second places at Portland, Cleveland and Toronto to build a big points lead over his team-mate. Servia’s next second place in Detroit put him 20 points clear (equivalent to a win) of Mears and Peter, while 1998 title runner-up Didier Andre was 12th in the standings.

Servia finished fourth, seventh and 14th in the last three races, with Mears doing slightly better with a third, a fifth and a 13th, and that comfortably secured them the top two places in the championship. Peter petered out after his third win, while Jonny Kane, Dixon and Andre suddenly became the form drivers. Kane won the finale (by just 0.049s over the Stig) from pole and rose from ninth to fourth in the standings, Dixon took a win and a second to climb from eighth to fifth, and Andre almost doubled his points tally with first and third in the final two races to lift himself from 12th to eighth in the points table.

• Read more: The second-tier champions Pourchaire emulated with a one-win season [December 2023]

The post The drivers Fornaroli emulates with a win-free junior single-seater title appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: McLaren Racing

From starting his car racing career to becoming a McLaren driver, this is the drama and win-filled route Oscar Piastri took to becoming a Formula 1 racer

Friday, December 16 2016

A 15-year-old Piastri, who came sixth in the CIK-FIA World Karting Championship for OK-Junior karts earlier in the year, makes his car racing debut at Yas Marina Circuit in the second round of the new Formula 4 United Arab Emirates championship. He finishes sixth, and follows it up later that day with a fifth place as future rival Logan Sargeant takes a clean sweep of second places from the weekend.

Piastri goes on to come sixth in the standings, contesting two further rounds but skipping the season finale, and racking up his first two podiums on the return trip to Yas Marina. His opposition in the series includes Sean Babington, now driver coach to McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu, prototype sportscar racer Jonathan Aberdein, IndyCar rookie David Malukas and FIA president Muhammed ben Sulayem’s son Saif.

Wednesday, February 8 2017

Arden names a four-strong line-up in British F4, with sophomore Ayrton Simmons joined by rookies Yves Baltas and Piastri. Olli Caldwell is also signed but does not debut until turning 15 halfway through the season.

Sunday, May 21 2017

Piastri’s first car racing win comes in the reversed-grid Oulton Park race, which is a battle between himself and Sargeant after he makes a few mistakes in the lead. The pressure from Sargeant is ultimately relinquished when the race is red flagged due to a crash.

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Saturday, July 29 2017

Two rounds later at Snetterton, Piastri demonstrates his potential to be involved in the title fight by taking two pole positions and converting the first of those into a win later that day. On Sunday he repeats the feat.

Saturday, October 7 2017

Piastri makes his Formula Renault 2.0 debut with Arden in the FR Northern European Cup finale at Hockenheim, and comes eighth in both races.

Wednesday, December 20 2017

After finishing as runner-up in British F4, Caroline steps up to FR2.0 full-time with Arden to contest the FR Eurocup.

Friday, December 21 2018

Piastri and highly rated team-mate Sami Taoufik perform far worse than expected as FR2.0 rookies, with Piastri bagging three podiums and a lowly eighth in the Eurocup standings. For his second season, he signs with the crack R-ace GP team.

Saturday, May 11 2019

A switch to Formula Regional technical regulations doesn’t shake up the Eurocup’s competitive order too much, and Piastri’s first pole and win came in round two at Silverstone. Qualifying took place on a drying track and he mastered the conditions to be quickest, but he lost the lead to team-mate Alexander Smolyar in the race and it was only after he retired with a car issue that Piastri was able to romp away to win by a massive 12.693 seconds.

Photo: DPPI / Renault Sport

Sunday, September 8 2019

In a critical weekend for the title fight between Piastri and MP Motorsport’s Victor Martins, Piastri spins off on the sighting lap for Saturday’s race at the Hungaroring and is unable to start. However rainy conditions means it only runs for three laps and Martins gets half-points for victory, then on Sunday Piastri bounces back by dominating qualifying and taking a controlling win to head into the final three rounds with a big points lead.

Friday, October 18 2019

There’s a lot of interest in Prema’s FIA Formula 3 seats after it dominates the inaugural season of the championship, and it can only trial so many drivers in the post-season test at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit. Piastri makes the shortlist of five.

Friday, October 25 2019

Martins cuts the gap to Piastri before the final round at Yas Marina, and beats Piastri to pole for the series’ first ever night race. However he fluffs his start, handing Piastri the lead. It takes a while for Martins to recover back to second place and he then goes on an intense chase of his rival. They finish 1.2s apart, and Piastri calls it “the most nervous half an hour of my life”.

Saturday, October 26 2019

Martins still had the pace advantage going into the title-deciding day, and beat Piastri to pole. This time he was able to convert it into a dominant win, but Piastri only needed to finish seventh to become champion. Fourth place was more than enough to take the crown.

Sunday, January 26 2020

Piastri’s future is confirmed as off the back of his Eurocup crown he is announced as a Renault F1 junior and a Prema driver in FIA F3 for 2020.

Sunday, March 1 2020

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic starts to have global implications, and later put the Australia-located Piastri at risk of not being able to race in Europe, the 18-year-old becomes a personal protege of his countryman Mark Webber, a former F1 star.

Wednesday, May 27 2020

With the world in lockdown and very strictly regulated international travel, possibly the most important moment of Piastri’s career comes as he is granted exemption to travel from Australia to the United Kingdom and then serve a two-week quarantine once he arrives in the country. Piastri’s exemption is also the firmest indication yet that FIA F3 will be racing.

Saturday, July 4 2020

In a race he thought “had ended in the first 10s” following a dramatic first two corners, Piastri came from third on the grid to win on his F3 debut ahead of old British F4 and FR2.0 rival, and now Prema team-mate, Sargeant.

Friday, August 7 2020

Piastri’s season is at a doldrums, as title rival Sargeant takes his second pole in a row at Silverstone while Piastri’s first qualifying run ends at the pit entry and then his second run comes to a halt at Luffield due to technical trouble. He qualifies 11th, and at no point does he make the front row during the season.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Sunday, August 16 2020

After Sargeant moves into the points lead at Silverstone, Piastri undoes some of the damage of that weekend by picking up his second F3 win in the reversed-grid Barcelona race after going from fifth to first in four corners on the opening lap.

Saturday, September 5 2020

Piastri becomes championship leader once more by charging from 15th to third at Monza and calls it “a lot of fun”.

Sunday, September 6 2020

Neither Piastri or Sargeant avoided contact with other drivers in race one, and it is the same in race two. Piastri forces David Beckmann off and gets a five-place grid penalty for the final round, while Sargeant ends team-mate Frederik Vesti’s hopes by crashing with him and is penalised three spots on the grid at Mugello.

Friday, September 11 2020

Sargeant qualifies second, but will start fifth, and Piastri is only 11th in a close qualifying session at Mugello, meaning he will start from 16th for the penultimate race of the season.

Saturday, September 12 2020

Sargeant recovers to seventh in the Mugello opener, and Piastri makes up several places but by finishing 11th is just short of the points positions, bringing Sargeant back level in the title race, and of getting the reversed grid pole for the title decider.

Photo: Prema

Sunday, September 13 2020

The title hopes of Sargeant expire on the opening lap as he is sent into the gravel, while some help from Vesti (as requested by Prema) enabled Piastri to get up to eighth and then snatch seventh in a photo finish. The outcome was title success, by just three points over ART Grand Prix’s Theo Pourchaire.

Friday, October 30 2020

A landmark day in Piastri’s career, he gets his first taste of F1 machinery in Renault’s R.S.18 car from 2018 at Bahrain.

Tuesday, December 1 2020

Webber works to land Piastri the best F2 seat possible, and he delivers as Piastri stays with Prema for the step up.

Tuesday, December 8 2020

A week later, Piastri gets his first official running in a F2 car at Bahrain and goes fastest several times before ending the first day of post-season testing as the top debutant in fifth place.

Saturday, March 27 2021

Piastri finishes fifth on his F2 race debut, again at Bahrain, and later that day gets to race again. This time he starts sixth, makes a pitstop and beats Zhou Guanyu, a fellow junior of the now rebranded Alpine, to victory with a final lap pass. Afterwards he calls it the craziest race and win of his career.

Tuesday, May 25 2021

Piastri sits second in the points behind Zhou after two rounds, and Alpine is gearing up F1 preparations for both by handing them further private tests. As rumours swirl that the team will be retaining Esteban Ocon on a long-term contract though, it looks unlikely either driver will be rewarded with an F1 race seat if they become champion. Piastri says “it changes nothing”.

Friday, July 16 2021

A breakthrough for Piastri as he claims his maiden F2 pole at Silverstone, his first front row start since his Eurocup campaign.

Friday, September 10 2021

For several months after Ocon signs his long-term deal, Piastri is bombarded with questions about if he has an F1 future. He opened up to the press at Monza as his hopes diminished just as he asserted himelf at the top of the F2 points table.

Sunday, September 12 2021

Later that weekend, Piastri turns his second pole in a row into his first F2 feature race win. It would mark the start of an immense run of performances across the next three events.

Tuesday, November 16 2021

Zhou’s yet-to-be-announced but widely anticipated move into an Alfa Romeo Racing F1 seat for 2022 opens up a vacancy in the reserve driver role at Alpine, and the team all but confirms Zhou’s exit as it announces Piastri will take his place for the next season. At the same time, it’s an admission that it has been unable to loan him to a rival team.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Sunday, December 5 2021

Piastri puts one hand on the F2 title, and with a round still to go, by winning the shortened five-lap Jeddah feature race.

Friday, December 10 2021

A remarkable fifth pole position in a row goes to Piastri in the Yas Marina finale, and fellow Australian Jack Doohan qualifies second in just his second F2 appearance.

Saturday, December 11 2021

Pole position put Piastri 10th on the reversed grid for the opening sprint race of the weekend, but moved up to sixth on lap one. He and team-mate Robert Shwartzman, by this point his main title rival, then rose up the order together before Piastri passed him, netted a podium finish in third place and more importantly was crowned champion with two races to spare.

Sunday, December 12 2021

Piastri caps off a stunning year with an odd incident in which he had contact with another driver on the way to the grid, but then a fourth feature race win in a row.

Tuesday, December 14 2021

Piastri’s first miles in a contemporary F1 car as he drives Alpine’s A521 in the official young driver test.

Saturday, March 12 2022

Photo: Alpine Racing

The start of the Piastri to McLaren story, the drive-less champion is made available by Alpine to its rival team as reserve driver if his services are required. The agreement comes about after McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo, a fellow Australian, goes down with COVID-19.

Monday, July 4 2022

Unknown to the under-pressure Ricciardo, and most of the motorsport world, McLaren signs Piastri for 2023. It is not revealed publicly whether Piastri was signed initially as a reserve driver, given at the time Ricciardo was still contracted to be team-mate to Lando Norris for next year.

Monday, August 1 2022

Following Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel’s announcement in the lead up to the Hungarian Grand Prix that he will retire from F1 at the end of the season, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso swoops in and by the end of the weekend has got a deal with the team for the next two years. He is announced as switching allegiances on the Monday.

Tuesday, August 2 2022

Alpine start the day by saying they know Piastri could follow Alonso out the door, then announce via Twitter during the morning that he will actually step into seat being vacated. It makes him the first driver from the Alpine Academy and its predecessors to be signed to race for the Enstone-based F1 team since Robert Kubica, and the first to do so without aligning himself with a rival F1 team before that since Romain Grosjean in 2009.

By this point it is known that Webber had been talking to McLaren about putting Piastri in a race seat.

Photo: Alpine F1 Team

In a style mimicking Alex Palou’s denial he had signed an IndyCar contract with his current employer Chip Ganassi Racing, Piastri tweets: “I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.”

Wednesday, August 24 2022

Ricciardo agrees to leave McLaren at the end of 2022, a year before his contract ends, opening up a spot for Piastri to race for the team in 2023. Piastri had already been in firm contention for a 2024 seat, and Ricciardo’s exit actually feeds interest that McLaren’s IndyCar stars and the drivers signed to its F1 test programme could move into the world championship.

Monday, August 29 2022

A tribunal appointed by the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board meet after Alpine challenges McLaren’s claim to Piastri’s services for 2023. At this point McLaren is yet to admit any involvement in the drama playing out, despite it being widely known to the world it has signed Piastri, and the CRB does decide in the team’s favour by saying “Mr Piastri is entitled to drive for McLaren Racing Limited for the 2023 and 2024 seasons” and that the contract Alpine wrote up is therefore invalid.

