Photos: ADAC

After struggling through to the end of 2022, German motoring association ADAC has ended its F4 series after eight years. Where did it go wrong? And what does its demise say about the country’s single-seater future?

It is hard to believe now that in each of its first two seasons – 2015 and 2016 – the ADAC Formula 4 championship boasted an average of 36 entries per race. At some tracks the number of entries was so great that some didn’t even qualify to race.

Champions include Juri Vips, Theo Pourchaire, Ollie Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and Formula 2 champions Mick Schumacher and Felipe Drugovich made their car racing debuts there. ADAC F4 has an impressive roll call of alumni.

Yet the final two rounds in 2022 had only 11 starters, despite Prema making an unscheduled return at the Nurburgring finale to win the titles. Only PHM Racing, Jenzer Motorsport and the one-car Sauter Engineering+Design were at all six rounds. Many of the series’ leading teams such as US Racing, R-ace GP and Mucke Motorsport have gradually packed their transporters for Italy or, in the case of Mucke, abandoned single-seaters completely.

• Feature: The question that led Mucke Motorsport to leave single-seaters

ADAC’s decision was taken at the end of November, but for the teams “it was already clear when we were asking at the final round at the Nurburgring for the schedule and they were not coming out with anything” says Roland Rehfeld, team manager of PHM who came second in the driver and teams’ standings on its debut in 2022.

Series stalwart Van Amersfoort Racing had been present since the series’ inception in 2015. Its CEO Rob Niessink undoubtedly speaks for many participants and followers when he says: “I feel really sad that the Germans didn’t manage to keep that series alive. It was the hot series of Europe and they let it slip away completely.”

Stephan Sauter, the father/team principal/chief mechanic in the Swiss family-run Sauter team, also regrets the series’ demise.

“For single-seaters in Europe it is a huge loss and the drivers are losing a great championship,“ he tells Formula Scout. “Overall, the level in ADAC F4 was very high.”

It is a decline that Formula Scout has visited before, notably after an all-time low of eight starters took to the grid at the Sachsenring in 2021, but there was always hope of a recovery.

At that time, the ADAC attributed much of the decline to young drivers’ insistence on racing on Formula 1 tracks rather than some of the less attractive German venues which are scantly seen in series higher up the single-seater ladder than F4. Niessink admits that “we cannot attract clients to decide in favour of Sachsenring, Oschersleben or Lausitzring; they simply don’t want to drive there”.

In a bid to counter this fear, the ADAC dropped the first two of those from the 2022 schedule, to be replaced by an extra round at the Nurburgring and a first visit since 2015 to Spa-Francorchamps, as one of the maximum two foreign rounds permitted by the FIA for a national championship.

With neither Hockenheim nor the Nurburgring being current F1 venues, the series’ tracks were clearly a disadvantage in attracting drivers but was far from being the only factor contributing to lack of interest.

“I would not only say that it’s the circuits,” says Jenzer Motorsport owner Andreas Jenzer. “Changing the circuits obviously helps a bit. The Italian championship has the best tracks, but when we speak about the British championship, they are not racing only on grand prix tracks, racing is racing; Spain is the same. They’re all good tracks, also the British tracks.”

Italian F4 races at Misano and Vallelunga, French F4 at Ledenon and Nogaro, British F4 at Croft and Knockhill and Spanish F4 at Navarra, all tracks that are not utilised in FIA superlicence points-awarding series above F4 and are unlikely to hold an F1 race in the near future.

Foto: Gruppe C GmbH

But they are still great circuits that really challenge and educate young drivers. Miles of asphalt runoff may keep the repair bills down for the teams but there is nothing like an old-school venue with grass or gravel to catch the error-prone to test and improve a driver’s skills.

Jenzer believes: “In the end, for the young kids, it’s not too bad to learn to drive at Oschersleben or in Lausitzring. Lausitzring is, I think, quite a nice track. [But] okay, it’s a little bit in the middle of nowhere.”

Though Niessink agrees that Italian F4 has some inherent advantages, he, like all those Formula Scout spoke to, praised the organisation of ADAC F4.

“The weather is good, the tracks are good in Italy, it’s clear – Monza, Imola or whatever – are better probably than the German ones but still the organisation was solid. It was reliable. It was cheaper. Although there weren’t so many cars it was extremely competitive. And they lost that completely and I really don’t understand why it was impossible to turn around.”

When FIA F4 was launched as a successor to Formula Abarth as an entry-level single-seater category, smaller teams were able to compete alongside the larger teams – 15 teams and four privateers contested the inaugural ADAC F4 season. But costs have undoubtedly escalated wildly in F4 with the top teams becoming ever more professional, boasting expansive and expensive paddock setups that attract F1 junior teams to place their talents with them.

While Italian F4 has fared somewhat better, the smaller teams are long gone from the German scene. Only the privateer father-and-son Sauter team from Switzerland has managed to hang on, and is, in fact, the only team to have contested every ADAC F4 round over the last two seasons with Stephan’s son Michael in the cockpit.

“Some teams got a little bit too big, too many cars,” says Jenzer. “It’s not a good situation when the small teams have not the possibility to go racing any more because with only two cars it’s never going to work out financially for the little teams and I think F4 its very important to have a good number of teams.”

“For sure, it is way too expensive,” agrees Rehfeld, but this is not unique to Germany. And the teams are, of course, far from blameless in offering more affluent clients ever more testing days.

Team owner Peter Mucke, a long-time supporter of F4 and single-seaters generally, made the point strongly to Formula Scout a year ago when he decided that it was no longer financially viable to compete in junior single-seaters.

Jenzer agrees, commenting: “I think we need to be more careful in F4 that the budgets are not going out of the roof. I think that in F4 there is also some possibility on the technical side and on the parts side that we could decrease a bit the costs. We have some issues or some things on the car where we are allowed too many things and obviously it’s performance-related and the teams with more money just go this way to use these things. I think we could keep the costs down in F4, I think we should be trying to save 10-20%.”

For a young driver like Max Reis, who chose France rather than his native Germany for the step up to F4 in 2022, cost was the overriding factor behind his decision. The centrally-run championship charges €120,000 for a full season and two tests, and even throws in a set of race overalls.

As his father, Ralph, explained, even including ancillary costs like travel, “a season in France costs around €250,000 to have a good year”. In comparison, “a season in Germany would cost €350-400,000 if you really want to be competitive, but there’s never an upper limit because you can go testing as much as your budget allows”.

Comparison with France is misleading as the FFSA can keep costs under control by running everything from one facility in Le Mans, and uses a structure which significantly restricts the set-up changes a driver can make.

Spanish F4 has retained a traditional teams-based approach and is also booming. VAR raced there, through its partnership with Monlau Motorsport, and in ADAC F4 last year and estimates that a season in the former costs around 25% less.

Photo: VAR

Cost may help to explain the growth of French and Spanish F4, but it does not explain why ADAC F4 has been comprehensively overtaken by an Italian series which “is basically the European championship” according to Jenzer.

There is certainly no cost advantage, indeed Germany had lower entry fees and for the northern European teams like VAR significantly lower travel costs.

Being part of the GT Masters package brought large crowds and ensured television coverage, in the same way that British F4 benefits from being on TOCA’s race weekend bill. Driver autograph sessions and the open paddock were always busy with fans.

“What is the strength of the Italian championship?” Jenzer asks rhetorically. According to the teams the answer is unequivocal – the lack of testing opportunities [in ADAC F4].

“We had absolutely zero possibility to do any testing. I think it’s a question of getting a bit better organised for testing possibilities on the German tracks. There is a very, very strong pre-season, mid-season and end-of-season testing schedule [in Italy]. The company who is organising the testing, Kateyama, offers us about 40 single-seater track days which is very easy to take part in.

“Attractive race tracks, each one at least two to three times. Obviously F4 is still the cheapest championship in which to make mileage and I think this is part of the strength of the Italian championship.”

Rehfeld shares the same view. “We have to compare – the Italians have over 40 cars, the Spanish have 34, United Arab Emirates F4, with all the travel challenges, over 32. Germany, 10. This is not just about the racetracks, for me it’s that we have no testing infrastructure. This is really a problem.

“As teams you have not the chance to get any seat time with track days and so on. Everything goes to GT cars. I was begging the ADAC to set up a test structure and they said, ‘but then we also need to do that for GT4s’. I said ‘Why? There’s no reason’. You cannot prepare the drivers with no testing on these race tracks.”

A possible half-day test at Zandvoort in June, a current F1 circuit and one that no other F4 series visits, was lost because of advertising hoardings. A huge missed opportunity, the teams argue.

“We were fighting hard to get Thursday as a four-hour collective test because the ADAC already owned the track for this event and they said ‘no, we can’t because we have to put up all these promotional banners for the TV’,” explains Rehfeld.

Outside race weekends, he adds that even private testing in Germany “is difficult as track day organisers are just going to the GT cars because formula cars would sacrifice their income”.

However, the teams’ desire (driven, of course, by their clients who are the drivers, their parents and sponsors) for ever-more testing is hard to reconcile with concerns about cost.

“[Costs are driven up] by the fact that there are no restrictions of testing, no restrictions on tyre usage,” Rehfeld explains.

