Photo: MGPC

10 years ago today, Max Verstappen debuted in F3. Less than four months later he joined Red Bull’s Junior Team, and the week after was signed by its second F1 squad Toro Rosso. But what if F1 hadn’t been waiting?

With hindsight, the decision by Red Bull to put Max Verstappen in a Formula 1 seat after just a year in car racing looks indisputable. But as Frits van Amersfoort says, an F1-ready talent was visible right from the day he appeared in Formula 3.

Verstappen had two top F1 teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, fighting over his signature just a few races into his F3 career. But which would he have partnered with had Red Bull not owned two F1 teams, the key factor that made a 2015 race seat possible?

Patience is a word absent from Jos Verstappen’s dictionary, and when it came to son Max he was always in a hurry to move on and up.

After a successful karting career, the younger Verstappen made his car racing debut in the Ferrari Driver Academy-organised and Formula Abarth-spec Florida Winter Series at the start of 2014. From 12 races in the entry-level cars he took two wins, three other podiums, three fastest laps and three poles.

Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing had then been approached to run Verstappen in FIA European F3. But not by his dad.

Rather it was former F1 driver Huub Rothengatter, who had managed Jos’s career in the 1990s. Rothengatter “knew Max was something special,” VAR’s team boss van Amersfoort recalls to Formula Scout.

“Jos wanted to do Formula Renault [2.0],” he adds. “Together with Huub, I always said put Max straight in an F3 car. Forget about these single-make things like FR2.0 because they are highly political and when they don’t give you the right engine, you’re basically fucked.

Photo: Asensi Carricondo

“Jos wasn’t too convinced, so he kept his eyes on FR2.0. Max tested a lot of FR2.0 teams and cars and in December he tested for Motopark in F3 in Valencia.”

Verstappen “was totally fast but it was difficult for us in those days because somehow Jos was not convinced about our competitiveness”, admits van Amersfoort.

VAR took Jos Verstappen to the 1992 Formula Opel Lotus Benelux title, launching him on the path to F1, and by the early 2010s it was running mainly in German F3. That was less competitive than the European championship, and its debut season in the latter in 2013 certainly didn’t indicate any title-challenging potential.

After the month in Florida, “Jos was really unhappy” and felt that his son had not been given equal equipment. With the clock ticking down, it was Rothengatter who made the decision to commit to F3.

“There were many other people [around] Max who said ‘we are going to help’, but in the end they didn’t, and Huub put his money where his mouth was, put the money in to buy a car because we couldn’t finance the car ourselves and making the first down payment to get going, to pay the entry fees,” recalls van Amersfoort.

“We got a free engine from Jost Capito at Volkswagen, so that helped a lot. We put the car together and one week later we were on our way to Hungary for the first official test. On our way to Hungary, we stopped at Most in the Czech Republic to do the roll-out.

“From the beginning it was fantastic. Even before that we knew that it was going to be special. Of course, the pressure on us was pretty heavy, because we knew Jos was sceptical, but there wasn’t much to say from Jos’s side because Huub paid.”

Rothengatter and Verstappen subsequently fell out in a big way, “making war over a 16 year-old kid who still needed to prove himself”, much to van Amersfoort’s sadness.

Photo: FIA European F3

Third fastest in the two-day Hungaroring test, Verstappen then topped the times four days later in the second official test at the Red Bull Ring.

“In the first test we had a gearbox problem,” reveals van Amersfoort. “Jos jumped in his car and drove to Dallara, up and down. And the next morning he was back with a new gearbox. And that’s also Jos – everything for Max.”

The season opener took place at Silverstone on April 19-20, supporting the World Endurance Championship. Verstappen qualified fourth for race one but the team “suffered some technical problems with the car – we chose the wrong clutch and we had some clutch problems”.

Verstappen retired in race one, was fifth in race two then passed eventual champion Esteban Ocon to be second in race three.