Saturday, September 2 2022

“I’m extremely excited to be making my F1 debut with such a prestigious team as McLaren and I’m very grateful for the opportunity that’s been offered to me.”

The words everyone was waiting for as McLaren announce Piastri as team-mate to Norris for the next two seasons.

He has now stopped his reserve driver commitments with Alpine, although the team is coy on the subject, and work begins on providing junior driver Jack Doohan with free practice opportunities to assess his suitability for the role while the search begins for Ocon’s 2023 team-mate.

Tuesday, November 22 2022

Piastri drives a McLaren for the first time in the young driver test.

Friday, March 3 2023

If everything goes to plan, then the date Piastri makes his grand prix weekend debut in free practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, his first F1 race…

The post The timeline of Oscar Piastri’s journey to an F1 seat appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Emil Frey Racing / Brecht Decancq

When Arthur Rougier beat Victor Martins to win the 2017 French F4 title and subsequently joined the Renault Sport Academy, he seemed assured of a strong future in single-seaters. But it did not play out that way

After a disappointing rookie year in the Formula Renault Eurocup and without a budget to continue on the ladder, Arthur Rougier found himself both out of a drive and being dumped from the Renault Formula 1 team’s driver academy. Things didn’t look bright.

However after switching to GT racing, the 22-year-old Frenchman has rapidly made a name for himself, initially in a Sainteloc Racing Audi and since 2021 at the wheel of a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo for Swiss squad Emil Frey Racing.

As Rougier tells Formula Scout, he is not jealous of the success of Martins, who won this year’s FIA Formula 3 title but was also dropped by Renault after his second year in the Eurocup before he earned his way back onto the scheme.

“I’m happy with where I am at the moment in GTs. I really enjoy what I’m doing and seeing those guys performing, sometimes it puts a smile on my face. But I’m happy they’re doing well. I know Victor quite well and we keep in touch.”

Naturally, there are times when his thoughts turn to what might have been. “It’s also showing that I was doing well at that time against him. I remember also doing tests with Arden at Spa-Francorchamps in the winter test day and being ahead of Oscar Piastri. So I’m like, ‘Yeah I could have maybe sometimes [done what they did],’ but [life in GTs] is cool.”

Rougier only raced on karts for two years before he moved into single-seaters, debuting in French Formula 4 in 2016. He claimed a maiden win in the season finale and came 10th in the standings. Though rookie Martins ran him close in his sophomore season, five victories and 12 podiums gave him the title by four points, after a tense final round at Paul Ricard.

“Looking back at it for me the [centrally-run] French F4 championship was really good,” he says. “Because then in single-seaters, you need to be in a top team. And this is sometimes politically quite tough to be in the right place at the right time.

Photo: FFSA

“In French F4 everyone has the same car, just to make sure it was fair, and this I like. We all had the same strengths to fight and this was really nice.”

Rougier shone in Pau and at Spa in his title-winning F4 season, winning all three races at Spa. No driver has done that in the series in its FIA F4 era, and Rougier’s company in the Formula Renault 1.6 cars before that are Anthoine Hubert, Jules Gounon, Lasse Sorensen and Yifei Ye.

“I won double pole [at Spa] in 2017, with victory in all three races. It was really cool,” he reminisces.

For the step up to the Eurocup, he signed with Fortec Motorsports, while Martins joined reigning champion team R-ace GP.

Rougier was as much in demand, and “had many options, but Fortec offered me a really good deal – the only one I could afford because still with the help of the [French] federation and Renault I had to add something from my personal partners. So Fortec was only one I could go for.”

• Scout Report: Victor Martins & Arthur Rougier [April 2018]

In a competitive field, with rivals including Christian Lundgaard, Logan Sargeant, Martins, Piastri and champion Max Fewtrell, team and driver struggled.

Rougier came 15th in the championship with his two best results, a fourth and a sixth, occurring at Spa. The rookie was undoubtedly hurt by the lack of a strong team-mate.

“There are many reasons [why it didn’t work out],” he explains. “I personally think that I did quite a strong season with what I had at that time. Just missing team-mates to go forward, let’s say, and experience.

Photo: Roger Gascoigne

“[The FR2.0 car] was really specific, really tough to drive and you needed some a lot of driving time to understand it properly, I would say.”

“I really missed in my team a leader. I was the fastest of my team, which you would at first think is a good thing but no, when you are a rookie, you see all the rookies performing really well,” he explains. “They have a team-mate that is able to fight for the title and I had no one to push me forward, let’s say.”

Rougier believes that “the team was missing some references and data from the previous years”, while R-ace had “four drivers maybe to fight for wins every race”.

“So to try different things with the set-up we were losing time and the field is so competitive. And we were generally missing qualifying performance, because on race pace we were always really strong, but you cannot overtake a lot when you start P10 or P15. The set-up in qualifying to understand when the peak is working is really important and we missed it all season.

“The only time we had a really good car was in Spa and I ended up being something like one tenth off pole. At that time, I thought I had understood something with the car but no because the weekend after, it was one of my best quali laps of the year, but I was really far off in qualifying.”

“It was a tough year but if I had to do the same, I would do [it],” he reflects. “Because I learned a lot during that season [which] really helped me to grow as a driver and to experience a lot of things. I really had to push myself because the level in this championship was crazy.”

His funding finally ran out before the end of the season, causing him to miss the final round, and Renault confirmed his exit from the Academy for 2019 soon after.

“I knew I had no chance to go for one more season because in 2018 I had big help from the federation and from Renault.” With the FFSA’s support limited to one year, he realised “it wasn’t doable, there was never an option to go for another year”.

“My goal was to be in a top team because I think back in those days, I mean still now, if you’re not in one of the top teams there is no chance to be really up in front. I never felt like I had a proper chance, I have to say.

“To me if you want to give a driver a chance he has to be in a top team. You need to give him the support where he has no excuses. And me, I had excuses, let’s say.

“Where the [quality of the] field is so high and some drivers are coming with a lot of budget, a lot of testing, you need to be at their level. If you don’t have the same budget or team or whatever, there is no point for me to fight. I think I personally did a strong season but I did not have the keys to prepare, really up in front.”

With the backing for continuing his single-seater career gone almost as quickly as it arrived, Rougier made the decision to move across to his national GT4 series in 2019, before stepping up to GT3 in 2020.

In 2021 he was enrolled into Lamborghini’s GT3 Junior Driver programme, and in an end-of-year shootout at Vallelunga he was determined as the best junior. With Lamborghini’s support he now races in ADAC GT Masters and GT World Challenge Europe’s Endurance Cup with Emil Frey.

“It’s the first year [when] I can do two full championships, so it’s really good for me,” Rougier explains. “The first one that was on the schedule was the ADAC during the winter and we could add a late programme for endurance, which is also really good to have some more driving time so more experience this year with 24 hours of Spa of course. Both championships are a really high level and targets are really high this year.”

Photo: SRO / Kevin Pecks

The focus is on the German title, where Rougier shares a car with Franck Perera, a contemporary of Lewis Hamilton in their junior years. They made the podium at Oschersleben and Zandvoort, and are in outside contention for second in the points.

“Zandvoort was a good weekend overall [even though] we still did not quite put everything together,” says Rougier.

His luck has been atrocious in GTWCE, not even getting into the car in the opening two rounds due to crashes in earlier stints when his team-mates were at the wheel.

“We had a really unlucky start of the season in endurance. I did not complete a single lap in the race in endurance actually, because I was supposed to be the last driver in Imola and Paul Ricard and we had to retire the car before me.”

At his specialist circuit Spa, Rougier and team-mates Leo Roussel and Giacomo Altoe finished 19th in the 24-hour race, having been the lead Lamborghini at half-distance.

“A really frustrating year so far,” he admits. “Last year was really good with the qualifying but this year I really struggled to have a clear lap.

“ADAC is a bit easier, but the level is so high and without heated tyres it’s making the field even closer. So usually if you’re five tenths off pole you’re last, so this is completely crazy.”

The fact that Lamborghini has announced an LMDh programme for 2024 has unsurprisingly not escaped Rougier’s attention.

“Of course, I’m aware of what is going on but for now I’m fully focused on the GT side, I’m feeling good in the GTWCE and ADAC and trying to perform well.

“The target is to have a seat with Lamborghini, a proper factory seat. I will try to do the maximum I can to get that seat and then we will see.”

And looking back on his three seasons in the junior categories, he says that “in the end now I’m happy where I am in GT, but I learned a lot during those years of single-seaters”.

More of Lamborghini’s single-seater to sportscar journeys
The gang of self-titled pirates saving single-seater hopefuls’ careers
The story behind one of junior single-seaters’ greatest comebacks
The Yugoslavian who’s left his mark on motorsport history
The junior driver spurned by Renault’s last F1 name change
Mirko Bortolotti: The Raging Bull whose eyes-open approach has led to racing glory

The post How an F4 champion reset his career after short-lived Renault support appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Jason Vian / Victory Lane

FIA F3 title contender Victor Martins is a protege of the Alpine F1 team, but he’s also got a junior team of his own in single-seaters and karts, and he explained why to Formula Scout

Getting signed, dropped and then signed again by the same Formula 1 team is quite a journey for a young driver, and the fact that Victor Martins is still in FIA Formula 3 makes it all the more of a roller coaster.

Martins was signed by Renault after coming second in the French Formula 4 championship, and did two Formula Renault Eurocup seasons with the manufacturer’s support (claiming eight wins on the way) before he was dropped and then proceeded to utterly dominate the Eurocup in 2020 with seven wins in a single season.

At the same time, Martins and his older brother Nicolas (who were 18 and 22 at the time) had a new project: Victory Lane.

Nicolas had supported Victor’s career in various capacities through the years, particularly in this break between his stints with Renault/Alpine, and now they were going to combine their learnings to support other drivers.

Renault, soon becoming Alpine, said that the Eurocup crown would not guarantee Martins a place back on its books despite the usual procedure of champions being rewarded with F1 junior status, but in the end Martins did enough to be signed to the new-look Alpine Academy along with Eurocup runner-up Caio Collet and they stepped up to FIA F3 with MP Motorsport.

Victory Lane built its team up, calling upon the Goethe family’s karting manager Florent Jimenez to provide his athlete development skills, and former VDK Racing man Aurelien Fath to move across the karting paddock to be technical director of a karting squad they were launching.

Unsurprisingly, Victor’s role in the company has been as a driver coach and Formula Scout caught up with him while in the French F4 paddock where he was supporting single-seater rookie Edgar Pierre.

Victory Lane athletes

“I’m more about the driving side to help the young drivers, to give them some experience and advice,” Martins explains.

“And then my brother to be the boss I would say. We have two people who are working on the marketing and social media stuff with the communication and so on, and we have the team manager for our karting team, then someone who is managing everything like logistics, all the difficult things to organise.”

“The karting team is doing the IAME Euro Series. We are doing European championship, world championship. It’s everywhere.”

Victory Lane has primarily raced in X30 karts in France, Belgium and Europe, but also managed drivers in OK-based competition too.

“[Drivers] come to us to be in the team and to get all this advice from us. But we also try to find good drivers for us to win championships, to win races, to show that we are good with this project, so both. But we select, I would say. We don’t just sign when a driver comes to us, if we don’t agree, he will not race for us. He can test, and then we decide if we take him or not.”

The scale of Martins’ input depends on what level a driver is racing at. The karters need more attention and guidance on race weekend than Edgar in F4, who in turns needs more than Euroformula racer Vlad Lomko.

“It depends, because for example I’m here this weekend especially for the F4 driver. Over in karting, there is someone [specific too] who is taking care of him. I will look after [Vlad], but some easy and simple things. I would say for him it’s more my brother who is taking care of him, managing his career where to put him. To have a good development for him, to maybe step up to F3 or something else.

“But I don’t do much with him, because first I don’t have much time, and my main goal is to be in F1, not a driver coach. I would say when I’m free I do some, like today and this weekend, but only with [F4].”

Photo: Ida Wood

Martins also explains why his and his brother’s ambitions, with a desire to be at the top of motorsport, has resulted in them setting up a driver management firm lower down the ladder.

“I think it’s just because I started my career with Nicolas, in karting he was my mechanic, then he kept following me in the single-seaters as my guy who was with me on the track. So he met some important people in this world, and he decided to build his own career but in not the same area. Like a manager, having his own team. And we wanted to create this together, because we, for sure I have my experience, I have my career, but I still want to help him because I arrived up to here [in F3] with him, and I think if he was not here I wouldn’t have managed to be there and have that kind of success. So we created this together to have a long-term project and life in motorsport.”