“50 test days is just too much. For sure it’s good to have these guys on each relevant race track testing but at a certain moment for F4 teams there is no stop, no winter break when you then do all the UAE races.”

Back to the central paradox, Rehfeld continues: “How to overcome that? Difficult to say. This is an open market and this is why we’re just doing it. This is what the ADAC points out now just to justify [its] decision.”

For Sauter, testing on a championship circuit is a dream. “We’ve never tested during the season at an ADAC track, except for one time at Hockenheim in 2021.”

While the teams have nothing but praise for the co-ordination of the championship itself, they are critical of the lack of flexibility of the ADAC as an organiser and promoter. The last-minute decision to mandate the use of E10 fuel for 2022 was a further source of friction.

“One week before the series starts in Spa the ADAC told us that we’re running biofuel E10 and nobody has any idea how that affects tubes and fuel tanks and engines,” says Rehfeld.

“The problem with the ADAC is it’s a big, big company. It’s a club but really it’s a company. They’re not flexible and that’s the problem.”

The teams accuse the ADAC of lacking the urgency and the dynamism of a more hands-on race promoter who needs “to push to make the clients happy and to earn money”.

PHM’s owner Paul Muller adds: “you’re representing one of the largest automobile clubs in the world, very wealthy, money should not be your big problem. It feels like working with a former German bureaucracy, like Deutsche Post before they became a private company. If the ADAC would be much more bold and decisive there could be such a great impact they could have.”

With over 21 million members the ADAC is undoubtedly a huge organisation.  Not surprisingly, organising a national F4 championship is not at the top of the members’ priorities.

In stark contrast to Germany, Italian F4 has always been able to draw on a steady flow of drivers who come to Italy to race in the WSK-promoted kart competitions and then transition to cars in series, like F4, also organised by the company.

So the question arises as to whether the malaise is a symptom of the wider decline of single-seaters in Germany, while GT racing continues its remarkable popularity, having replaced touring cars at the pinnacle of German motorsport.

Photo: DTM

With the DTM coming under the control of the ADAC, there would seem to be no space on the ADAC’s own weekend schedules for three F4 races, particularly if each only had a handful of starters and a small return in entry fees.

Though the ADAC strongly refutes suggestion that the death of ADAC F4 is in any way related to its takeover of the DTM, an obviously frustrated Rehfeld is sceptical. In his view, the ADAC “sacrificed the ADAC F4 to keep another senseless championship in Germany”, referring to the establishment of a ladder with DTM at the top and the remnants of GT Masters falling in below as a second-tier German GT3 championship.

“The German market becomes more and more a GT country,” he says. “Young drivers from karting go straight into GT4 because of the successful lobby work of the German manufacturers to run GT4 and save money.”

“We don’t want to lose clients already with 15, 16 or 17 to GT racing,” argues Jenzer. “I think it isn’t right for the really high-level racing drivers.

“Something must be wrong because there is only one or two German drivers doing F4 and we are in the country with the highest level of car manufacturers. You see all those German names on all the GT4 and GT3 cars, and I think single-seater racing is still by far the best school to teach young kids about the techniques of driving but something must be wrong somewhere that kids are going so early.”

“Obviously from 2015 to 2017 the German [championship] looked very strong, in 2015 we had a bit of a Mick Schumacher-mania, the people wanted to beat Mick. It was great for the sport in Germany but it was maybe a little bit over the top, maybe too many cars and the quality of racing suffered a little bit,” he adds.

Jenzer believes that the huge fields in Italy and Spain in particular are a negative step. “The quality of racing when we have more than 30 cars starts to go down. You start to have accidents, you have gravel traps, the safety car is out there and it’s not racing.”

Rehfeld believes that a solution was within reach. “What the German F4 teams needed was an early schedule and the chance to have collective testing ahead of the events, maybe one day and then we can put a programme together even for drivers that haven’t the biggest budgets. Make a programme out of five or six race events plus one or two collective test days before, so that we are reducing logistics and personal and then we can overcome this lack of participation. This was the only thing we needed to have.”

Niessink points out: “With the ADAC the problem was that the calendar comes late. You never know who will join. You never know what tracks will there be. Then you need to see if the clients are interested and it’s always hard to convince clients to sign for something which they don’t know what it is.”

The ADAC unsurprisingly takes the view that it was impossible to finalise a calendar until the teams had committed a certain number of entries. Without a calendar, the teams and drivers are unwilling to commit, and with no teams or drivers signed up it is hard for the promoter to market the championship. A classic chicken-and-egg situation.

In fact, the 2022 calendar had been published in early November but it didn’t help. Niessink understands the ADAC’s frustration when “in the end teams didn’t show up or [only for] a little number of rounds”.

Both VAR and Prema have in recent years chosen to focus on Italy, with their part-time ADAC F4 participation dictated by if they sensed that the title was within reach after their first planned appearances, as with Bearman in 2021 and Antonelli in ’22.

Niessink explains that “each team really needs to have 10 events, you can’t live from seven events; if the ADAC would still be alive then we would have done seven Italian plus three in Germany, at the most attractive tracks on the calendar”.

As Sauter says: “They [the larger teams] would rather test on the same tracks again rather than racing in a second championship.”

Which left the ADAC facing the question of how to run a championship if the teams are only prepared to commit to three rounds as a “side programme” and cherry pick the most attractive circuits.

Rehfeld maintains that there was interest “from drivers to do the German championship, where there are approximately 18-20 cars where you can race without red flags and so on,” and claims that PHM, Jenzer and Prema had been willing to commit multiple entries for 2023.

Too little, too late? Could there have been another solution?

Niessink remembers trying to bring the ADAC and WSK, the promoter of the Italian championship, together to “organize a championship with 10 rounds and then you can decide like five plus five or whatever,” but nothing came of it, largely because the Italian series had become so strong that it did not need the support of the German camp. Although the Italians are now on course to launch a European F4 series.

The ADAC has opted for a different route: a collaboration with the FFSA under which two slots will be reserved for young German drivers, and supported by the ADAC.

Reis looked at other series but plans to stay in French F4 for his sophomore year of car racing.

“Even if we had a lot of money, France would still be a good option. It’s more comparable in France – all the drivers have the same conditions and it is much more down to the driver. The amount of testing you have does not make much of a difference. Even with less money you still have a chance to show your abilities.”

But Rehfeld is sceptical about French F4’s value as a training ground for young talents given the lack of opportunities to learn about setting up a racing car. “What happens after FFSA F4?” asks Rehfeld. “It is senseless to spend €150,000 on the French championship instead of doing a proper programme with teams where they can get their individual preparations.

Photo: FFSA / KSP Reportages

“I don’t know what [the ADAC] are expecting for the future, because having two seats in French F4 doesn’t mean that they have in 2026 a new F1 driver in Germany,” he concludes.

The French move inevitably prompts the question as to why the ADAC couldn’t have found a budget to support and promote young German drivers in its own series. “They could do so much more,” argues Rehfeld. “There are so many low-hanging fruits, there is so much you could do to bring German drivers into the championship.”

Is this Auf Wiedersehen or Adieu? Could ADAC F4 come back? For the time being, the ADAC is committed to making the co-operation with the FFSA work and is looking at expanding that further.

For Rehfeld it is too early to say, and “too political”, but could envisage a German manufacturer potentially coming in as an engine supplier, “and with a manufacturer like Audi I think there’s maybe a chance”, he says.

The frustration on all sides is audible. It is easy to point fingers and neither the ADAC nor the teams are blameless. Ultimately, the series’ failure can be attributed to the confluence of multiple factors, the perfect storm.

Unappealing German circuits and a limit on foreign rounds made the calendar less attractive. Costs were spiralling but this was true elsewhere. Germany couldn’t match Spain for cost and had no interest in a French-style centralised structure.

Faced with a choice of a primary programme, the teams and their clients overwhelmingly favoured Italy, a tendency which became self-perpetuating, and were not willing or able to commit to two full-scale programmes.

Above all, the lack of support from German teams and drivers was fatal. With the Michael Schumacher-inspired boom that produced drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Nick Heidfeld and Nico Hulkenberg a distant memory, the flow of young drivers coming into karting and moving up to single-seaters dried to a trickle.

Photo: BMW AG

When German teams could no longer commit either, then the writing was on the wall. And so, the series breathed its last. At least for now.

How the single-seater demise looks from further up Germany’s ladder (Ida Wood)

In addition to its entry-level series, Germany used to have a route from karting all the way into professional car racing seats for young drivers as the Formula 3 Euro Series, created from merging France and Germany’s F3 championships and which later evolved into FIA European F3, supported the DTM. The manufacturers in that series not only watched the drivers in F3 all the time, but also backed many of them too.

After European F3 ended, DTM promoter ITR introduced the GT4-spec DTM Trophy to try to replicate its model of having young drivers immerse themselves in the DTM paddock before landing professional drives in the series or elsewhere. But it had far less success in the modern DTM full of customer teams.

Marco Wittmann raced in F3 as a Volkswagen junior, then got picked up by rival BMW. He was its DTM reserve driver for a year, and has since been in its series line-up for a decade and won 18 races and two titles.

“It has changed a bit, because for me when I was young it was more the single-seater career first of all, and then you had the option to go further into like Formula 2 or F1, or you do the step to touring cars, especially in DTM,” he explains to Formula Scout in the DTM paddock.

“And it has changed a bit because you have a lot more touring car series that also when you are young [you] can drive like TCR, DTM Trophy, BMW M2 Cup. So there’s in my opinion more possibilities [in Germany] to start in touring cars, and then try to make the move later into GT World Challenge Europe, into DTM, those kinds of series. So it has separated a bit.

Photo: F3 Euro Series

“I got the opportunity [by being in F3] to do a test either with Audi or BMW. I decided for BMW, and I think it was the right call really to be not too optimistic in dreaming of to maybe drive in F1, because for me budget-wise it would have not been possible to do so. But I think it was the right step to go from single-seaters to touring cars to do the test with the DTM car, and then at the end I got first reserve drive, and a year later I was their factory driver. All-in-all, I think I did pretty much the right decisions.”

The demise of domestic single-seaters reduced accessibility to the DTM, which in combating some of the same issues as ADAC F4 actually made it harder for junior series to enjoy the same relationship with it as before. For many years under ITR, the DTM had calendars where half of the rounds were abroad and as far away as Hungary, Portugal and Russia as it sought to broaden his appeal to international investors and audiences.

European F3 could support that kind of schedule part-time, but it was impractical for a domestic series to do the same, and ITR boss Gerhard Berger told Formula Scout several times in recent years (following the failed continuation of European F3 as Formula European Masters) that having a supporting single-seater series as a feeder to the DTM was not among his goals.

Now the ADAC is in control of the DTM, it has reduced the number of rounds abroad from four to two. Both of those events for 2023 will be at tracks which ADAC F4 often visited, and it has scrapped the DTM Trophy too given it already had its own roster of series that could act as supports. A missed opportunity had ADAC F4’s hand been strong enough to still earn such a support slot, and exist…

“I think you need to keep quite a few German races because that’s the biggest fanbase we have at the moment,” says Wittmann, who proposes the DTM expands to 10 rounds so it can have a large group of German races but also races abroad.

The post The factors that ended ADAC F4, and left much of German racing at risk appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Prema

It’s hard to think of new superlatives to describe Kimi Antonelli’s 2022 F4 campaigns in Germany and Italy. The F1 junior took an incredible 22 wins from 35 races to complete a rare title double

In the end, and surprisingly so given the superiority of the champion of both, the title fight in the ADAC and Italian Formula 4 championships this year went down to the final round, with Taylor Barnard and Alex Dunne respetively holding outside shots.

However, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s closest rival may have been different in each championship, his class was a constant at all venues, in all conditions and from the beginning of the season to the end. A thoroughly worthy champion.

Having watched Dutch rival Van Amersfoort Racing become the first ever team to take a clean sweep of titles across both series in 2021, Prema bounced back in style to steamroller the opposition in the first year with the second-generation, halo-shod Tatuus T-421 chassis.

The train of red-and-white Prema cars at the front of the field, usually headed by Antonelli, inevitably provoked some mutterings of unequal equipment from those lagging in their wake. In truth, Prema simply did a more professional job.

The team undoubtedly benefitted hugely from the experience it gained with the new car over the winter in the United Arab Emirates’ F4 series, netting another trophy in the process and giving it a head start over its rivals on the return to Europe.

And its driver line-up was unmatched, comprising talents from the junior academies of Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes.

The Italian championship itself continued to go from strength-to-strength, firmly establishing itself as Europe’s pre-eminent F4 series, both in terms of the quality and quantity of its field. There were 55 drivers competed in at least one round, with a peak of 44 at Monza.

Photo: ACI Sport

At the Red Bull Ring, a track with a lower grid capacity, the field even had to split into three heats and a final. Inevitably, having so many cars on track resulted in more safety car periods and red flags.

Both ADAC and Italian F4 retained Abarth engines and Pirelli tyres from Gen1, allowing teams to run dual campaigns although in fact only two teams, Jenzer Motorsport and newcomer PHM Racing, ran a full season on both sides of the Alps.

Despite, or possibly because of the technical uniformity, the German series, once considered Italy’s equal, continued to fade and falter despite revising its calendar to focus on supposedly more attractive tracks and increasing the prize money on offer. The ADAC has decided not to run its championship in 2023 – a sad end after eight largely successful seasons.

Antonelli’s home crown

After impressing in last year’s final three rounds, Antonelli was hot favourite for the 2022 title when the season began at a wet Imola. But unfortunately, as he himself concedes, “the weekend was quite a bit of a disaster” – whatever could go wrong, did go wrong.

It was, he reflects, “a mix of bad luck and also I made some mistakes”. A gearbox issue put him out of race one while leading, and in race two he had to pit to replace his front wing as he tried to make up places after “quali two didn’t go as planned”.

After incurring a 10-second penalty for running into team-mate James Wharton in race three, Antonelli left Imola with just one point.

“Mentally, I wasn’t really on it. I was a bit frustrated, and I couldn’t really handle the emotions that weekend,” Antonelli reflects.

“So that brings me to do also mistakes during the races, especially race two where I had a good first lap and then I lost the front wing by cutting on a kerb too aggressively and race three because I had contact with my team-mate.”

Photo: ACI Sport

Instead, it was Alex Dunne who headed the standings with a win, a second and a third in Imola, none of them straightforward as he had to come from outside the top five on the grid on each occasion.

Dunne was back at US Racing, for whom he had made three appearances in Germany in the second half of 2021, for a full season in Italy in parallel with what was ultimately a successful assault on the British F4 title with Hitech GP.

Ferrari junior Rafael Camara had taken victory for Prema when Antonelli’s gearbox faltered but had to start race two from the back after engine problems in qualifying, making up 23 places in what would become a trademark charge through the field.

The surprise of the weekend was Dunne’s team-mate Kacper Sztuka, who took a win and a second, having failed to score a point as a rookie in 2021.

Antonelli’s first win came in the Misano opener after a race-long duel with Camara, and he followed it up with a more dominant win in race two. The Prema duo battled again in race three as a safety car allowed Camara to grab the lead in a frenetic conclusion to the race. Amazingly, that would be Camara’s last win as Antonelli embarked on a dominant unbeaten run that ran until September.

Italian F4 made its first ever visit to Spa-Francorchamps for round three, and there was plenty of action as Antonelli had to work hard for his first hat-trick of the campaign. Race two there was a slipstreaming thriller between Antonelli and Camara.

Antonelli’s job was made easier in race two as poleman Camara stalled on the grid, dropping to 34th before putting in an exhilarating recovery drive to take the final podium position.

In round four at Vallelunga, Antonelli was flawless – three poles, three wins, three fastest laps – as he resisted lap one challenges before pulling away to take maximum points with Camara again his closest rival. His sixth victory of the season in race one earned him the points lead for the first time.

Photo: ACI Sport

The capacity 40-car entry for round five at the Red Bull Ring necessitated the four-race format, with each driver participating in two of the three heats, the results of which determined the grid, and the non-qualifiers, for race four.

Changeable conditions meant that the opening two races both took place on a wet but drying track, with Dunne and Antonelli victorious. Antonelli’s Italian F4 winning streak finally came to an end after a puncture dropped him from contention in race three, with Sztuka claiming his second win of the year.

Dunne held off challenges from Sztuka and then a recovering Antonelli to win race four and keep his title hopes going.

Atrocious weather at Monza for the penultimate round meant only two races took place. Charlie Wurz scored his sole victory of the year from pole in race one as an off-track excursion, helped by team-mate Camara, forced Antonelli to the pits to replace his front wing, the Italian rebounding to take race two.

Dunne, who had opted to skip the British F4 title-deciding finale to chase Italian honours, moved ahead of Camara in the fight for second place, although the gap of 47 points to Antonelli left him with an almost impossible task in Mugello in the title fight. Consolation came with the news from Brands Hatch that he had clinched the British series in absentia.

Antonelli was back to his imperious best in Tuscany, with arguably his most impressive performance of the year, as he drove away from the opposition to take his third Italian hat-trick.

Behind him, two second places for Dunne left Camara needing a win in race three, which he would start from pole, to take second overall. Unfortunately, an overly-ambitious move from the US Racing driver saw him hit the back of the Prema car into turn one, eliminating Camara on the spot and incurring a drive-through penalty.

Due to a quirk of the regulations, Antonelli was still considered a rookie, despite having started 17 F4 races before the season started, and therefore comfortably claimed the rookie trophy ahead of Camara and F4 UAE champion Wurz.

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema was clearly the outstanding team, winning its title by 292 points. It scored 803 points; the other 14 teams scored 928.

Antonelli’s dominance cast long shadows over the results of his Prema team-mates, although Antonelli is the first to acknowledge the role the whole squad played in developing the car into the category benchmark.

Camara was unable to build on his Imola win. The pace was there, evidenced by four pole positions, but frustratingly he often seemed to lose out in wheel-to-wheel combat with the exception of his aggressive but fair move on Antonelli at Misano. The rivalry between the more introverted Camara and the effervescent Antonelli will continue for many years, not least in Formula Regional European Championship in 2023.

Wharton and Wurz ran consistently in the leading pack, or the group behind Antonelli at least, but their results should certainly have been better in Prema-run cars. Aside from Wurz’s win, they could only manage three podiums apiece.