Martins says his second F3 season with ART Grand Prix had an “average” start despite being points leader early on, and that he was top of the championship “only with 60% of our capacity”.

Now he’s level on points at the top with fellow Frenchman Isack Hadjar, and thinks “when everything will go right I think I will be there and will score the maximum points”.

Getting “everything out of the tyres” is a side of his own driving that Martins is focusing on right now, particularly in qualifying as he is yet to take a pole in 13 attempts although is very close to having the best qualifying average in 2022.

“It’s quite difficult, you know you need to from practice to be right there, right in the pace to then build the confidence for the drivers to go in quali with a clear mindset and a clear mind. So just from practice to the end, to be focused 100% and I would say just to do everything at the right time.”

Being able to accurately analyse improvements in his own driving helps Martins do the same with the drivers he works with, and Formula Scout asked how impressed he was with Edgar’s development through the year.

Photo: Ida Wood

“We did some really good testing in the winter. All these drivers, they want to test as much as possible to be ready for the championship and pretend that they didn’t drive at all in the winter, just to impress people. But [by] now, they have all driven a lot before the season. We have done also [testing], I have worked a lot with him and I have seen a big improvement from the first time he was in the car to now where we just need to – something the same as me, just get everything right from practice to the end.

“Have a good mindset, be confident about yourself, and do the same – do the right things at the right moment. I think he has a good capacity to be in the top five of the championship, it’s just [applying] now, with everything – to find the stability on yourself, on what you are doing in the car also to be consistent, still this he needs to manage. Sometimes he does too much, sometimes not enough, so I think it’s quite hard for a young driver to put yourself [the whole package together].”

One example of learning from mistakes for Martins is the 2019 FR Eurocup finale at Yas Marina Circuit, where he claimed pole for both races. However in race one he made a mistake with his launch, lost the lead to Oscar Piastri and could not find a way back past. He learned from his error to nail the start in race two and race away to victory, but the title went to his rival.

Had he not made that startline error and finished ahead of Piastri, Martins would have been champion and moved up to FIA F3 for 2020. By now he would likely be in Formula 2. “Maybe F1!” Martins chimes in. Had he progressed to FIA F3 a year earlier, and with the power of hindsight and the skills he’s applying in driver coaching, does he think he had the ability back then to plot a path to F2 and maybe F1 like Piastri has now?

“I think I have made a lot of mistakes for sure, that maybe compromised my career, but this I don’t know,” he speculates.

“And I want to tell to myself that I will never know what would have happened if I would have won the Eurocup in my second year. Maybe I would have gone to F3 with ART GP this moment, maybe I would have done what Theo Pourchaire has done. So maybe I would have been in F2 this year.

Photo: Renault Sport Series

“I don’t want to focus myself on that because in the end it’s nothing, it’s not my life because it doesn’t exist. So I just want to make the most out of what I am experiencing right now, what I have learned from the past, what I could have done better, because for sure I did some mistakes and it’s why I didn’t win the [’19] Eurocup. There are a lot of things where I think I have gained a lot of experience, and I’m a lot, I would say, stronger as a person and as a driver in the car. And I can manage it.”

The post Why one of Alpine’s top students has already become a teacher appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Oregon Team & DPPI

You may have seen the distinctive pink, yellow and green of Oregon Team before at a race track, and heard drivers credit their careers to the Italian outfit. Ida Wood got an eye-opening inside look at the operation

It’s not uncommon for Formula Scout to catch up with drivers who have dropped off the junior single-seater ladder and ended up finding success in sportscars, and there are a few who could only make that move because of one name: Oregon Team.

The Italian team competes in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe and Clio Cup Europe, and has now expanded into Euroformula’s sister series International GT Open with two Lamborghini Huracan Evo GT3s as the brand’s lead team there.

At its helm is Jerry Canevisio and Piergiorgio Testa, who founded the operation in 1986 to contest autocross. Canevisio won the national title in 1990, after which the team moved into the entry-level Formula Monza single-seater series. Formula Scout finds Jerry, preparing some tomatoes for his team, in the Hungaroring paddock to find out more:

“This step is autocross, Formula Monza. Because for the learning, the path from autocross, the school of the FMonza is a little the same in Formula Ford,” he says flamboyantly, explaining how FMonza was far more of a training ground for running a team than autocross.

“And then Formula Renault Eurocup in 1996. But FR Eurocup for Oregon in this year is big! The team is not ready, and is young. Bin this, stop the formula and start with the cars of tourismo.”

Formula Scout asks for more on why Oregon felt unprepared for a seemingly small step up the single-seater latter.

“We did the little category, no more expansive [as a team], but big, big problem because in FMonza it’s not possible to buy the car. It’s obligatory to construct the car. In FMonza engine and gearbox, finish it, and your job [is to make] the cars. No problem.

“Big school [for us]. Better build a car and race in the first two years. Crashed, broke the suspension, crashed all of it, but this is learning, don’t ole ole ole for the truck [sic], but for the construction of the car this as a category is no more expensive, and I can win it first year and do the learning [of it simultanously]. But FMonza, this is not a championship, this is school. And you work on the car with this, first years for understanding. Then Formula Renault, step-by-step, you understand?”

A sage nod, realising that the FMonza was a school for all the years beyond just FR2.0.

“Formulas are race cars. Touring car, okay, you bring the bags, we bring the car, and we go in the holidays with the Clio. This is the difference,” he jokes.

And so over the next 25 years, Oregon established itself in touring cars and then sportscars. But its roots remain very much on show. Firstly, how did the name come about?

“The name is the start. Before the autocross started, the first car in Oregon is a Ford Taunus. Very old car, Ford Taunus. When finished two jobs of the cars, immediately ‘Look at the car. It is the same as the stock cars, but the Oregon [university sport] team in the United States is nowhere back then. It means right now, I use the Oregon name, and I go!

“The first car [gets a lot of attention]. The Oregon is not in the US, the Oregon is right now [in Italy].”

It’s a origin story that doesn’t quite make sense, even for someone with knowledge of American college sports and NASCAR’s origins, and the tale behind the very distinctive livery is told just as passionately.

“The colours is the same history. I finished to play with autocross, arrived in FMonza. I understand immediately that the difference is big. I sit in the tribuna [grandstand] and I look at the race. I understand immediately that in this time it’s impossible to win. I started in last position, all races.

“Okay, [watch a race and] point at the car that is most wrong [and laugh], but there are people who look at the cars in last position but remember the cars. So I paint the cars with the strong colours, and there is no change for 35 years. And the world knows right now this is big. Ferrari is red, Aston Martin is green, Oregon is looking this crazy. You understand?”

Formula Scout nods again, and notes the team’s typography – which would now be considered retro – has been retained too.

“Si, si, si. No change, nothing. In 35 years in Europe, I understand when arriving in the trucks with my prototypes, the Lamborghinis, the livery is the same, the colours no change and the name no change, and people immediately ‘Ahh, they’re Oregon’. You look at the car on television, at the trucks, immediately ‘well, this is an Italian team. Who the [heck] is this?”

Despite Oregon’s short stint in single-seaters, a Formula 1 car remains on its logo. Why is that? “To make it more noticeable.”

Of course it is. But back to the racing bit, and Oregon’s move from junior series to touring cars.

“Start with Renault Megane Cup. Do the Italian championship four years. Good bar, this series. Autocross, win the championship. FMonza, win two championships. FR2.0 one year, no win, NOTHING. More difficult. Then we changed immediately to touring cars, win a championship. Eurocup with the Clio Cup, win two championships. Finish the Clio Cup, one year in European Touring Car Championship with Alfa Romeo. Win the championship. Return to Renault with Megane Trophy, win three championships. Stop this programme. Start with R.S.01. Win the championship.”

The Renault Sport Trophy succeeded the Megane Eurocup and used the bespoke R.S.01 sportscar. Oregon won several titles in its first season, but the series folded after its second season. So Oregon moved on to the LMP3 prototype class of the European Le Mans Series, avoiding other forms of sportscars with reservations about the use of technical performance equalisation in many series, but it was like a repeat of the short-lived FR Eurocup venture.

“The championship is very hard, the budget of the team is not ready for this championship,” Jerry admits.

And so the pressure to win again led to a move to the single-make Super Trofeo for 2020.

“In this moment I prefer Super Trofeo for a school with GT. I think the next years, the official cup of the Lamborghini [will be where customer interest lies].”

Oregon did return to single-seaters at one point, kind of, as it painted the car of Cram Motorsport driver Felipe Massa in the 2000 FR Eurocup for free. It was another publicity trick, as Massa won several races and Oregon got its livery on show. As a result, more money – and drivers – started going in the team’s direction. Massa had arrived in Europe as a very incomplete package, and his turnaround during the Eurocup campaign was something Oregon could take some slight credit for. To this day, the team’s founders have a strong belief in the importance of the junior categories.

“The school of the car of single-seaters is obligatory for the driver [to learn],” Jerry says.

Many of the drivers who, in the nicest of terms, have washed up at Oregon in the last decade have shown lots of promise in single-seaters and won titles. When they arrive at the team, what is its approach to working with them to revive their careers?

“All drivers are different. But Stefano Comini is crazy. Comini: the car is no problem. One tyre is flat, no problem, no bother.

‘But Stefano, the tyres’
‘No, no, the tyres are fi-’
‘No Stefano, the car has the tyre flat. Are you really able to pu-?’
‘Yes, yes.’.

Canevisio, Comini and Oregon's Pirate flag

Canevisio and Costa

Comini went through FMonza and FR2.0, making the podium in the Italian championship in 2009 before switching to the Megane Eurocup in 2010. Oregon unlocked a new form from the Swiss, who won three races as a rookie and the title as a sophomore, then claimed a Clio Cup title and two TCR International crowns to become a modern cult hero in touring cars.

“Winning with the tyre flat is crazy, but no professional would motor on. He was incredible on track.

“Albert Costa is the same. Albert is even more fast. Characteristically he’s no more hard. Mirko Bortolotti, professional, character is more hard, okay. Excellent…” Jerry recalls his delight at the challenge of developing Bortolotti as a driver.

• Feature: The underfunded Techeetah beater who had to reset his career

Both are drivers that have spoken to Formula Scout previously and credited Oregon for the impact it had on their careers, and mindset.

Oregon ran Costa to the 2012 Megane Eurocup title, and Bortolotti the year after. Costa was FR Eurocup champion in 2009, but after two years in FR3.5 had his single-seater career ended by fraud. Despite his Megane crown, he then had a racing break before joining Bortolotti in becoming one of Lamborghini’s most valuable assets in racing today.

“In that period of my life, I was lucky that I found people that really believed in my abilities, gave me a chance,” Bortolotti said of his arrival at Oregon. He had dominated MSV Formula 2 in 2011, but was without a racing future until meeting the team.

• Feature: Mirko Bortolotti: The Raging Bull whose eyes-open approach has led to racing glory

“Albert, fast as a bullet, but one problem, he says he doesn’t know. [And I say] ‘no just a moment, no problem, you push’.

“All drivers have a little difference. There is the champion. But in this moment and having a bigger dip, is Leonardo Pulcini. Leonardo is the same. He is more and more fast. Through the school of the formula he [should have] arrived in F2, but for the moment to have the money to arrive in F1 is very, very difficult.”

Oregon Team alumni

Pulcini, the 2016 Euroformula champion, moved from FIA Formula 3 into Oregon’s Super Trofeo line-up for 2021 and the 23-year-old won the title as a rookie.

While Jerry isn’t one to have his decisions led by the customer, he knows he can only race in series where his team can operate without a financial loss so he can pay his staff. And winning a lot of races by picking the best drivers helps do that.

“For me and Giorgio, this is not a real [day] job. I import and export goods, and Giorgo works in the banks. For me, Oregon Team is the heart.”

Jerry clutches his shirt tight where his heart is, and no doubt would have clutched this writer’s were we not socially distanced.

“Is the heart. I understand it’s not possible to have a team with only with money of the drivers. When I look to buy the money for the team, not only for the drivers. And this is the situation for winning the race, but more important the championship. Because, say, the team had more money, then arrive the sponsors of the team, is normal for me [to present to them] it’s more better to have a faster driver.”

The argument is that Oregon is more financially secure with a top driver, or one it can turn into a title-winning talent, and it makes sense given you’d expect to pay less in penalties and repair costs, and be spending engineering hours more efficiently.

“With the driver more fast, this is really, really win. In these days, this is more and more important. And the team’s time [in a series therefore] doesn’t depend on the driver. Pick a category, the cars, and the championship, is the team‘s job.

“Drivers then arrive, and he’s not [my] driver if ‘I want’. You want the team [to do something]? No. Okay. The team is the line, and this is the category. You want tomorrow [a different series], it’s not possible. You change, I rest in this point. this is the politics of the team, and the first point. The second, [for a new] championship we look at the money, at the budget.”

Oregon and Bortolotti

Jerry’s firm strategy is to make decisions and preparations long in advance of driver interest. It means once Oregon is in a series, its focus can be more on making its car faster. And having raced in Renault series for over two decades, it has a strong relationship with that brand that no doubt helps. In fact, Jerry is keen to reinforce that even though there is a crazy image of his team – and a pirate flag flying from the top of the truck – there is fierce paddock respect. He summarises it with this line.

“The [Renault] president calls me? No. I call him. He is younger, respects me.”

At this point the huge tray of tomatoes have now been prepared, and Jerry makes the call for lunch in Italian to his team, several of whom emerge from the truck. This writer gestures to it and thinks out loud “does the team sleep in there?”. Well…

“This is the spirit of the racer of the team. This is the old spirit. In this race meeting, it’s the Clio Cup [today], but Pulcini and I sleep in the truck because Leonardo is in the night sleeping with the mechanics, the engineers [he will work with], I sleep in the truck. Not the team and the mechanics sleep in the truck, and I in the hotel, no, no, no, no. All the team sleep in the truck. And in the night, sleep, smile, solve the problem. In the truck, resolution of the problem.”

Given the escalating costs of motorsport – and living – today, Oregon seems to have found a more affordable way of going racing while maintaining team spirit. During the COVID-19 pandemic they travelled in their own bubble too.

“You speak with the mechanic. A few jobs done [overnight], it’s crazy. You have the chance [to voice an issue], and other mechanics with the smile ‘yeah, there is [the fix]’ and finish the problem in the truck before they sleep. [Comfy in] bed: problem finished. Then exit truck with a smile.”

So if the day ends with an issue with the car that needs fixing, the team wakes up the next day with it already fixed after collaboratively working on a solution overnight? “Si. This is the spirit.”

It’s very cool, and also very old school.

“Al certo. It is the old school. It is the heart! It is the heart! I understand very wise, because the money is more important. But to win the race, especially – win the race, the whole team wins the race. The championship is more different [to win]. To win the championship, the team [needs to] win in the race with more difficulties. And the driver understand very well in this moment ‘okay, not possible to win, now continue, ba ba boom, ba ba boom with the team’. No problem, then no jobs for mechanics. Tomorrow the car is not perfect, but tomorrow I [maximise the score]. In this moment, you have this learning, you have the possibility to win the championship.”

Now that’s kind of cleared up, onto the tomatoes. Does Jerry bring a lot of fresh food for his team?

“All weekend. On the Saturday the team has the BBQ outside the truck. All races. To win, because the spirit is more different.”

That team spirit will be on sight in the Euroformula paddock this year, starting from this weekend’s season-opening event at Estoril season shared with Int. GT Open. Piloting one of Oregon’s cars will be Pulcini, now a Lamborghini GT3 Junior, who joined Formula Scout for the next surreal segment of the interview sitting socially distanced on hammocks in the team truck.

Pulcini calls it an “unlucky opportunity” that he lacked the budget for F2 after three years and three wins in GP3/FIA F3, and that in the latter “you just win with Prema” and in F2 “with two or three top teams”. To sign for €1.5-2 million with a lower team “is just to throw the money away”.

“In 2018 I did a very, very good GP3 season with Campos Racing. Ended P4 in the championship,” Pulcini recalls.

“I was fighting with ART Grand Prix and Trident. After that I wanted to go to F2, but I didn’t have the money enough for a seat so Hitech GP offered me to be professional driver for the team. So I raced in FIA F3 in 2019.

Pulcini and his Oregon bed

“But things didn’t go how we planned. We had to win the title, but unluckily I didn’t, so I moved to GTs. And with Lamborghini, they’ve already give me such good opportunities, and also with Jerry and Giorgio, the two bosses of Oregon.

“It’s like a family. You are here, you are seeing that I’m sleeping with the team. You don’t see very often this kind of situation, but it’s not because of something [wrong], it’s because it’s like a family. And I’m becoming a part of their family, so I’m very happy to be here. I’m not racing this weekend, but I’m coaching and I’m helping the mechanics, engineers and everyone to support the team. Immersing myself.”

Pulcini’s Super Trofeo form put him on course fairly early on for a bigger Lamborghini seat for 2022, and last summer he came close multiple times to single-seater returns in FIA F3 and beyond, having made a F3 cameo for Carlin at Silverstone in 2020.

“When I was racing single-seaters no one was coming, but at the moment I’m receiving so many offers [from those teams]. This weekend I had [offers] to race in Euroformula with two teams. But I refused. Also Formula Regional, a lot of stuff. Like from the heart, it’s very painful, but it’s better to continue my journey in GT and to be a professional driver.”

Aside from sleeping in the truck and enjoying his cooking, what is it like to work with Canevisio, and why has Oregon been so successful in revitalising the careers of single-seater talents? How has he taken his passion and put it in everybody else?

“I think he’s the best person I ever met in the paddock, really,” replies Pulcini.

“He’s like an angel for me. I didn’t have money at the beginning of the year and I was almost finished my career, and Jerry suddenly called me on the phone.

‘What you do this year?’
‘I don’t know’
‘Okay, you don’t stay at home, you come to race with me. Now you are my driver.’

“He’s a businessman, he’s a very good businessman, but it’s a team with very good potential of money because they are businessmen as bosses, but they are such amazing persons, and have such amazing people that are around here. All of their passion, basically put together also with the mechanics, and they are investing so much in here and it’s really one of the best – maybe the best team I’ve ever worked with, because it’s becoming like a family, you know? So I’m very happy to be here.”

Linking back to earlier comments, it seems Jerry knew Pulcini (and co-driver Kevin Gilardoni) would go on to win in Super Trofeo when he hired him, and therefore bring in more money for the team by doing so, making Pulcini an investment that paid for itself. An astute business move, and one that earned Pulcini money too as a professional driver from the off.

“Yeah. And Jerry is also the manager of drivers,” Pulcini reveals. “I’m really in good health. I’ve never had a manager before, because I didn’t want it. For me the manager is the person that you don’t have to pay him. They have to come to you to bring money to you [to race with], and give you a perspective for your future and maybe you can win some money in the future [rather than ones] who speak about taking some percentage of your income. It’s not that I want manager, I pay a manager and [Jerry becomes] my manager. No, Jerry’s another sort of manager. He’s like a second father for me now.”

With Pulcini and other young drivers, Jerry has looked out for their futures while also running them in his teams, and it is no surprise several have ended up becoming factory drivers in sportscars.

“He has a really good relationship with Lamborghini, so there are very good chances to work together in the future with Lamborghini, also [for any more young drivers who come in].”

So many of Oregon’s single-seater refugees, most of whom are now hot property with a roof over their head, have spoken so glowingly of the team that it only made sense to find out what the fuss was about. And it certainly wasn’t what we expected.

And when we left the truck to say thank you to Jerry for his time, he was busy washing the plates from the lunch his team had just enjoyed.

More single-seater to sportscar journeys
Podcast: How Aston Martin’s F1 tester Nick Yelloly forged his career
Catching up with motorsport’s only European and World Cup winner
The story behind one of junior single-seaters’ greatest comebacks
The F2 champion who could have ended up in Bottas’s Mercedes seat
The Yugoslavian who’s left his mark on motorsport history
Davide Rigon: The story of Ferrari’s football-famous test driver

The post The gang of self-titled pirates saving single-seater hopefuls’ careers appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: FIA Formula E

Jake Dennis surprised on his single-seater return by fighting for the Formula E title, but the rookie showed before moving to sportscars that he had the potential to go all the way to the top of open-wheel racing

The British driver has come a long way since he started racing cars more than a decade ago. Dennis was one of the best karters about before then, and once he stepped into junior single-seaters he had an immediate winning start. He spent five-and-a-half years chasing the Formula 1 dream before applying his skills to sportscars for the next five, and during that time he tested an F1 car on three different occassions.

In 2021 he decided to come back to single-seaters, which was “a bit of a shock for everyone” after several years of GT racing. Formula Scout had the chance to catch up with him on every aspect of his racing portfolio during the last GT World Challenge Europe round at Barcelona.

Also find the podcast on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Jake Dennis’ motorsports career started in karting back in 2003. His talent didn’t go unnoticed as aged 13 he was selected to join Graham Sharp and Derek Walters’ Racing Steps Foundation young driver support scheme, and then aged 15 he won the CIK-FIA Under 18 World Karting Championship in 2010.

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography/RSF

That success prompted a move into single-seaters when he was still 15, and he was able to do so in the Formula BMW-based InterSteps championship in Britain. He won his first two races, then added another six victories to clinch the title. He then contested the final ever edition of Formula Renault 2.0 UK’s winter series to warm up for a very different experience in 2012.

“This was my first real experience of racing on proper European circuits, so Formula 1 circuits. It was a big difference compared to the UK,” Dennis explained to Formula Scout. “I went from racing in the UK with maybe 15 cars [on the grid] to then having 35 or 37 FR2.0 cars on track at the same time. Just the whole experience of qualifying and then having proper races, there was a lot to learn.”

However, he claimed the Northern European Cup title, placing himself in contention for the Autosport BRDC Award which at that point in time was sponsored by McLaren.

“There was a lot of pressure on me to try and win the McLaren Autosport award. The other finalists were also drivers that came from the FR2.0 championship. There was six of us at the time, and four of us raced in FR2.0.”

Indy Pro 2000 champion Jack Hawksworth, FR2.0 Eurocup racer Melville McKee, FR2.0 BARC runner-up Josh Webster and Dennis’s FR2.0 NEC title rivals Jordan King and Josh Hill were the finalists to beat.

“I think it was just not expected of me to win it, but just because I beat them in FR2.0, I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to beat them again in completely equal level fields,” Dennis recalled.

“Oliver Rowland, who was also sponsored by Racing Steps Foundation at the time, won it the year before I did. So, there was extra pressure because an RSF driver had won it one year before I did it, and then it was sort of like my turn to try to win it.

“I was confident, but you obviously always have that doubt in your mind if you did a good enough job and then on the night, when they announced the winner at the Autosport Awards, they said my name.

“I managed to win it and it was such a cool feeling like to go up on the stage with all the confetti in front of everyone. It is the main award of the night, and everyone is there to listen and hear who this young up-and-coming driver is. It’s a memory which I definitely won’t forget, and it’s still at the front of my mind how the whole night went.”

Dennis recalled with joy the experience of winning one of the most prestigious awards in motorsport, but also the main prize it offers. The McLaren F1 test is something that definitely stays in the winner’s mind for years.

“It’s such an experience to drive a F1 car so young. I was 17 at the time. It’s your first real eye-opener of what a F1 car can do and your first real experience of a proper race car because even in FR2.0 the cars are still quite pure [without electronics]. It’s not the highest level in terms of like downforce or power. And then you’re driving a F1 car at Silverstone with McLaren.

“It was a big step. You don’t have a massive amount of time to get up to speed. You just sort of jump in and try to get as much experience as you can, but it was one of my best memories in motorsport for sure.”

After that Dennis spent another season in the FR2.0 Eurocup, but failed to win, and he departed Fortec Motorsports’ ranks after three years together to move up to the FIA European Formula 3 championship with Carlin. He struggled as a rookie, but a move to the dominant Prema for 2015 helped him finish third in the standings, ahead of five future F1 drivers. That season he was team-mates with F3 veteran Felix Rosenqvist, who taught him a very important lesson.

“Felix is not super driven by what is said on the computer screen. He just jumps in the race car and drives. That taught me a lot, and I definitely took that mentality forward with me and made myself more of a driver which is just fluid and easy-going. Like I don’t have to look at the data for hours and hours to try to improve myself.”

The following step in Dennis’s career was to GP3 with Arden, and an introduction to Pirelli tyres. Dennis, as well as many other drivers have done, highlighted the importance of managing them correctly.

Photo: Zak Mauger/GP3 Series Media Service

“We went from the Hankook tyre which is very robust, you can push on the tyre for the whole race, you can go flat out and have no issues. Whereas in GP3, the Pirelli was super soft at the time. There was a lot of tyre degradation, so we had to learn this whole new technique of driving, which was a challenge.

“I think the Arden race-car package was probably one of the best of the grid, and whenever there was high degradation we would always perform very well. We would come through the field one or two seconds a lap faster than everyone.”