Wurz had too few moments reminiscent of his title-winning start to the year in the UAE, but when he was on form he was the match of his rivals, while greater progress was expected of Wharton considering his testing miles prior to his race debut.

Having been pipped to last year’s rookie title, Prema’s fifth full-time driver Conrad Laursen rarely looked like challenging his team-mates. Tenth in the standings was one position lower than he achieved in 2021.

The impressive Dunne was the only non-Prema driver able to regularly challenge for wins, with team-mate Sztuka often not far behind, the pair taking five wins between them. Dunne’s performance to take the fight to Prema was particularly praiseworthy having never raced on the Italian tracks before.

It is probably not by coincidence that his two strongest weekends came in wet-dry conditions at Imola and the Red Bull Ring, where his natural car control could shine. Three fastest laps and some well-executed overtakes evidenced his race pace although on the only occasion he topped qualifying he would incur a five place grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags.

Photo: ACI Sport

VAR had a disappointing year with an all-rookie line-up, dropping to fourth in the teams’ standings behind US and PHM.

It gradually got on top of its setup for the T-421, with Martinius Stenshorne leading the Dutch squad. He was a consistent points finisher, finally grabbing two thoroughly-deserved podiums in the last two rounds to come seventh in the standings.

VAR’s two sons of illustrious racing fathers, Emmo Fittipaldi and Brando Badoer, endured tough years. Except for Badoer’s fifth in the first Red Bull Ring ‘heat’, neither finished higher than ninth. More had been expected of both, particularly Fittipaldi who had a race-winning Danish F4 season already under his belt.

Italian F4’s 2021 rookie champion Nikita Bedrin was happy to still be racing, having been rescued by PHM. He took two podiums but was largely outperformed by team-mate Taylor Barnard. PHM did well to be third in the teams’ standings, and saved uts most impressive performances for back home in Germany.

Four well-connected karters made their debuts at the Red Bull Ring. Dunne’s British F4 rival Ugo Ugochukwu joined Prema for two rounds to gain race experience on European tracks. The lanky McLaren-backed American was immediately a threat, taking podiums in all three of his races in Austria, followed by another at Mugello.

Red Bull’s Arvid Lindblad didn’t have quite as extensive testing programme prior to his debut, and two top-10 finishes at Monza underlined his potential, although two fluffed starts rather wasted his excellent qualifying showing at Mugello.

Niko Lacorte, son of Cetilar Racing founder and Le Mans racer Roberto, scored on his debut, while Sauber karter Zachary David made an immediate impression for US Racing, topping pre-event testing in Austria and taking a seventh place at Monza.

Ugochukwu, Lindblad and Lacorte have all impressed in post-season testing with Prema ahead of full seasons in 2023.

Photo: ACI Sport

FREC star Hadrien David was a surprise Italian F4 debutant at Monza, the Alpine-affiliated Frenchman having been drafted in by R-ace GP to help the team get to the bottom of its season-long lack of speed. David was on the pace straightaway, indicating that the team’s problems had been largely driver-related, despite Frederik Lund’s slightly fortunate pole at Imola.

In addition to Dunne, Antonelli and Wurz, a fourth F4 champion also made a cameo appearance in the first two rounds with Pedro Clerot taking a best finish of fifth at Imola ahead of his F4 title-winning season in Brazil.

Antonelli reaches new highs as ADAC F4 hits new low

Antonelli’s first F4 coronation was in Germany, where he saw off a surprise challenge from PHM’s Barnard in the final round at the Nurburgring. The former Nico Rosberg karting protege had developed into a consistent frontrunner through 2022.

Initially, Antonelli had been even more dominant in ADAC F4 than at home, with seven wins in the first eight races, an outstanding achievement given that the series, unlike Italian F4, features a reversed-grid race at each event.

Only one driver, Dennis Hauger in 2019, had ever completed a hat-trick of victories in a single weekend in the seven previous seasons of the championship.

Antonelli was simply untouchable in the second round at Hockenheim, topping both qualifying sessions and dominating the opening two races, before picking his way to the front from eighth on the grid to complete his clean sweep.

Remarkably, he came within 0.058s of repeating the feat in the next round at Zandvoort, not normally a circuit associated with plentiful overtaking manoeuvres. With dominant wins in the first two races already in the bank, he carved his way through the field, chasing down Laursen but falling just short of an implausible second clean sweep.

Photo: ADAC

Initially, Prema had only planned to do the first three rounds, and by that point the team already appeared to have an unassailable lead. The top non-Prema driver, Barnard, was 119 points behind Antonelli while Prema had an advantage of 166 points over PHM in the teams’ standings.

However, as Prema decided to travel to the Nurburgring for round four after all in the hope of putting the championships beyond reach, the tide changed. Barnard took both non-reversed grid race wins after close battles with Antonelli in each.

Antonelli crossed the line first in race one before being penalised for jumping the start, while a thrilling race-long duel in race two was decided in Barnard’s favour.

The Lausitzring has never been a popular venue as it provides limited benefit for a career in single-seaters, so Prema unsurprisingly chose to skip round five. Barnard took full advantage of Prema’s absence to take two wins and a second, narrowing the gap to 34 points ahead of the final round.

Prema’s participation in the final round had been in doubt until the last minute but, as Antonelli explained, “we still decided to do Nurburgring because, even though we missed Lausitzring, we were still in the lead [and] we knew we had a chance to win the championship”.

Once the team’s transporters rolled into the Nurburgring paddock, normal service quickly resumed. Prema locked out the first three grid positions for races one and two, and it was Camara who edged Antonelli for his first two ADAC F4 poles.

Antonelli felt that he had learned from his mistakes on the series’ first visit to the Nurburgring, 10 weeks earlier. “I knew I couldn’t permit to myself to do the same mistakes because the title fight was close and any mistake would have cost the title,” he told Formula Scout.

Photo: ADAC

In race one a late pass on Camara brought the Italian to within reach of the title, and he duly wrapped it up with another dominant victory – his ninth of the season – in race two, leaving Barnard the consolation of winning the season finale.

Camara’s season was overshadowed by Antonelli’s dominance. His only win came in a thrilling third race at Spa as he fought his way to the front from seventh. He finished second seven times, behind Antonelli on each occasion, and was forced to miss the first visit to the Nurburgring after a positive COVID-19 test.

Wharton, Wurz and Laursen took part in the first four rounds, with Wharton rejoining the grid for the season finale. Laursen and Wharton each took a reversed-grid win, but could not consistently match the top three’s pace. Ugochukwu joined in as a guest driver for the two Nurburgring rounds, and he netted two podiums.

Meanwhile the arrival of PHM was a breath of fresh air, and, in effect, can be said to have saved ADAC F4 for 2022. The Berlin-based team’s three full-time entries, plus Valentin Kluss once he was old enough to compete, ensured that the field never dipped into single figures.

And the team could take immense satisfaction from its performance in its first year. In reality, the title had never looked to be within reach barring miracles but, as team manager, Roland Rehfeld joked: “At least we forced Prema to attend the last race!”

Barnard’s remote chance of snatching the title from Prema’s grasp ensured a greater level of interest in the second half of the season than had looked likely after Zandvoort. The 18-year-old from Norfolk struggled to make an impression in 2021 with BWR Motorsports as a lack of budget limited him to a part-season and he looked to be on the way out of motorsport before being picked up by PHM.

Having been runner-up in the World and European Karting Championships, much had been expected of Barnard but until this year his performances had disappointed. Yet in 2022 he flourished, developing in confidence, physical strength and speed.

Photo: PHM Racing

After a difficult start with the new team, in the “second half of the season we really got the car in a good window and managed to get some good results,” he said.

“We were never close enough to win the title. But even second, I got a lot closer than I thought I would, so I am very happy.”

Barnard generally had a clear edge over team-mate Bedrin, who had also been ADAC F4’s rookie champion in 2021, and his fights with Antonelli at both Nurburgring rounds would have been inconceivable at the start of the year.

Bedrin was fortunate to find a berth at PHM after his funds dried up in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, losing him his seat at VAR. He had been expected to challenge for the title in his sophomore season and, while he and Barnard were very closely matched on track, the results didn’t follow.

At a soaking wet Lausitz he did annihilate the opposition, taking almost a second per lap out of second-placed Barnard, but one win compared to his team-mates five was a poor return.

After the series dropped to eight cars in one race last year, the ADAC reacted by dropping two of its traditional eastern rounds at Oschersleben and the Sachsenring to try to curry favour with drivers looking for F1 track experience (a difficult proposition in a country absent from the F1 calendar) and boosted its prize fund to €150,000.

Yet, worryingly for the ADAC, only the PHM Racing trio, two of Jenzer’s cars and the single-car Sauter Engineering+Design operation did all six events. The first two rounds attracted 21 cars, with the opening event marking the debut of the T-421 car in Europe and also the first single-seater race on Spa’s revised layout, but the last two rounds attracted only 11.

VAR had been ever-present in ADAC F4 since the series’ birth in 2015, when it fielded Mick Schumacher on his maiden start in cars, but with supply chain issues delaying the delivery of the T-421 chassis to a rapidly expanding customer base, a result of the worldwide success of F4 and Tatuus as a manufacturer, the team was reluctantly forced to withdraw from round one.