Proof of that statement is in races like the Spa-Francorchamps. That afternoon Dennis came through the field with a blistering pace to finish second after starting 13th. But performances like that were too rare for a maintained title attack.

“We won some races that year, but it was a difficult year. At the start, I think I was 10th in the championship after the first three rounds. I finished fourth in the end, and we scored the most points out of everyone from round four onwards. But the damage was done. We were out the title battle from round three or four. We were too far back.”

At this point of his career, Dennis had to make a crucial decision, and he doesn’t regret what he chose.

“This was probably the most crucial part of my career because I was still sponsored at the time by RSF, and it was just a stage of like do we try to push for Formula 2 or do we try to move to sportscars and earn a career, trying to start earning a living out of motorsport.

“It was difficult to leave my F1 dream behind, but I don’t regret it at all. I’m now sitting here as a BMW factory driver and a Formula E driver, so it has paid off. I am a professional driver, so it’s a decision I am glad I made.”

Since 2016, he has spent several years in GT3, something he “loves” to do, but also contesting occasional prototype sportscar races and even doing a season of the DTM during its Class One era. However, a shocking move, as Dennis himself described it, was being prepared for 2021.

Photo: SRO/Patrick Hecq Photography

“There was a lot of work going on in the background. My management at the time was working hard to try to make it happen. We did a simulator test with BMW, and then I moved into an actual proper test against Max Gunther, who went on to be my team-mate [in FE].

“It was basically ‘let’s see how fast you can drive this car’. I took the opportunity with both hands, trying to do the best job I could. And then about three weeks later I got the call to say I would be getting the seat.

“I got announced [by BMW Andretti], and everyone was like ‘oh my god, I can’t believe it’. That was a cool experience.

“But, for me, it was a super challenging transition back to single-seaters. Especially with FE which is not a car where you just jump in and drive naturally. There are so many different things with the software, the way you drive the car, which really demands a different style of driving.

“Getting my head around this was a challenge, but also something I enjoyed and eventually I started to get pretty good at and to understand what was needed, and then I ended up having successful first year in FE,” he said.

The beginning of the season wasn’t easy for Dennis, as he failed to score points in the first two rounds. In fact, Formula Scout understood at the time that Andretti was already scouting for a replacement driver for the next season.

However it all changed when the championship landed in Valencia, where the official pre-season test had taken place. Dennis claimed an astonishing win from pole, leading all the way at a track where everybody said nobody wanted to be doing that. He picked up a second win on home turn in London, and became the most successful rookie in FE history.

These wins were key to his third place in the standings, just eight points off a crown that could have been his had the rear axle not locked up in a technical failure and caused him to crash out out of the title-deciding race.

He might not have achieved it this time, but Dennis managed to secure his Andretti seat for a second season and is determined to become FE world champion if he gets the chance to fight at the front again.

“I want to try to become FE champion at some point. Whether that can happen next year or the year after I don’t know. But I would really like to try to succeed fully in FE,” he stated.

The electric championship has now become his priority, but he will also keep racing for BMW in endurance racing. In that regard, his sights are on Daytona 24 Hours, a race he could do in GTs or the new LMDh category if the opportunity arises.

“I think my last bucket list racetrack is Daytona. This is the one which still stands out to me. It is one I want to do. I think I’ve done all of the others. So, if I can try and do this race in the M4 GT3 or whether it’s the LMDh, I really don’t know. But it’s the last track I really want to do in my career and hopefully I can do it before I retire, which is in hopefully many years.”

There’s one more facet to Dennis’s motorsport career, and it could net him a world championship in the series he originally aimed for.

Since 2014, he has combined his own racing duties with a F1 simulator and development driver role, first at Williams and then at Red Bull. This job gave him the chance of driving the wheel of the RB16 in the in-season rookie tests of 2019.

Dennis explained how he got the Red Bull gig, and his previously secret Williams role.

“One of my friends was quite good friends with Christian Horner, and I was working for Williams at the time doing simulator work for about two or three seasons as well. And there was an opportunity which came up at Red Bull because they needed another simulator driver.

“So, we just did all the assessments, it is like three or four assessments which you have to go through to then get the job. I ticked off, take them off one by one, and if you are good enough and meet the criteria, then you get the job.

“It worked out at a good time for me. I was obviously quite a bit more experienced than I was when I was at Williams, so it was a good step forward and led to some F1 testing, which was a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t really needed in terms of my career, like I didn’t ever see myself moving back to F1. My goal was GTs at that point. I was a full-time GT driver. I knew my F1 career was over by that point, so it was just a nice way to enjoy a F1 car with no real pressure and no real expectations.”

The experience of driving for Red Bull, which he did twice in official tests in 2019, left Dennis starstruck at the engineering.

“The amount of downforce these cars can produce in this era is just incredible, and being able to experience that’s something that I will never forget. I really don’t think, the way F1 is going at the moment, the cars will ever be this fast ever again.

“And it’s nice to say that, even for me and [fellow BMW driver and Aston Martin F1 tester] Nick Yelloly, we have probably driven the fastest F1 cars ever made. We are not F1 drivers, but it is a cool thing to say. It’s a great experience to have, just to take to your grave. When we are old and grey, we can say that we have driven the fastest ever hand-made machines.”

Further reading on Formula E stars
Catching up with motorsport’s only European and World Cup winner
Why FE is a whole new ball game for single-seater stars
Jean-Eric Vergne: The JEV-demption

The post Podcast: Jake Dennis on the racing steps that founded his FE path appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Macau GP Organising Committee

This weekend marks a big change for grand prix racing, as a new sprint race is run to decide who takes British GP pole. Sprint qualifying will be 100km, a distance most drivers last raced over in their junior careers

The second-shortest world championship Formula 1 race is set to take place this Saturday, with a 17-lap bout around Silverstone acting as the focal point of a format shake-up the owners of F1 have been angling over for some time.

It will controversially declare its winner the poleman for the British Grand Prix, which is the first time a series at a national level or higher has used something other than session laptimes (from practice or qualifying) or championship points (often when weather has led to session cancellations) to establish who officially gets pole other than IndyCar’s Iowa heat races in 2012*

Knockout events such as the Formula Ford Festival do use the winner of preceding races to set grids, but those heat races have their own qualifying sessions where the statistical record of taking pole is awarded.

That factor alone isn’t just what’s making this a step in the dark, as F1 has never scheduled races to be this short. Previous occasions where grands prix have ended up just north of 100 kilometres, or just over half that in the case of the flooded 1991 Australian Grand Prix, have been due to red flags. Drivers and teams prepare their cars for 200km or more.

The British F1 championship never ran races this short in the 1970s, and ignoring Bologna’s F1 Indoor Trophy events then the last race to use F1 regulations and be scheduled to be shorter than 100km were the 1967 Spring Cup heats at Oulton Park.

So when was the last time each of this year’s F1 field were sprinting for success in a single-seater?

Nikita Mazepin, Mick Schumacher & Yuki Tsunoda F2 2020 Sochi sprint race
Distance: 29.041km

A huge accident involving Jack Aitken and Luca Ghiotto cut this race short just as the Formula 2 title battle was getting tense, and half-points being awarded cost Yuki Tsunoda the title runner-up spot (if his finishing position went unchanged had this race run for the full duration).

Aitken and Ghiotto collided as they ran side-by-side through the very long Turn 3 left-hander as they fought over fourth.

Both went into the outside barriers at high speed, after Ghiotto’s car had already been sent airborne, and were able to retrieve themselves. Ghiotto did just in time before his car set on fire. The damage to the barriers neccessitated a red flag stoppage, and the length of those repairs meant the race wasn’t restarted and the results taken from the end of lap five.

Reversed grid poleman Guanyu Zhou was therefore named winner, ahead of Nikita Mazepin, Mick Schumacher and then the would-be retirees Aitken and Ghiotto. This proved costly in points terms for Schumacher’s main rivals Yuki Tsunoda and Callum Ilott, who were classified sixth and seventh.

Nicholas Latifi F2 2019 Sochi sprint race
Distance: 87.521km

Ghiotto withstood pressure from new F2 champion Nyck de Vries to seize victory in another truncated Sochi sprint race the year before, following a heavy lap one accident involving Aitken and Mazepin that led to Mazepin going wide and flying back onto the track and into Nobuharu Matsushita. Both ended up hurtling into the barriers, and the race was red flagged.

With de Vries having wrapped up the title in the previous race, his main rival Nicholas Latifi had nothing to lose. However the Canadian finished fourth, behind de Vries after starting ahead of him, and only got his finishing position after DAMS team-mate Sergio Sette Camara was penalised five seconds for rejoining the track unsafely.

De Vries finished second in the restarted 15-lap race, and Ilott was third.

Lando Norris & George Russell F2 2018 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

The eventual 2018 F2 title contenders individually all had their worst weekends in Monaco, with Lando Norris doing the best job in making the sprint race podium but also being the only of the year’s top four to actually score on Monaco’s streets.

Ferrari junior Antonio Fuoco started from reversed grid pole, having finished the feature race in eighth place despite a drive-through penalty for putting Ghiotto in the barrier at the start.

Norris, who also picked up a feature race penalty for contact, started third and took a place immediately from a slower-starting Aitken, who then lacked power up the hill and had to retire with a technical issue.

An early virtual safety car to clear cars stranded on the grid was followed by a full safety car when Sean Gelael crashed heavily at the Swimming Pool on lap four of 30.

After initially building a one-second lead at the restart, Fuoco’s advantage was cut by Norris to just 0.3 seconds at one stage, before a particularly slow lap from the McLaren junior increased the gap to 1.7s.

Following a brief VSC when George Russell crashed on lap 20, Fuoco’s lead went above three seconds, where it remained until the safety car returned on lap 27 when Alex Albon and Roy Nissany collided exiting the tunnel.

With little warning, the race was restarted with two laps to go with Norris right up behind Fuoco, but the Italian enjoyed a good gap once he put his foot down out of the Swimming Pool section. The race was immediately neutralised once again though as Nirei Fukuzumi and Santino Ferrucci skated deep into La Rascasse on the restart.

That secured Fuoco victory and Norris second, but post-race both were found to have breached the VSC regulations and had the time they had illegally gained added to their race time. That had no effect on Fuoco, but dropped Norris to third behind Louis Deletraz.

Pierre Gasly FE 2017 New York E-Prix 2
Distance: 95.697km

Photo: Formula E

Photo: Formula E

The absence of Sebastien Buemi due to World Endurance Championship commitments meant Pierre Gasly was called up to run in Formula E’s two New York E-Prix races in 2017 during his title-challenging sole season in Super Formula.

It wasn’t a great start as he clouted his car against the circuit limits during qualifying for Saturday’s E-Prix, and it meant he started from 19th place. He maqde up for it later in the day by charging up the order and scoring six points with a seventh place finish.

It was a turnaround of form for the next day too, as he topped the entirety of group qualifying, but a major wide moment in the super pole session limited him to fourth place on the grid when pole was definitely on the cards. With laptimes of just over a minute, it meant the whole 49-lap race of Sunday could be completed in under an hour.

He dropped back at first, but was rapidly closing in on the battle for second place at the end. In fact he approached the battle too quick, slamming into the barriers at the final corner as looked at making a move on the two Mahindra cars ahead of him before they met the chequered flag.

Once Buemi was back in the series, Gasly’s time in FE was quickly forgotten. However he is the first FE driver to then go on to win a F1 grand prix.

Charles Leclerc F2 2017 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

The first races on home soil for Charles Leclerc went, quite frankly, dreadfully. The F2 rookie took pole, and was controlling the feature race until a safety car interruption shortly after his pitstop.

The issue was the safety car picked up long-time leader Leclerc rather than yet-to-pit Oliver Rowland, who was then able to streak past Leclerc and make his own pitstop without a loss.

It only got worse for Leclerc, as vibrations on the front-left wheel led to a second trip to the pits. He rejoined the action, but then retired and that left him down in 17th on the grid for the sprint race.

While fellow rookie de Vries led home his veteran Rapax team-mate Johnny Cecotto Jr for an impressive first win, Leclerc toiled again as contact with Norman Nato at Rascasse put Nato into retirement and earned him a 10s penalty. His car wasn’t responding well after the clash though, and he soon retired too in the pits.

There was more turmoil in the coming weeks for Leclerc, but he put in some of the performances of his life thereafter to take a dominant title win.

Antonio Giovinazzi GP2 2016 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

Photo: GP2 Media Service

A feature race error cost a potential maiden GP2 win for Antonio Giovinazzi on the streets of Monaco, but he instead left the principality with his first four races ending in 11th, retirement, 11th and 18th. A few weeks later he made up for it with a memorable double win in Baku.

He originally finished seventh in the Monaco feature race, but a penalty for cutting the chicane dropped him to 11th, and therefore took him from second to 11th on the sprint race grid.

There was no impressive comeback from the Italian, as he dropped to last on the opening lap and at first only gained places from drivers ahead retiring.

He passed Latifi, but that only brought him up to 18th and he remained in that position for 20 laps.

Honda junior Nobuharu Matsushita was promoted to pole off the back of Giovinazzi’s penalty, and he made the most of it to dominate. Marvin Kirchhofer finished a distant second, and Raffaele Marciello rounded out the podium.

Esteban Ocon GP3 2015 Abu Dhabi sprint race
Distance: 77.641km

Esteban Ocon claimed the 2015 GP3 title in the season finale at Yas Marina Circuit, while Campos Racing protege Alex Palou claimed his maiden series win.

Palou led the field off the line from reversed grid pole and quickly pulled away from Fuoco to triumph by 4.2 seconds.

Ocon made a strong start to his race from fifth on the grid, despite making light contact with title rival Luca Ghiotto. He went past Ghiotto and Matt Parry to move into third, which was enough to be champion.

Ghiotto did pressure Ocon for position for several laps but he couldn’t find a way through, meaning his five wins wasn’t enough against Ocon’s podium consistency for the ultimate prize.

Future Zakspeed star Jimmy Eriksson finished fifth, and Emil Bernstorff was sixth.

Max Verstappen F3 2014 Macau Grand Prix
Distance: 91.800km

Photo: MGPC

Photo: MGPC

The biggest race of Max Verstappen’s sole year in junior single-seaters was his win in front of his home fans in the Masters of F3 event at Zandvoort. That came in at 107.675km, but the shorter Macau Grand Prix carried more prestige.

Verstappen qualified third around the Guia Circuit, and moved up to second early on in the qualification race. However his inexperience got the better of him as he wrecked his rear suspension with contact and had to go to the pits to retire.

That left him in 24th place on the grid for the grand prix itself, denying any chance to use his pace to win. But it didn’t stop him from trying.

Five places were gained on lap one as a multi-car quagmire appeared following a collision between Vertstappen’s FIA European Formula 3 rivals Tom Blomqvist and Ocon further up the field. The resultant red flag delayed the action by some time, and wheen green flag racing ensued it became an early Verstappen masterclass.

He picked off on average one car per lap to rise all the way up to seventh place, taking fastest lap by almost a quarter of a second on the way. In addtion, he was the highest placed Volkswagen-powered driver in a race dominated by Mercedes’ unit.

Carlos Sainz Jnr FR3.5 2014 Hungaroring race 1
Distance: 96.382km

Roberto Merhi claimed his third Formula Renault 3.5 win in four races in a wet Hungary, finishing almost 30s clear of the field.

The Spaniard made his way from seventh on the grid to second at the start, then put several laps of pressure on poleman Oliver Rowland, who eventually cracked when he ran deep at turn one.

Merhi then ran away at an astonishing pace, while countryman and points leader Carlos Sainz Jr had a strong beginning to the race too to overcome a bad qualifying session. From 14th on the grid he made it to fourth, but further progress was halted by fellow Red Bull junior Gasly who defended hard.

As the track dried, Gasly then hunted down Rowland for second successfully as Sainz settled for fourth and a cut to his championship lead. It was a performance that, while impressive, didn’t help his ambitions of a 2015 F1 seat.

Series debutant Ocon held off the attention of Jazeman Jaafar to take ninth.

Valtteri Bottas FIA F3 Int. Trophy 2011 Macau Grand Prix
Distance: 91.800km

Photo: MGPC

Photo: MGPC

Valtteri Bottas’s main focus in 2011 was GP3, which he won the title in, and he also got his first F1 test with Williams. At the end of the year the focus was on a F3 return at the Macau GP with Double R Racing, and it started off encouragingly as the Finn went fourth fastest in qualifying.

He then kept it clean to retain that position in the qualification race, with some drivers able to get past but making mistakes that undid any advantage they briefly had over Bottas.

The main race was a different matter though, with far more risks being taken given what was on the line, and in the last of his three-wide moments going into Lisboa with Dani Juncadella and Felipe Nasr he braked later than his opponents – with rear brakes he was already struggling with – which left him with too much speed as he turned and he clattered the barriers. His race was over.

Daniel Ricciardo FR3.5 2011 Monaco
Distance: 100.200km

FR3.5 only held one race in its Monaco rounds, and that freed up Daniel Ricciardo to spend Thursday driving for Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) in F1 free practice.

When he hopped back into his usual car he was fastest in practice and qualifying, and that set up a lights-to-flag win. Brendon Hartley and Robert Wickens applied pressure through the first handful of laps, but Hartley started being more cautious and Wickens was saving his challenges for the end.

Two safety car interruptions kept Wickens on the tail of the leader, but strong corner exits for the leader meant there was nowhere around the circuit where Wickens could make a move. The result was Ricciardo’s second Monaco win, his fifth FR3.5 win and another point to take to Dr Helmut Marko to convince him he was already F1-worthy.

Sergio Perez GP2 2010 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.200km

Having brilliantly won the feature race the day before – his first win in the main GP2 series – Sergio Perez was therefore tasked with doing what he could from eighth on the grid in the sprint race. In one of the more chaotic Monaco races, Addax driver Perez kept his head cool to salvage a point.

Incidents for Scuderia Coloni’s Alberto Valerio and Racing Engineering’s Dani Clos, as well as a drive-through for Rapax’s Pastor Maldonado for jumping the start, allowed Perez to slide into the top six (and thus the points) despite being passed by Trident’s Cecotto.

At the end of the race, Perez was pressuring Rapax’s Luiz Razia while also holding off Arden’s Charles Pic. Up front, DAMS’ Jerome d’Ambrosio beat Addax’s Giedo van der Garde by a narrow margin, while ART Grand Prix’s Jules Bianchi made bold moves to take third on a track he would rise to stardom on four years later.

It was a rather incident-heavy race, with five drivers including Maldonado picking up penalties and seven of the 24 drivers not seeing the chequered flag.

Sebastian Vettel FR3.5 2007 Monaco
Distance: 83.500km

Photo: Renault Sport

Future two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel would have had a stronger chance to win on the streets in FR3.5 not long before his F1 call-up with BMW Sauber if not for a simple luck of the draw.

The qualifying groups that year were decided with a draw, and Carlin driver Vettel was placed in what was the group that appeared to have the slower track conditions.

Tech 1 Racing’s Alvaro Parente was the lucky man on the day and put it together to stick it on pole despite hitting the wall, and future FE racer Salvador Duran thought he was on pole but set his fastest lap while yellow flags were being waved.

Parente nailed the start and had to withstand pressure throughout the 25-lap race from Vettel, who was never more than 1.5s behind. Vettel had a moment on lap 15, cutting the Swimming Pool chicane, but kept the pressure on until the end.

Duran barged his way from fifth to take third after passing Milos Pavlovic at the start and inheriting the final podium spot after Clivio Piccione spun late on. Future F1 driver van der Garde rounded out the top five.

Lewis Hamilton GP2 2006 Hungaroring sprint race
Distance: 100.756km

Photo: GP2 Media Service

The Hungaroring sprint race was held in abysmal conditions shortly before F1’s first wet race at the circuit. Hamilton was in the midst of the toughest round of his GP2 season, while title rival Nelson Piquet Jr aimed to be first to complete a perfect weekend.

Giorgio Pantano spun off on the sighting lap for GP2 drivers, and the race began under the safety car. The cars were released on lap three, with Hamilton starting from 10th following a recovery from crashing in practice, spinning in qualifying (which put him last) and then using scintillating pace to rise to 10th despite a drive-through in the feature race.

Jose Maria Lopez spun off early in the sprint race after starting from pole, before Andre Negrao had a huge shunt that allowed Piquet and Hamilton to make up ground. Piquet also made crucial moves on E.J. Viso and Hamilton’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Alexandre Premat for second.

That became first when Racing Engineering’s Adam Carroll, who was leading, spun into the barriers. Piquet enjoyed a five-second lead over Premat, who did not make it easy for his team-mate to get by.

Piquet went on to complete the first GP2 perfect weekend – pole, both wins and both fastest laps – while Hamilton salvaged a second place from 10th on the grid and Premat completed the podium.

While the Hungaroring sprint race marginally exceeds the length of F1’s first sprint race, Hamilton did end the previous year with victory, pole and fastest lap in the 82.332km F3 Euro Series finale at Hockenheim.

Kimi Raikkonen FR Eurocup 2000 Spa-Francorchamps
Distance: 76.648km

Photo: Renault Sport

Kimi Raikkonen is synonymous with Spa-Francorchamps, so it’s only apt that he triumphed in a Formula Renault Eurocup outing in the Ardennes having already clinched the United Kingdom crown a month earlier.

Charles Zwolsman was on pole, but Manor Motorsport’s Raikkonen got by on the run down to Eau Rouge and simply sprinted off into the distance after that, opening up a lead of four seconds to a charging Matteo Grassotto, who started fifth.

Grassotto had to battle with Raikkonen’s future Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa to take third place before working his way past Zwolsman for second.

Such was Raikkonen’s pace in the race, he told Autosport at the time that “the first day was tough” when qualifying was held, but that “in the race, it was okay again, and I was able to back off to conserve my pace”. Another future F1 driver – one-off star Markus Winkelhock – finished sixth and Massa came home in eighth.

Fernando Alonso FOpen by Nissan 1999 Valencia Ricardo Tormo race 2
Distance: 100.125km

While Fernando Alonso clinched the Formula Open by Nissan title in the finale at Valencia in his most recent sprint race, there was controversy surrounding it.

The Campos Racing rookie worked his way past title rival Manuel Giao on lap two of the race to take second place behind future IndyCar racer Tomas Scheckter, but Scuderia Famo’s Giao felt the move was done under yellow flags.

Alonso undercut Scheckter in the pits to take the win and the title in the finale. Giao protested the overtake but to no avail, and he later appealed the decision.

Behind Alonso was series debutant (and race one winner) Scheckter, with Angel Burgueno rounding out the podium ahead of Giao.

*This article originally ommitted mention of IndyCar’s 2012 Iowa races, where qualifying and a knockout format combined for a final heat where the winner was awarded pole for the main race. The race had its own points format to reward its finishers rather than awarding a point for pole.

The post The last time each current F1 driver did ‘sprint qualifying’-distance races appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: FRECA

The Formula Regional European Championship adopts many aspects of the now defunct Formula Renault Eurocup this year, but more noticeably has grown its grid from 12 to 30 cars. Here’s the need-to-know details for 2021

Formula 1’s latest support series kicks off its third season at Imola this weekend with a capacity grid and driver transfers still taking place between teams. The Formula Regional European Championship is now Europe’s de-facto lead Regional Formula 3 series after taking on various parts of former rival Formula Renault Eurocup, and once again takes an important place in the FIA superlicence points table that puts it level with Super Formula. It’s no wonder it is has ballooned in popularity.

But what elements of FREC’s first two years are being kept on, and what bits of the Eurocup has it added that could benefit the teams arriving from that series? All is explained below:

Eurocup memories

Reflecting both the Regional F3 merger and of the rebranding of the Enstone-based F1 team, the full name of the series this year is ‘Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine’ as it switches from Alfa Romeo to Renault power. As both series used the Tatuus T-318 chassis in the past, it’s the five FREC teams from 2020 that have to work with a new engine and actually have the biggest challenge.

Race weekends will now use the old Eurocup format too, with a slimming from three races to two and, depending on the timetable, with the first qualifying session setting the grid for race two and the second qualifying session setting the grid for race one. To counter the reduced racing action at each round, the number of rounds has increased from eight to a planned 10 that includes inheriting the Eurocup’s support slots at the Emilia-Romagna and Monaco grands prix and its trips to Germany and the Netherlands.

The top five teams from last year’s Eurocup standings all make the switch over into the new series, with MP Motorsport additionally continuing to run the Fernando Alonso-branded FA Racing team.

Photo: Renault Sport Series

There are 10 drivers coming across from the Eurocup, led by 2020 race-winners Franco Colapinto (MP), Alex Quinn (Arden) and David Vidales (Prema). Of those three it’s only Vidales who is changing teams, having raced for JD Motorsport in his debut season in cars last year, and all three are expected to be title contenders.