Photo: ACI Sport

It attributed the decision to “the late delivery of cars, which has already strongly disrupted our pre-season testing so far”, and felt it could not responsibly field its cars safely in view of the “serious lack of preparation time”. VAR wasn’t the only team affected, as Jenzer’s Samir Ben missed the weekend as his team had yet to recieve its fourth car.

VAR had sought help from the ADAC in either postponing the opening round, impossible due to the prestige involved in racing at Spa for the first time since that opening season in 2015, or to introduce dropped scores to the series.

With the ADAC unable or unwilling to be flexible, VAR did the two following rounds with all of its drivers entered as guest entries, although it initially seemed unaware of that points ineligibility. It then disappeared from the series.

German team US Racing and French squad R-ace meanwhile switched their main focus in 2022 to Italian F4, having run full ADAC F4 campaigns in 2021. The former entered six different drivers between three events, and the latter only did round one.

Marcus Amand led two of the three Spa races for US before dropping back as his tyres fell away, and his best result came in the reversed-grid Hockenheim race where he took an immediate lead before being overwhelmed by a charging Antonelli.

Sztuka came away from Spa with a fourth and a second place, but he was forced to miss Hockenheim for financial reasons. He did return at Lausitz, snatching a podium, albeit in what was undoubtedly the weakest field of the season.

Jenzer’s Rasmus Joutsimies almost claimed the rookie crown thanks to doing all race, despite only taking one overall podium and two wins in the rookie classification. He had less than five points-scoring rookie rivals on average to contend with.

With Antonelli ineligible under the ADAC’s stricter definition of what constitutes a rookie, Camara topped the rookie classification in 11 races out of 12 and claimed the title. Joutsimies beat him in a single race.

Photo: ADAC

PHM’s rookie Kluss had been “leant out” to Jenzer for Italian F4, as PHM team manager Roland Rehfeld explained to Formula Scout: “We have an alliance with Jenzer in F4 [to share] Valentin, he’s contracted to us but due to the Tatuus hassle we said, ‘okay, Jenzer has a car free and is looking for a driver’, so it was just a handshake thing.”

Kluss is highly rated in Germany, particularly as so few of its karters reach single-seaters, and he took a reversed-grid podium at Lausitz.

The wet conditions there brought out the best, and worst, in the series’ favourite underdog: the family-run Michael Sauter. He twice splashed his way up to third at the track, although his car control was not quite able to match his bravery as he was caught out by the conditions and dropped back to fifth in race one, his best result of the year.

The ADAC is generally well-regarded by the teams, but in 2022 it seemed to manage to shoot itself in the foot on several occasions. The introduction of E10 biofuel immediately before Spa raised the hackles of many due to the short notice and added costs, while the unwillingness to allow for a test day at Zandvoort, a unique venue for ADAC F4 and one of its two F1 tracks, due to the need to set up circuit perimeter banners for the GT Masters weekend, both frustrated teams considerably.

By the end of the year, the ADAC F4 series had declined in status to such an extent that it was clearly the weakest of the five large European series, despite the changes made for 2022. As Italian F4 tried to cope with more entries than it had track space for, ADAC F4 was struggling to attract more than 10 cars. Its demise, which hopefully will prove temporary, brings to a close a brief but significant phase in the history of German single-seater racing.

The final story of the year for the two series was the Italian motorsport federation recognising Antonelli’s achievements at home and abroad by awarding him the Autosprint Golden Helmet and the ACI Golden Steering Wheel.

Championship standings

The post F4 season review: Double champion Antonelli in a class of his own appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ADAC

Germany’s national Formula 4 championship will not run next year, with the organiser confirming it “will not be accepting entries for ADAC F4 for the 2023 season”.

Launched in 2015 as a successor to ADAC Formel Masters, which itself succeeded Formula BMW ADAC, the series went from grids of over 20 cars in 2019 to dipping below double figures two years later and only having five full-time drivers in 2022 as the series followed many in Europe by switching to a new Gen2 F4 car.

There have been seven graduates to professional single-seater racing since the series’ creation, with Lando Norris, Mick Schumacher and Zhou Guanyu all reaching Formula 1, Harrison Newey and Juri Vips making it to Super Formula, and Devlin DeFrancesco reaching IndyCar. He will be joined on the grid next year by 2017 ADAC F4 runner-up Marcus Armstrong.

• Feature: ADAC F4’s record low grid explained (2021)

After the 2022 season finished in October, speculation immediately began to mount about the series’ future.

An announcement is due this month on a new F4 series organised by ACI Sport, which already runs the Italian F4 championship, which is currently dubbed ‘Euro 4′.

It seeks to fill the gap left by ADAC F4 next year by providing additional race weekends across Europe for teams and drivers who had budgeted for 2023 on the basis of doing the full Italian season plus several ADAC rounds. Formula Scout understands ACI’s formal announcement of the new series’ creation will come next week.

Despite the demise of its own series, ADAC will still be involved in F4 next year by placing two drivers in the French F4 championship as members of the the ‘ADAC Formula Junior Team’. Drivers have until next month to apply for the opportunity to represent Germany in the centrally-run series which is operated by ADAC’s French counterpart FFSA.

“We have a lot of talented motorsport athletes in Germany. However, in recent years a large number have been unable to make the step up to formula racing due to the very high costs involved,” said ADAC Sport president Dr Gerd Ennser.

• Feature: The question that led ADAC stalwart Mucke Motorsport to leave single-seaters

“For this reason, we are striking out in a new direction: with the new ADAC Formula Junior Team, we are creating an uncomplicated route into formula racing for young drivers.

“The first step, the central pillar of the starts in the FFSA F4 Academy, guarantees equal opportunity and cost transparency for two talented youngsters from Germany. Looking to the future, we are striving to expand the co-operation with the FFSA.”

FFSA president Nicolas Deschaux added: “We are very delighted to cooperate closely again with the ADAC in this new Formula Junior Team project. Our first collaboration as part of the Formula 3 Euro Series in the mid-2000s has been a success. Our know-how through the FFSA F4 Academy, its cost mastery and sporting equity values, will be the best opportunity ever for the ADAC youngsters to start a single seater career.”

The post ADAC F4 championship will not take place in 2023 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: ACI Sport

Andrea Kimi Antonelli joins the Formula Scout Podcast to look back on his outstanding year in F4, his coming graduation to FRegional and how both Prema and Mercedes have supported his development

Listen to the episode on Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or below.

The numbers alone – 26 wins from 45 Formula 4 starts – do not do justice to Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s 2022. The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior won both the ADAC and Italian titles, only the second driver to achieve the double, and finished the year by claiming the gold medal in the FIA Motorsport Games, representing Italy.

He came into the year as a hot favourite for honours and admits that “at the beginning of the year, I felt a bit of pressure, to be honest, because it was the start of the championship and I wanted to start well immediately”.

Unfortunately for Antonelli, the first round of the Italian championship “was quite a bit of a disaster, let’s say,” meaning he “came away with only one point at the end of the weekend”.

Immediately falling 57 points behind leader Alex Dunne after just one round heaped extra pressure onto then then-15-year-old’s shoulders.

“I felt inside myself that I had to recover immediately all those points. So that pressure I felt quite a bit in the first few rounds, but then when I saw that I was coming back in the championship and the speed was really good, the pressure went away and I started to enjoy [it] more,” he says.

“The pressure didn’t go away only because I was seeing that I was recovering but also because I was making more experience with the car. And I was knowing more all the drivers. So when I was going on track, I kind of expected what could have happened.”

“By half of the championship, especially after Vallelunga when I took the lead back, that was like a turning point for me because I mean the pressure was fully away. From that moment I just tried to keep working hard and enjoy as much as I could.”

In fact, after that opening round in Imola, Antonelli started an Italian winning streak that brought him nine wins in his next 10 starts. He explains that the Imola weekend had “motivated me to work even harder to recover all those points,” and, as a result, he says that he started driving “a bit more aggressive, but in a smarter way, to avoid any kind of contact or pressures and any kind of losing more points”.

“I was also thinking more and I was learning from my mistakes to not repeat them again, which was really important during the year because I think also that helped me to get the lead back in the championship,” he adds.

Despite his results, “I didn’t relax at all, I knew the championship was still long and I kept working really hard to then win as many races as possible and also to bring home the championship”.

There was, however, no danger of him becoming complacent as win after win came his way.

“It’s never easy,” he says. “There’s always something that challenges you and makes your life tougher on track. Also at the end of the championship I was trying to push myself to do even more. And I think in Mugello [the final Italian round], I pushed myself further, especially in race pace. I was really happy and satisfied because I was able to keep a good pace in Mugello.”

The Mugello weekend featured a clean sweep of race wins, his third treble of the Italian season and fourth in total for the year, which had required him to come through from eighth on the reversed grid to win.

“The pace that weekend was really, really good,” he remembers of his ADAC F4 treble at Hockenheim. “We were really strong in managing the tyres that weekend, which was a key point for the races. And in the previous two races I was able to manage a bit the tyre and that really helped me for race three, because I had the tyre advantage compared to my opponents.

“Starting the race, I had straight away a really good pace. And after a couple of laps, I got into the top three and then I saw I was catching and catching lap by lap. And once I got the lead I just kept pushing, and I said, ‘I can win this’.”