Gregoire Saucy stays with ART Grand Prix and he topped the pre-season Barcelona test and came second in the Paul Ricard test, so far upstaging a pair of highly-rated rookie team-mates in Italian Formula 4 champion Gabriele Mini and Thomas ten Brinke, a veteran of five Spanish F4 events.

Vidales’ 2020 team-mate William Alatalo has left JD despite the success he also had there to join Quinn at Arden. JD instead gives a European debut to both Eduardo Barrichello, son of 11-time grand prix winner Rubens, and Tommy Smith.

After being dropped by what is now the Alpine Academy following a underwhelming rookie season with MP, Hadrien David has already responded well in his move to R-ace GP by going fastest at Imola in testing. Rookie team-mate Isack Hadjar, second in French F4 last year, also carried over his strong form from Asian F3. Paul Aron has kept his Mercedes-AMG patronage despite faring even worse than David in ’20, and he’s swapped ART for FREC mainstay Prema.

What’s retained from FREC

Four titles out of four in FREC’s first two seasons makes Prema an inevitable favourite for success again in 2021, and its line-up is completed by Ferrari junior and Italian Formula 4 graduate Dino Beganovic.

The presence of Patrik Pasma on the grid could contribute to a defeat in the drivers’ championship though, as the KIC Motorsport driver broke Prema’s 2020 hold on first place with four wins and three poles in a second half of the season where he scored more points than anyone else. KIC’s season had started with mechanical issues, which he will hope won’t recur.

DR Formula, with technical support from RP Motorsport, had been the team that was previously able to battle Prema at the front in FREC’s inaugural season. It faded last year with a sub-par driver line-up, with the exception of Ian Rodriguez’s Imola cameo.

Going in the opposite direction was Van Amersfoort Racing, which was finally able to show its true pace once it had more experienced drivers in its cars on a regular basis, and it now has a line-up of impressive F4 rookies from 2020 in Mari Boya, Lorenzo Fluxa and Francesco Pizzi.

Along with Prema and VAR, there’s another F3 long-timer in the series in the form of Monolite Racing, which first entered single-seaters in 2015. On FREC results alone it doesn’t look like a particularly potent outfit, with a best finish of sixth achieved twice from 18 races, but it won the FIA Central European Zone F3 title in 2017 and ’18 and then the F2000 Italian Trophy in 2019 as well as coming second in the Austrian F3 Cup that year, all with its driver Andrea Cola.

He has now landed a seat in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe with Target Racing, so the team has a new Italian protege in Italian F4 race-winner Pietro Delli Guanti and taken on fellow series graduate Jasin Ferati from Switzerland.

The Italian races at Mugello and Monza stay on from FREC, as do the Pirelli tyres similar in construction to the compound used in F4 but also mimicking the FIA F3 Championship rubber with a one-lap peak in qualifying.

Totally new bits

One of the changes in the sporting regulations this year is that each team can only field three cars at each race weekend with the exception that a fourth car can be run if raced by a woman. So far only R-ace GP has made benefit of this rule to bring Spanish F4 graduate Lena Buhler into its line-up, with every additional car useful for data acquisition to learn the secrets of the Pirelli tyres, although Buhler’s set to miss the season opener due to a broken hand.

G4 Racing is a new team, taking the space initially held by Eurocup team Bhaitech, and only has one full-time entry. It’s running Belen Garcia in its second car part-time after she conducted a private test programme with Global Racing Service – which doesn’t actually race in Regional F3.

The other new and exciting addition to the championship is a support slot at the Spanish Grand Prix. Both the Eurocup and FREC raced at Barcelona, with the former supporting GT World Challenge Europe and the latter alongside Euroformula. Now FREC will race with F1, meaning the first three rounds are all in the most prestigious support paddock of them all.

Listen to the accompanying podcast below, or find it on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Entry list

The post Preview: All you need to know about Formula Regional Europe appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: ByKolles Racing

Tom Dillmann graduated from junior single-seaters after winning the 2016 Formula V8 3.5 title, but the Frenchman never really left and has been a key part of a Euroformula team while also racing professionally

Since joining Euroformula in 2019, Motopark has been pretty dominant via its main team and the CryptoTower-branded offshoot it supports. And while learning last year’s new Dallara 320 it had a secret weapon on its books: Tom Dillmann.

The Frenchman, now 32, raced against the team early in his car racing career and won the 2010 German Formula 3 title for HS Engineering against Van Amersfoort Racing’s Daniel Abt and Motopark’s Kevin Magnussen. Dillmann joined Motopark for a F3 Euro Series round the year after, and soon began to coach its drivers in F3 and then Formula 4.

He’s now been at the German outfit for a decade, with a racing stint there that included GP2 in 2013 when it was the operation behind the Russian Time team. It was a move that came after part-seasons in GP3 and GP2 that had followed his F3 title.

“It was a cool story because I did a half-season the year before with a win, and I was trying to get a seat but it was really difficult,” Dillmann told Formula Scout in the Barcelona paddock last year.

“I was in Jerez in the official test and I did the best time with Hilmer Motorsport, and then Timo called me there and said ‘don’t sign anything with them, I cannot tell you anything yet but something is happening’. And a week later I was signed with Russian Time for a full season.”

In Motopark’s one attempt at GP2 it was able to win the teams’ title with Sam Bird and Dillmann, but not without compromise.

“For me it was more a two-year plan,” Dillmann said. “Sam was much more experienced than me. Many times I had to experiment on the set-up because the team wanted to really build very quickly, so I was not on the ideal set-up quite often but we learned as much as possible.

Photo: Alastair Staley/GP2 Media Service

“And the second year was going to be my year, basically, but it didn’t happen for sad reasons with the death of Igor Mazepa [the Russian Time owner who died in February 2014].

“After, I was let’s say the driver of choice when a team needed a driver. And then I found a full-time seat in Formula V8 3.5 for a couple of years as well. And this was also linked to coaching, because basically my team-mate brought me into the team to be the lead driver and develop the set-up but also work with my team-mate and try to help him with my experience.

“I was driving and coaching at the same time when I was doing  FV8 3.5, the first year with Sean Gelael and the second year with Alfonso Celis Jr was the same programme. That was what was supposed to happen actually in the second year with Russian Time, with Artem Markelov. I was supposed to stay there, go for the title but also build Artem up, as I was working with him in German F3 with Motopark already.”

Markelov took the Russian Time seat and went on to have a long career in GP2/F2, while Dillmann made cameos and coached ex-Motopark drivers in the series. His FV8 3.5 switch came in 2015 and he claimed two podiums with Carlin before moving to AV Formula for his second season, where he not only turned the team into a race-winning one but also became champion.

“The team had never won a race. But the first time I jumped in the car after the year with Carlin – which was difficult, disappointing in a way – I was really happy with the car and much faster than I was with Carlin. And then the season, we were just building a championship by being consistent. There was only one goal: to win the championship.

“So we did what we had to do to win the title, take the points, the podiums. We had a little slump in the final third of the season, and then we came back here at Barcelona which was quite a crazy race to take the title. It looked spectacular the last race to win it, but I think we were very strong as a whole the whole year, very consistent and just very much a good season.”

Photo: Formula V8 3.5

Dillmann had led the points for much of the time, but a tricky penultimate round at Jerez put him behind Fortec Motorsports’ Louis Deletraz. That gap grew in the first race of the Barcelona season finale, with Dillmann starting ahead but losing to Deletraz in a scrap for second as he built up knowledge of AVF’s spare chassis he was now driving. Deletraz then took pole for the title decider, with Dillmann down in seventh, but the latter undercut his way to victory and title success.

F1 didn’t come calling for Dillmann, but as he says, “the thing is I was already professional”. In GP2 with Motopark, and then in both FV8 3.5 campaigns he had been a professional racing driver in a junior series – a rarity – as he was paid to race.

“Thanks to the title in ‘16 then I got a shot in Formula E, so it was great. I did my debut in the middle of the season in Paris in 2017, and it went well, and then I finished the season. So I did half a season of FE, then the year after I was really busy because I did LMP1, some races in Super Formula, where I was only supposed to do two races but then I ended up finishing, and I did three races in FE as well with a good result, which led to a full-time seat with NIO [for 2018-19].”

While Dillmann’s career appeared to be taking off, he was still in the F3 paddock with Euroformula. In sportscars he quickly worked his way up the ranks, starting with Alpine in LMP2 and then moving to the top LMP1 prototype class with ByKolles Racing. While he won’t be racing for the team this year, he will be developing its Le Mans Hypercar for 2022.

“Of course I’m really grateful to ByKolles because they gave me my first shot at doing Le Mans. I did a couple of World Endurance Championship races before with Alpine, which was successful, but my first Le Mans was with ByKolles and I will always be grateful for that.

“For sure the ByKolles LMP1 was not the most competitive LMP1, but it’s still a nice car to drive. It’s faster than LMP2, and LMP2 are already great machines nowadays. They are already very fast in Le Mans, and we are a bit faster than them, so it’s still enjoyable to drive. I know I cannot fight for a podium, but still I prefer driving this than a GT3 for example.”

Dillmann is used to lower levels of downforce though, whether it being in FE or when hopping into one of Motopark’s cars.

“Actually I’ve been testing a few days since they got the 320,” Dillmann said. “I did the first test in December [2019] with the car, just to help the team to do the first set-up, the base set-up, and also when we started to test with the new drivers, to give them a reference, to build them up a bit faster.”

Motopark’s set-up makes it stand out at some tracks as the rear of its cars move more – so to achieve higher apex speeds.

“The team has a philosophy in terms of car balance, and I know how to apply the driving style for that car balance,” Dillmann said of his role.

“I can drive any car balance I would say, without being arrogant or pretentious. So if it’s oversteer or understeer, I have the knowledge to know the driving style you need to use the car like this. Here, they have a philosophy and I know how to drive it well. I can show the drivers that maybe are not so convinced. I can jump in the car and show them.”

One famous example of this is Marino Sato, who spent two years in FIA European F3 with Motopark with no podiums and a reluctance to the team’s usual set-up, but the switch to Euroformula and Michelin tyres unlocked title-winning pace.

“I don’t know why some drivers adapt better or not. There’s also examples of teams where for drivers it doesn’t work. I think one of the most noticeable ones is also ART Grand Prix. For some really good drivers, it just doesn’t work for them because they also have a philosophy, and if you don’t apply you’re not going to be fast. And it’s similar here [at Motopark]. But it depends also how late you get a driver. Because if the driver has done already three to five years of single-seaters and he has built a habit, it’s very difficult for some drivers to change that.”

One of the drivers Dillmann got to work with at the start of their career was Max Verstappen, who did his first F3 test with Motopark and won the Masters of F3 at Zandvoort with the team.

Dillmann added that while it may take longer for some to successfully adapt their driving to suit the set-up, a longer process may put them at a higher ultimate performance level in and out of Motopark’s cars than the faster learners.

Talking of drivers at the start of their careers brought Dillmann back to his own racing origins, after a quick side-step as to why a proud Frenchman has spent a decade embedded in a German team.

“I know I am one of the only French that Timo can support, but that is probably because I am from Alsace, in the east of France. So we get on well, because I’m from this part of France that is on the border. Like 10 minutes from my hometown is Germany.”

Despite the proximity to Germany, all of Dillmann’s formative racing was done in his home country.

“I didn’t do a lot of karting. My father used to race, but he was also building his own race car. He was his own mechanic, he was doing everything. So I did soapbox, my first year in racing my father made a soapbox and we did that for fun.

“It was interesting because you need to be very smooth and always keep the speed up because you have no engine. It takes some skills to be fast in these.

“Maybe I wouldn’t push so much [if I got in a soapbox now] like I was doing when I was nine years old. I didn’t really care about the risk or anything. Maybe it would be different now.

“Coming back to karting, I only did three years because basically I was doing everything with my father. He was doing the engine, mechanic, just him and me. As he was more into racing cars, he didn’t understand fully karting, so it was much easier for him to take care of a race car. So as soon as I turned 15, I could race in Belgium in Formula Renault 1.6. And there our sponsor bought us the car, another bought us a truck, and we did the championship just him and me.

“He was driving the truck, doing the mechanic, everything. We had no laptop, so I never saw data until later on in my career.”

Dillmann also entered some races in Italy and Spain, before selling on the car to fund a step up to FR2.0 where a father-and-son team wouldn’t be competitive without assistance.

“We had to start to go to teams. Luckily with what I was doing with our small team, with my father, we found a lot of help from many great people that we could put a budget together because they liked the story and they believed I could do something better with a proper team and all. That’s how I could go to FR2.0 after.

“And when I was in FR2.0, then I got Red Bull, so it helped me to go F3.”

The first year in FR2.0 didn’t include any points finishes, and was spent with several teams across part-time campaigns in the Eurocup and France, but the next year he moved to SG Formula and claimed his first wins as well as Red Bull’s attention.

“It was quite funny actually because it was here in Barcelona, the last race of the Eurocup I was starting second twice, and [Red Bull junior] Filipe Albuquerque was starting P1 with Motopark. He had to win the race to win the championship.

“On the grid, when I was sitting there on the front row, Dr Helmut Marko [head of the Red Bull Junior Team] came to my car when I was sitting in the car, and he told me to be careful with Albuquerque. He didn’t tell me to finish second, but he told me just to be careful and that he wanted to see me after the race. So then I got a shootout, and after the shoutout I got a seat.”

Photo: F3 Euro Series

It was as a Red Bull junior that Dillmann got his first taste of F3 in 2007, driving for ASM (later to become ART GP) in the Euro Series. It didn’t go to plan.

“Unfortunately I had a crash in the last pre-season test where I broke my sternum [central chest bone] and a vertebrae. I was really fast until the crash, even compared to Romain Grosjean, Nico Hulkenberg, Kamui Kobayashi, I was really fast in the tests, all the tests. And then the crash put me quite on the back foot.

“I missed the first round, and yes there were some podiums, but not spectacular. The second year they put me with SG Formula, that were beginning in F3, and I had also to bring a part of the budget then. They started to not pay the full one, which was difficult in my situation because once I got Red Bull on my [side], all the help I had from before they thought ‘OK, job done, you made it’. And when I came back and had to ask [them] to put something in so I could do the full season, it was not possible. So my only hope was to do good with SG at the beginning so that Red Bull say ‘OK, we will keep going’. But unfortunately it was a complete disaster.

“SG was my team in FR2.0, so I had faith in them but it was a complete mess. We missed some free practice in the race weekends, the car was failing. The first six races I had four DNFs for mechanical reasons, so it was really, really bad and I had no chance to do a result with this team. And then came the moment where the part of the budget I was supposed to bring had to be brought, and it was not there. It ended like that.

“One month later I found a seat with Jo Zeller Racing, again in the Euro Series, and I finished on the podium straight away in front of all the other Red Bull juniors that were there. But it was not enough, Marko didn’t take me again.”

But for Dillmann there was a third year in F3 once he was out of Red Bull’s doors, split between the Euro Series and the German championship, and race-winning pace in the latter then led to him returning there in 2010 when he won the title.

“From then on, I had no budget. It was impossible [after Red Bull]. At some point it was very likely that it would be the end for me. But luckily I got calls from struggling teams that wanted a driver to help them to do a result or to develop the car, and like that I could keep racing in F3.”

Eight years later and Dillmann would be doing the same in FE, on the streets of Paris no less, being called up last-minute to make his series debut with Venturi based on the reputation of his previous years of quick adaptation and the development work with Motopark. He scored on his debut, kept the seat until the end of the season and then was a stand-in again in 2018.

While he failed to find a seat for the 2020-21 season, Dillmann is very much on the FE radar and he seeks a full-time return to a series which is almost the complete opposite of his Euroformula-based role with Motopark.

The post How an F3 job helped Tom Dillmann’s way from soapboxes to sportscars appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Alexandre Guillaumot / DPPI

Formula 1’s most dominant outfit has one of the least prominent junior teams, but it’s first three signings all made it to single-seaters’ top level. Paul Aron explains what it’s like being one of Mercedes-AMG’s proteges

For one-and-a-half seasons, Paul Aron has been carrying Mercedes-AMG’s branding on his helmet and overalls as an official junior of the record-breaking Formula 1 team. In fact, he’s been the only driver to do so in junior single-seaters in that time.

During his debut year in car racing with Prema he won four races across twin campaigns in ADAC and Italian Formula 4, and topped the rookie standings in the latter as well as only narrowly missing out on the overall championship runner-up spot. He then moved up to Regional Formula 3 in the Formula Renault Eurocup, but a tricky season with the returning ART Grand Prix team only resulted in one podium left him 11th in the points.

While drivers who finished ahead lost their F1 junior status, Mercedes kept faith in Aron and he now returns to Prema to contest the Renault-powered Formula Regional European Championship where the only ‘new’ element will be Pirelli tyres.

He joined the Formula Scout Podcast earlier this week to discuss why 2020 ended up being such a tricky year, what being back at Prema means for 2021, the secrets of his winter training programme and of course what it’s actually like to represent Mercedes. You can listen to the interview here, read it below, or find it on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

First of all, looking back at 2020. ART GP romped to a double title win in the Eurocup last year, with third-year driver Victor Martins earning his way back into the restructured Alpine Academy by becoming champion. Such was Martins’ dominance that the team only needed three points from his team-mates Aron and Gregoire Saucy to wrap up both titles.

Both contributed more than enough, but there were also many occasions for Aron in particular where points went amiss through mechanical failures, contact with others (both through error and innocence) and avoiding incidents in the midfield.

“The season started, we had problems with the car in the first rounds,” Aron says. “And to be honest after that, the whole year we had problems with the car.

“I think it was like five or six rounds out of 10 we had some technical issues and it was mainly with the gearbox. But the problem was that every time I had pace and every time there was a chance to do something, there was a technical issue or some bad luck that just destroyed all the chances. So for sure at the end of the season it was difficult to show some pace and some good races, when all the year had been really difficult.

“I wouldn’t say the racecraft is my weak point, normally I’m quite good at racecraft. I think it was just everything kind of falling apart all together.”

The COVID-19 pandemic also limited the time Aron spent with ART GP outside of race weekends, and left communication through the season lacking too as Aron was the only English speaker in a team that operated entirely in French.

“One of the main problems last year was that I couldn’t spend much time with the team. So I didn’t really get comfortable with my engineer, we didn’t really trust each other. And when you don’t trust your engineer it’s really difficult to learn. This year, we made sure that I would get along with my engineer well, and for sure Prema made me feel at home.”

Photo: Clément Luck / DPPI

Aron has already been to Prema’s Italian base this year for its traditional pre-season media activities – which besides photoshoots includes team bonding in activities such as karting and tennis – as well as simulator mileage and a seat fit.

For the 17-year-old it was a “no-brainer” to reunite with the team that had ‘helped me as a driver a lot’ in F4, and his FREC team manager is set to be none other than his older brother Ralf, a rival to Mick Schumacher in F4 and F3 and still only 22.

“He’s been my mentor my whole life, and I probably started racing because of him, because I went to watch his races when I was small,” the younger Aron explains.

“So I think that just gives me even more motivation. But like team-wise, I don’t think it really changes anything. He will still be the team manager, and I will still be the driver.”

Aron’s first mileage in Prema’s Tatuus T-318 car came in a test at Barcelona last December, where he ran back-to-back in the Alfa Romeo-powered 2020 FREC specification car and the Eurocup-spec car with Hankook tyres and topped the timesheet.

“The test at Barcelona with Prema was just superb,” Aron beams.

“The Pirelli tyres are really much, much better than the Hankook tyres. It changes the whole car and the car feels miles better. The team was just amazing, the car set-up from the beginning was really, really good, and the pace was mega.

“There was a problem with traffic quite often, and I think traffic will be a big problem this year because with the Pirelli tyres it’s more like FIA F3 where you do the warm-up and you have one push lap.

“But every time we got a clean lap we were first, and even sometimes with traffic we were still first, so I’m sure that the pace for this year will be mega.”

Photo: ACI Sport

ADAC and Italian F4 uses Pirelli tyres built to provide a similar feel to the ones now used in FREC, which may help F3 rookies.

“I think for the guys who are coming from F4 now to FREC have a bit of a, let’s say, upper hand.

“In the Renault car you had the Hankook tyres which were really weird, and it was kind of like there wasn’t any reference for when the tyre was going to be best. You had six or seven laps, and on one of those laps the tyre was going to be the best but you never knew which because the tyre was so inconsistent.

“So when you’re coming from F4, where the Pirelli works really similar to the FREC car, and you have a massive grid of cars as in FREC, I think that will be a bit of an upper hand. But for sure having experience with the car is more useful than having some experience with the tyre and the size of the grid.”

It’s Prema team-mates David Vidales and Dino Beganovic, who both raced in Asian F3 last month, who Aron thinks will be his biggest rivals, as well as Arden’s Eurocup star Alex Quinn and R-ace GP’s Euroformula-experienced Zane Maloney.

Is the pressure on from Mercedes for Aron to turn around his 2020 form into a 2021 title run?

“Well, the Mercedes Junior Team is more of like a low-key academy, let’s say,” admits Aron.

“There are two different mindsets. Renault and Red Bull, what they do is when the driver joins the Academy team, they really give them everything that the junior team has to offer. They bring them to the F1 races, they do training camps, you always feel really involved and you feel like you are really part of Red Bull, or Renault [now Alpine].

“What Mercedes does is they provide the driver with everything the driver needs, but they don’t make you feel like you have any pressure, you don’t feel like you are a Mercedes driver, maybe. You just feel like you’re kind of free and you can do whatever you want. So there are two different approaches. Mercedes lets you do what you want to do, and they just give you all the support you need, whereas Red Bull and Renault kind of book all of your free time to do some training camps and all that.”

And while Aron didn’t train with his fellow Mercedes athletes, he did follow Valtteri Bottas’s lead in taking to the ice in winter.

“This year we tried to put together a winter training programme. We’ve tried that every year, but the problem’s been that in Estonia for the past few years the winter hasn’t been too good, so the lakes haven’t frozen fully and then we couldn’t do any ice driving. But this year there was finally a really, really good winter with minus degrees for months straight.

“So I did a lot of ice driving with some trainer from Estonia. We tried to work on different stuff like driving, and he was trying to give me as much information as possible on the radio, and I tried to still focus on the driving.

“He would give me mathematical equations while I was driving, then I had to answer the equations also while driving on the track, so it was kind of working on the mental side so that when I’m on the race track and my engineer gives me some information on a quali lap, that I can take it and still focus on my driving and not mess up the lap.”

Unlike a usual track with a clearly marked, circuits on frozen lakes are difficult-to-see outlines marked out by a few posts and a difference in the thickness of the lake-top snow. It’s all white, and is where some of the best rally drivers learn their craft.

“The times we went, the weather was quite hard. You have the ice track, but there’s a little layer of snow on it. And when you do laps, you clear like a little track where the ice is exposed, and on the winter tyres with the studs, there’s a lot more grip on the ice [than on snow]. So the moment you go a little bit off the line and you hit the snow, you go straight out. That’s why it’s really important to concentrate.

“The last time I went, there was also a snowstorm and we were in the middle of the lake, so you couldn’t see really anything, and you had small little tyres lines which are pretty much the width of the tyre which you had to follow, otherwise you would just go out.

“It was definitely an interesting experience, and combining that with the mental side I think will help me a lot for the season.”

But as modern single-seaters aren’t to be thrown about like a rally car, how does the ice driving apply to circuit racing?

“The main idea of ice driving is to understand the change of the weight in the car,” Aron explains.

“Now, with the next generations, the cars are getting a lot heavier. All the junior single-seaters, F2, F3, especially Regional F3, are really heavy cars. So when you drive a rear-wheel-drive car on the ice, all you play with is the weight of the car. You don’t do much with the steering wheel, you do everything with the weight of the car. And if you manage to use the weight of the car to your advantage, this gives you much better pace on a real track.

“I think in the heavy car it is the main idea you have to understand is how to use the weight of the car to your advantage to get more rotation or less rotation.”

Alongside his racing, Aron is still at school in Estonia (where he’s currently living home alone as he completes the final step of getting his driving license) although he could relocate once racing begins as COVID-19 cases rise in his home country.

“To be honest, I like actually going to school. I mean I don’t like going to school, but I would see that if I wouldn’t go to school, I would go maybe a bit crazy. It’s just that when you’re in school, you always keep your mind occupied. If I wouldn’t go to school, I would just be like ‘I’m stupid’, like I wouldn’t do anything that would help me build me mentally.

“I take English very seriously, and this year when you choose the options [to study], I chose Finance as one of the main things, so yeah it’s quite interesting to learn about that.”

Older brother Ralf has been studying International Management and Finance at university, and Prema leapt upon that in 2019 when it needed a manager for its new FREC squad. Could Paul end up combining those interests in the coming years too?

“The goal is still to focus on my career as a driver. I guess when I would be owning my own team or being a team manager, I guess I would have failed in my [driving] career.

“Economics and finance are very interesting, but the main focus is still on achieving what I want from driving.”

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