Neither championship was straightforward though: “The Italian was tough because we started in the beginning of the season quite badly and the German because we [missed] one round and that makes the opening to close up. So, let’s say both were really hard.

“I was really happy to have won both because, at the end, the German the level is still high because still most of the good drivers are there.”

Antonelli gives much of the credit for his outstanding season to his team, Prema. “During the year, especially in the beginning, as a team we worked really well. As team-mates we were pushing each other to do even better and [having] that many drivers in a team helps a lot, because you can try many different things on the car on every driver.

“In the beginning of the season, we worked a lot on the car. We were trying a lot of stuff to then find the best solution and then once we started the championship we put it all together and I think as a team, we did an amazing job all season. I think the results speak by themselves.”

Prema’s remarkable team effort meant that Antonelli was often left only fighting for wins with his team-mates, not least Ferrari junior Rafael Camara. Their battles provided some of the season’s highlights and although Antonelli generally had the better of their exchanges, he has nothing but respect for the Brazilian:

“He’s a great team-mate and I learned a lot from him. He was really fast during the season. Obviously, we were rivals, but at the same time we were respecting a lot each other and also in the fight. I think everyone saw we were fighting hard, but we were fighting fair and without making any contacts or stupid pressure.”

To Antonelli’s pleasure, the two are set to stay with Prema for the step up to Formula Regional in 2023, although Camara’s move up is yet to be confirmed.

With double F4 champion predecessor Ollie Bearman having been a rookie sensation in FIA Formula 3 after graduating directly from F4, surely Antonelli must have been tempted to made the same jump as his Prema stablemate?

“To be honest, I wanted to go to F3, but speaking to Mercedes at the end we decided to do FRegional and then also we decided to make more experience on the car and also to make more experience in general.”

He emphasizes that the motivation was “not because of the speed [difference] but because of experience”.

“Obviously F3’s a really hard category; it is a big step from F4. I fully understand that [decision], and I believe in that, because I think Mercedes is doing everything possible to make me achieve good results.”

Antonelli believes the support he gets from Mercedes, both on and off-track, has been vital in his development as a driver and a person.

“On track they always send me a person who follows me and helps me with food and everything, with the physical aspects as well. Then off track they help me especially with the physical side, to train and also to get stronger and especially to be ready for the next time I get in the car. I believe their support is incredibly important.”

After an initial contact thanks to the Minardi family, Antonelli and Mercedes have been working together since the end of 2017, “back in the days when I was racing in mini karts”.

“We got the call from Mercedes, and you know when you get those calls you never think twice. You just say yes. Because it’s an opportunity that doesn’t happen often so and you need to take it.

“Then in 2018 I entered in the Mercedes academy and first was a contract of one year because they wanted to kind of test myself to see my abilities and how I was behaving on track and off track. And then after 2018 we extended the contract and now I’m still with them so I’m really happy for that.”

One thing remains on his bucket list though, a run in the team’s F1 simulator. “I was supposed to go there to have a lap on it but unluckily with COVID-19 it didn’t happen. And then I tried this year but was too busy with races and also when I was racing most of the time there was F1 racing as well. So, it was really hard to organise it, but I hope in the future, when we have more time, I hope I can try it once.”

Formula Scout has no insider knowledge of Mercedes’ F1 simulator schedule, but it seems reasonable to assume that Antonelli will get far more than one run in the future!

Photo: Prema

For 2023 he is focused on FRegional, starting in the Middle East series in January to learn the Tatuus T-318 car, before then embarking on a FRegional European Championship campaign. FREC has proved a tough environment for rookies to shine over its last two seasons, with only Isack Hadjar able to win races, but Antonelli is not fazed by that.

“It’s not like F4 where most of us were rookies. In FRegional there are more experienced drivers, so it’s going to be tougher, but I believe the speed is good and if we work hard, we can achieve a good result,” he says, before stressing that “and obviously the goal is to win, to win the championship”.

Antonelli displays such a level of maturity, both on and off-track, that it is hard to believe that he is still just 16 and only made his car racing debut less than 15 months ago. But he has the time to take a measured approach, guided by his family, Prema and Mercedes.

Antonelli’s Formula 4 record

The post Podcast: Kimi Antonelli on his immense F4 success, FREC and Mercedes appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: PHM Racing

Less than a year after its debut in F4, PHM Racing is preparing to expand into F2 and F3 next season. The man behind the team tells Formula Scout about its ambitious plans  

The Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 grids will be joined by a new name in 2023, PHM Racing, following the team’s takeover of the entries of Charouz Racing System. The Berlin-based team, which only made its motor-racing debut at the start of this year, has ambitious plans, not only in what it aims to achieve but, perhaps even more importantly, how it plans to achieve them.

Team owner, Paul Hanno Muller (hence ‘PHM’) spoke exclusively to Formula Scout about the team’s deal with Charouz, its ethos and the factors behind the move into the top echelons of junior single-seater racing.

Established in late 2021, PHM Racing made its first competitive appearance in the opening round of the Formula 4 UAE championship in January 2022, with Taylor Barnard taking victory in the team’s fourth-ever race.

After embarking on a dual F4 campaign in both Italy and Germany, a strong run of form over the summer gave it an outside shot at the ADAC F4 title going into the final round before ultimately having to settle for the runner-up spot in both the teams’ and drivers’ championship, the latter again with Barnard.

“Of course, I am pleased being second in the German championship in our first year and that’s something that hasn’t been done before, but, of course, this is just the beginning. This was the first step,” Muller explains.

That “next step” has now been made public with the news that PHM has acquired the entries and assets of Charouz in the two highest F1 feeder series.

Back in October, Muller, and team manager, Roland Rehfeld, had explained that while the “goal is eventually to compete in F2”, it would likely take two years for the team to be “optimally equipped.”

Having considered and rejected the idea of expanding into Formula Regional Europe, the team had been eyeing F3 as an interim step towards the ultimate goal, testing the waters by arranging for Barnard and F4 team-mate Nikita Bedrin to get an outing with Jenzer Motorsport in FIA F3’s post-season test at Jerez, with Barnard finishing the test on a high by topping the times on the third and final afternoon.

“Andreas [Jenzer] is well-linked in the international scene and a high integrity person, so we said: ‘This makes sense for us just to let Nikita and Taylor do their first experience with them,’” adds Rehfeld, who raced in Formula Renault, German F3 and GTs, before establishing himself as a driver coach in a 15-year spell with AMG.

But the chance to take over Charouz, while retaining access to the Czech team’s personnel, know-how and facilities for a year, “seemed like the perfect opportunity to take on even a bigger challenge like F2 even if it wasn’t in our original plan,” according to Muller.

When even established teams like Van Amersfoort Racing, who entered both categories in 2022 after replacing HWA Racelab, need time to get up to speed, how does a fledgling team, with just one year of experience on the lowest rung of the FIA’s single-seater ladder, expect to get to grips with a very different level of competition?

“Having seen the challenges that come from starting a new team and the challenges we faced in F4 and the long way that we still have ahead, to be exactly where we want to be, I think it would have been extremely ambitious to say we’re going to start doing Formula 2 [by ourselves] in 2023,” says Muller. “But the good news for us is that we don’t have to do it alone, because Charouz will be supporting us.”

For the 2023 season, “the team will be ‘powered by Charouz’,” says Muller, “meaning they will be our service partner, they’ll be bringing their engineers, their expertise of actually how to run an F3 and F2 team and we will be sitting there studying closely for the 2024 season,” when PHM intends to bring the operation fully in-house.

“During the negotiations with Charouz, it became clear that, from Antonin [Charouz] and the whole team’s side, they have a great passion for the sport and for them, it’s also something that they want to do, they want to compete in the championship,” Muller says.

“And for us it is a great opportunity to see them do their thing and actually learn from what they are doing. Together with Charouz, we feel very confident that we’ll be able to deliver, not just on the level of Charouz, so far, but actually enrich Charouz’s expertise and bring in some people that have agreed to advise us. We’re not doing any of this alone. I’m also just one person and from our side that is not where we have the hubris to say [that] we already know how everything works.”

Given PHM’s stated commitment to developing talented engineers and mechanics, there will be a crossover for staff working in F4. “We will be taking some of our engineering personnel specifically on the data engineering side and giving them the opportunity to have a look at F3 and get their head around that,” he adds.

“We started talking to Bruno Michel [boss of F2/F3 promoter, Formula Motorsport] about joining FIA F3 quite a while back,” Muller explains, and they negotiations with Charouz “a few weeks back after having learned that the team might be available for purchase.” The opportunity was, he says, “simply too good to miss.”

“There are only 10 F3 teams and 11 F2 teams. It’s not like you can just sign up as number 12,” explains Muller. “You always have to look at what’s the dynamic, understand where is there a team that is looking to exit the sport, where is your opportunity to enter.

“The introduction to Charouz was actually made via Bruno and Formula Motorsport and when they told us that the team might be available or might be willing to discuss a potential purchase that’s how the introduction got made and that’s how we simply started talking.”

Photo: ADAC/Gruppe C

“We presented ourselves as a new team and I think Bruno was at least sufficiently impressed with what he’s seeing and the idea of what we’re trying to do. Not to just create yet another team to just earn some money, but actually have a team that is trying to fight for victories, trying to compete and most importantly want to provide a platform for drivers to actually really have a holistic way from karting all the way up to the highest levels of formula motorsport.”

For PHM, and for Muller personally, owning a racing team is about much more than turning a profit, or even gaining short-term success on the track. “We have a different approach,” he says.

The PHM philosophy is strongly predicated on delivering improvements in performance over the long-term, on working with drivers, “to develop them as drivers, to prove a point that we can actually make them better race drivers. Putting investment in terms of time, commitment of the team, and also to develop them physically.”

Muller has set his sights on taking a young driver from karting all the way through the single-seater ranks: “When we develop drivers today our goal is to be able to carry them all the way through to F2.”

Initial plans to incorporate as a not-for-profit company were thwarted by legal technicalities arising from German corporate law but the underlying philosophy remains unchanged.

While it would be a great success “to say the team has not made a loss and actually managed to, as we say in German achieve a “black zero” [minimal profit], but it is not the main focus; my main focus, of course, to say if we look at driver development and how it is done traditionally or so far: ‘How much improvement can be made there and how much impact does this improvement have on the outcome?’

To illustrate his point, Muller relates how PHM provided an opportunity for Barnard and Bedrin to compete in F4 in 2022 despite neither having a budget for the season. Funding for Bedrin’s funding intended drive with VAR, where he had taken double F4 rookie titles in 2021, fell through in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“For us it is interesting eventually to be able to take a driver who doesn’t necessarily have the biggest budget, but has the best racecraft, has the best skill and to bring them to F2.

“If I look at F2 and F3 there are a lot of drivers where the decision to get them the seat wasn’t based on skill. Which is fine. Those are the economies of the sport and I respect that, but I would rather use the economic advantages of these classes to build a team that spans all the classes, that allows me to take someone and to give them a chance to prove that not just ultra-rich kids happen to be the fastest race drivers in the world. That’s a wild theory, I know, but it gives you a different perspective.

“There’s always opportunity if you have a driver who is underserved by the current teams, to give them a shot. I think it can also be interesting long-term for the team to work with these guys.”

As part of the overall plan to build an escalator for talent to develop, F4 will remain “an integral part” of PHM’s portfolio. Indeed, says Muller, “for us, the work of finding the drivers for F3 that want to, or that we believe can take a title starts in F4.”

Muller explains that the idea was always to “create a platform that gives drivers the ability to come from karting and get all the way to the doorstep of Formula 1. That means for us, F4 is a must-have. Of course, it is a very different championship than F3 and F2 and it has its own challenges, but for us it is an important part of the driver education. Nowhere else does the driver get as much seat time in as many races as in F4.”

Next year, PHM intends to run “five cars, hopefully, in the UAE,” and then “all the way up to six cars in the summer next year in the [Italian] F4 championship,” although no final decision has yet been taken on the ADAC F4 championship, pending the publication of a calendar. “But currently our plan is definitely to repeat what we’ve done this year. We’ve seen it very successful in terms of the driver education.” In addition, the team intends to use an entry into the Formula Regional Middle East Championship as an extra training ground prior to the FIA F3 season.

While Enzo Fittipaldi has demonstrated the potential of Charouz’s F2 car with three second places this season, the team has endured a trying season in F3 with just a single point to its name and a distant last in the standings. The constant rotation of occupants of the team’s number 15 car saw six different drivers take the start. Clearly, not an ideal basis for success, as the track personnel struggled to keep track of who was on board on any given weekend.

The financial demands of the sport have made it ever harder for small teams like Charouz to compete. Muller is fully aware of the size of the investment that will be necessary to compete at the highest level against the top names in junior single-seaters.

“Of course, we are looking to see what needs to happen in terms of the whole workplace. The investments in total are definitely in seven figures, how much exactly we will see.”

For 2024 and beyond, PHM is looking to relocate the team to its own premises, most likely in its current 1,300m² base in Ehingen outside Stuttgart. “I guess the main focus of the investments will be naturally made in Ehingen. But we have the luxury to have some time to have a look and see where the spots [are] within the team, [and] where we want to focus on investment,” he says.

Despite the “good starting point,” PHM is not blind to the investment levels required – “you don’t run in blindly and just assume that everything would work out of the box.”

“The main cost will,” he believes, “be creating the whole factory workshop to make sure that we can have the tooling to retrofit the cars at the end of the season, to do all the necessary maintenance and operations.”

“The good news is that the team, of course, isn’t primarily restrained by its financial situation. For us having a long-term plan and making smart long-term investments is the more important focus. And I think the big, big investments we’re looking for and where we’re already talking to partners will be the facilities to prepare and train the drivers specifically in the simulator department.”

With the advances in sim technology in recent years, Muller believes there are “great offerings in the market that can give our drivers absolutely a competitive edge.”

So, exactly how competitive does Muller expect to be? For 2023, the goal is “to learn the ropes, and to understand what this championship takes,” with a focus on performing “to the best of the ability of the team, understand and learn everything we need for the 2024 season.”

“Of course, it would be great to right away look at podiums and wins,” he admits but acknowledges that “if that happens, I would say this would be a very, very lucky thing for us.”

“But in year two, my expectation would at least be to have the occasional podium and maybe a win here and there, and then maybe two or three years later on, to actually start looking at a situation where we could challenge for a title.

“All of this is, of course, always heavily dependent on the set of drivers that were able to get.”

Which brings us to the question of the driver line-up for 2023. At this late stage, most driver deals are close to finalisation, if they have not already been signed.

Given the much-repeated mantra of working with drivers’ long-term careers, there is no doubt that PHM would love to be able to promote Barnard and Bedrin internally to the F3 squad. Muller agrees: “We have two drivers that are ready to make the step into F3 and that means that F2 is a completely new field to us and of course a lot of the driver negotiations have already progressed at the point where we acquired a team.

“So, what you’re gonna see is basically a hybrid situation of Charouz’s ongoing negotiations and programme and the drivers that they’ve been in contact with and our wishes and plans for the next year,” with the team then focusing on bringing “our own talents into the 2024 F2 seats.”

Muller says that his passion for the sport stems from spending Sundays when growing up sitting “in front of the TV and hearing a howling, Ferrari V10 of Michael Schumacher winning world Championships, which was like church.”

“I think, ever since then I had this bug for racing, but specifically formula racing. The idea of having simply a purpose-built machine, that is just the fastest thing that can go around the track without any compromise is something that has always appealed to me, and as my education later on was more engineering-focused as a software engineer and my career path as well.”

Muller started his first business at the age of 23, rapidly growing in the emerging app business. “Apple had just produced the first iPhone and had introduced the App Store. My first company actually started making apps and became incredibly successful. We had something like 15 million downloads with various kind of entertainment apps and had built a lot of different tools for publishers to understand how their marketing works.”

On the back of that success, he founded and attracted funding for a start-up, Adjust, “an analytics platform providing solutions to help marketers grow their mobile apps”, to quote the company’s website. Adjust was recently sold “for over a billion dollars.”

“I just had an incredible journey of 10 years, going from three people in a dinky little flat in North Berlin to an international company with 700 people and more than $100 million of revenue every year.”

He is, he says, “still relatively young, despite all the grey hair! That comes from 10 years in a start-up business, that’s kind of stressful,” he adds jokingly.

To Muller as a tech innovator and entrepreneur, many traditional racing teams strike him as “very strict, very hierarchical, very old school… I feel that there there’s a lot more things to be learned from how modern companies organise themselves, how management looks like and how the hierarchy and processes look like.”

Having said that, “a lot of the things that I’m seeing are transferrable in terms of the management style, how management works, how you give people the opportunity to prove themselves,” between a “company that produces a software or company that produces racing events.”

He does believe that the tech sector can provide insights into greater automation of processes in the racing world and wider application of software through all the team’s operating processes.

One aspect of the “non-virtual” world of motor-racing that Muller has had to get used to is ‘dealing with physical things like cars being shipped around and having to buy things like spare parts, materials and tools, [which] is certainly a new experience specifically in this current situation.”

PHM aims to “create a platform that through its sheer success can attract sponsors that understand that the sponsorship is not merely to enrich an individual but actually provides a platform for young people that normally do not have this opportunity to go and race in the highest classes of motorsport.”

Muller is optimistic that the vision can be realised, “but until then I’m willing to support the team on this journey.”

“We are here, we’re serious,” he emphasises. “We’re not doing this as investors to take over the team. We want to go racing and we want to win, and I think that’ll be the deciding factor.”

There is clearly no lack of vision, passion or audacity in PHM’s bold plans. At the end of the day, it is, however, results on track which will determine the success of the karting-to-F1 driver development model.

But with budgets at all levels of the junior ladder increasing year-on-year, additional support for fast-but-penniless talents can only be welcomed.

Photo: ADAC

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Photo: ADAC

Taylor Barnard won the final race of the ADAC Formula 4 season at the Nurburgring by a commanding margin over Ugo Ugochukwu.

On a track that was still damp in places but with cars starting on slicks, Barnard’s PHM Racing team-mate Valentin Kluss went from third to first on the run to the first corner only to go deep.

That allowed Ugochukwu, who started sixth, to take the lead and open up a sizeable early advantage of more than a second.

Barnard went from seventh to third on the first lap and then took second down the inside of Kluss in turn one before reeling in Ugochukwu, making his move at the chicane at the end of the fifth lap.

From there, Barnard opened up a six-second advantage as the championship runner-up took his fifth win of the season.

Ugochukwu was joined on the podium by Prema team-mate Rafael Camara, the Ferrari junior snatching the rookie title in the final race after contact with erstwhile classification leader Rasmus Joutsimies.

Camara had moved to the inside of Jenzer Motorsport driver Joutsimies at the final corner as they fought over fifth position in the early stages, with the slight contact between them causing Joutsimies to run wide and drop several places.

Under pressure from a trio of Prema cars, Kluss would surrender a podium position when he went deep once more at turn one, enabling Camara and James Wharton to slip by.

Having wrapped up the title in race two, Andrea Kimi Antonelli had a relatively subdued race, ultimately finishing sixth after battling with Nikita Bedrin and Kluss and being ordered by race control to let the former past.

Race result (14 laps)

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Photo: ADAC

Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli picked up his first car racing title with victory in the penultimate race of the ADAC Formula 4 season at the Nurburgring.

The delayed race began in wet and foggy conditions, with all drivers on grooved tyres and teams making lots of last-minute changes to cars on the grid to make them suitable for the low grip levels.

Antonelli’s Prema team-mate Rafael Camara started on pole, but he bogged down off the line and Antonelli went from third to first entering turn one.

Camara then spun and fell to the back of the pack, while PHM Racing’s Taylor Barnard – Antonelli’s title rival – sliced his way past Antonelli’s Prema team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu into second in the first sector of the opening lap.

James Wharton then found a grippy line in another of Prema’s cars to demote Barnard back to third, and Camara pitted at the end of the lap due to front-right suspension damage and fell a lap down.

Antonelli’s lead had grown to 2.4 seconds by the end of the next lap, and Barnard became his closest rival once more once Wharton ran off fell to eighth place.

Barnard, despite having clear track and therefore no spray problem, was unable to match Antonelli’s pace and he was over 7.6 seconds behind on lap 10 when the safety car appeared after Michael Sauter crashed out.

With the time it took to retrieve Sauter’s car, it meant green flag action did not resume until the very last corner of the race on lap 13 and Antonelli was able to weave across the line to celebrate the race and title win.

Ugochukwu finished third ahead of Rasmus Joutsimies, and Wharton passed Jonas Ried and Valentin Kluss to recover to fifth place.

Race result (13 laps)

The post Mercedes F1 junior Antonelli wins first car racing title in ADAC F4 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ADAC

Andrea Kimi Antonelli took his eighth ADAC Formula 4 win of the season to move within three points of clinching the title.

The Prema driver had to work hard for his victory, passing erstwhile leader and team-mate Rafael Camara on lap 11 of 13 after an exciting duel.

Camara had made a strong start from pole position on the wet track, with Antonelli passing James Wharton on the first lap to move up to second.

The two leaders pulled away from the rest of the field rapidly, building a gap of 3.3 seconds by the end of lap three as Wharton fought off the PHM Racing duo of Taylor Barnard and Nikita Bedrin.

Already at this early stage the drivers were running offline as they looked for damp patches on the drying surface.

By lap six, Antonelli had closed onto the tail of the leader but before he could mount a challenge the safety car had been deployed to clear away the cars of Jonas Ried and Rasmus Joutsimies after an incident between the two at turn one.

When racing resumed with seven minutes on the clock, Antonelli immediately drew alongside his Brazilian rival, diving to the inside at the first corner before running wide, allowing Camara to retake the lead. But as the pair started lap 11, Antonelli got a better exit out of the final corner and they ran side-by-side past the pits.

Camara held onto the inside line through turn one but Antonelli was not to be denied and as Camara ran slightly wide on the exit from the Mercedes Arena, the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior powered past his Ferrari-backed rival and into the lead.

Behind the leaders Wharton resumed battle with Barnard, who pushed wide into turn eight, which is being investigated by the stewards post-race.

This allowed privateer Michael Sauter up to fourth briefly although he dropped back to sixth at the finish, behind Ugo Ugochukwu in the fourth Prema entry.

With a lead of 47 points and only 50 available to score in the last two races, Antonelli can wrap up the title in Saturday’s second race of the weekend, while Camara’s second place moves him to the top of the rookie standings following Joutsimies’ retirement.

Race result (13 laps)

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Photo: ADAC

Prema’s Rafael Camara will start the first two races of the final ADAC Formula 4 round at the Nurburgring from pole after topping both Friday qualifying sessions.

Following a foggy first practice session in the morning, rain came and went through the rest of the day and both qualifying sessions were classified as wet.

Prema had not originally intended to participate in the season finale, actually only planning originally to contest the first few rounds of 2022 and missing the penultimate event at the Lausitzring, but this weekend it has the chance to run Andrea Kimi Antonelli to the title as well as winning the teams’ championship.

Antonelli was Camara’s closest rival through much of Q1, and as they went into the final two minutes of the session he set a 2m17.537s to steal provisional pole position from his team-mate.

James Wharton, another Prema driver, and PHM Racing’s Taylor Barnard also went faster than Camara, but with 15s to go he rose back up to second place, 0.172s off Antonelli’s pace.

His final lap was even faster, and he took pole with a 2m17.054s effort while Antonelli failed to improve late on and qualified second.

Barnard did go third fastest, but then Wharton found more pace to move ahead him on row two of the race one grid.

Antonelli and Camara did battle for pole again in Q2, with Antonelli on top in the middle of the session.

Camara bided his time, while team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu briefly got into second place and PHM’s Valentin Kluss had laps deleted for track limits violations, and only rose to the fore with a minute-and-a-half to go.

A 2m16.616s lap meant he pipped Antonelli by five hundredths of a second, and once again Antonelli could not find pace late on. Camara could, and ended Q2 with a 2m16.019s lap that guaranteed him pole.

After the chequered flag was waved, Ugochukwu set a 2m16.619s to shuffle Antonelli down to third, with Barnard completing row two of the grid for race two.

Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Rafael Camara Prema 2m17.054s
2 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Prema +0.483s
3 James Wharton Prema +0.635s
4 Taylor Barnard PHM Racing +0.656s
5 Ugo Ugochukwu Prema +1.188s
6 Nikita Bedrin PHM Racing +2.084s
7 Valentin Kluss PHM Racing +3.291s
8 Jonas Ried PHM Racing +3.930s
9 Michael Sauter Sauter Engineering+Design +4.740s
10 Rasmus Joutsimies Jenzer Motorsport +5.491s

Race 2 grid
1 Camara 2m16.019s
2 Ugochukwu +0.600s
3 Antonelli +0.654s
4 Barnard +0.847s
5 Wharton +1.152s
6 Bedrin +1.263s
7 Kluss +2.255s
8 Sauter +2.349s
9 Joutsimies +3.082s
10 Ried +3.514s

The post Camara clinches double pole for ADAC F4’s Nurburgring finale appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: ADAC

Taylor Barnard came from eighth on the reversed grid to win the final ADAC Formula 4 race at the Lausitzring.

Sauber karter Zachary David and Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi shared the front row, with Rasmus Joutsimies starting third but passing both on the opening lap to lead.

He built up a lead of 1.5 seconds as PHM Racing duo Barnard and Bedrin made their way up the order. Barnard passed his team-mate on lap two, and cleared fellow PHM driver Valentin Kluss on the next lap when Kluss made an odd lunge on David for second place and ended up almost sending himself off at turn one.

Bhirombhakdi meanwhile did get past David, who then put up a good defence against Barnard until the latter made a late-braking move at the turn eight hairpin. Bedrin passed David on the lap after but couldn’t quite match his team-mate’s progress as Barnard then cleared Bhirombhakdi for second to keep a car between himself and his pursuer.

Again, once Bedrin did come to attack Bhirombhakdi it was as Barnard was taking the lead from Joutsimies. There was a gap of only 1.1s once Bedrin get make his way into second and that reduced in the remaining laps.

With two laps to go Bedrin locked up into turn eight as he attempted to make a pass, and Barnard sternly covered the inside down the pit straight as they then started the final lap. The pair played chicken into the turn one braking zone and although Bedrin briefly got his nose ahead it was Barnard who held position on the inside line.

That left little opportunity for Bedrin to then make a move, but he still tried at turn 10 and they avoided contact. Barnard won, and Kluss made it a PHM podium lockout in a similarly thrilling last-lap fight.

He had hunted down Joutsimies, who put up the defences to hold on to third. On one occassion he squeezed Kluss to the pitwall, then on the final lap Kluss passed him with two corners to go. Joutsimies used the slipstream to meet the chequered flag just 0.003s ahead, but a penalty for changing direction more than once dropped him back behind Kluss.

David got back by Bhirombhakdi for fifth, while Jonas Ried held up a queue of cars in seventh. They squabbled behind him and it was Kacper Sztuka who finished eighth after several errors by Michael Sauter when passing, then Ruiqi Liu scored the last point as an attempted pass on Samir Ben left Bin spinning. An issue on the grid for Liu also led to a second formation lap occurring.

Race result

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