“We changed the clutch and went to Hockenheim [for round two] and the technical mayhem started again because he drove pole but the car died on the outlap. It was the loom,” continues van Amersfoort.

“Eyebrows with Jos and bla, bla, bla, not easy, but the mechanics changed the loom between the races. That was fantastic because there was not much time and then he won the last race.

Verstappen would go on to score another nine victories, including a mid-season streak of six in a row at Spa-Francorchamps and the Norisring. “And then the whole roller coaster started…”

The teenager was now hot property in the car racing world. But Jos was determined to hold out for the best possible deal.

“There was already contact between Jos and Helmut [Marko, head of Red Bull’s driver development]. That also shows how good the view from Jos is on a talent like Max. He kept Helmut at bay.”

Photo: Philip Platzer/Red Bull Content Pool

Those conversations were unbeknown to van Amersfoort at the time, stressing that he was not party to any of the discussions directly, but he understood “that at the point where Max was winning, Helmut came back, and the deal was done”. The deal was finally signed following the series’ visit to the Red Bull Ring in early August.

Jos Verstappen said on his family’s website that he had been unable to sleep “for three weeks” prior to putting pen to paper.

“Especially during the Euro F3 weekend in Austria, when we talked to Dr. Helmut Marko. Every morning I was wide awake at 4.30am, whereas Max was sound asleep,” he admitted.

“I remember that Sunday morning, when we were phoning at six in the morning and Raymond [Vermeulen, the manager of both Verstappens] and myself were ploughing through several documents whilst negotiating. It was all very intense, also because Red Bull were so driven and engaging.”

The Verstappens then disclosed the 2015 F1 move to certain parties by inviting them to their house, including van Amersfoort.

“At a certain point in the middle of the season our team was invited to come to Limburg where [the Verstappens] lived and they told us in confidence that Max had signed for Toro Rosso. So, he moved straight from F3 to F1. Unbelievable!”

Once the Red Bull Junior Team membership was confirmed, VAR had to swap its team colours for the instantly recognisable Red Bull livery on Verstappen’s car. “But we were happy to do that, of course,” says van Amersfoort.

In the next round at the Nurburgring on August 16/17, engine reliability problems struck again. The unit “had to go back to [tuner] Spiess lots of times and in August it all went wrong because a conrod went through the engine and the [grid] penalty in those days was three times 10 places, but in the end, it also fits in the story”.

Photo: FIA European F3

There was a break of almost two months before round 10 at Imola, which was “a race weekend I will never forget” for van Amersfoort.

“Max was flying. And he did something you hardly see in F3 going from P11 to P2. It was incredible. What people never see is that the dramas in the paddock because Trevor Carlin was furious with Spiess thinking we had a special engine. It was absolutely fantastic!” he smiles.

“We had a normal Volkswagen. It was the days when F3 was really F3. In the end it was the best decision to do F3 because in those days F3 was much more free than now. You could do some things in the car. The engines of course were the real F3 engines. And it was a fantastic year.”

The car itself now belongs to Rothengatter, the man who put the money down to buy it in the first place. For a long period, it graced the entrance to VAR’s factory in the Netherlands but “is now hidden”.

Verstappen finished third in the standings, 67 points behind Ocon. But since it was a 33-race schedule, and more than a third of that gap was built by Ocon in a race Verstappen missed, he was only outscored on average by 1.31 points per race.

That impressed the motorsport world, but if no F1 seat had been available for 2015 what would Verstappen have done next?

As is now well-known, Red Bull ultimately won out over Mercedes-AMG in attracting Verstappen to its junior team because it could offer an immediate step up into F1, bypassing GP2 or Formula Renault 3.5.

“Max was very good in karting, was good in F3, and it was clear that he was a big one that’s growing,” said Mercedes-AMG F1 team principal Toto Wolff on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast in 2023.

Verstappen in the DTM? (Photo: Jim Moir)

“We talked to them in the initial phases and it was a nice discussion with Jos and with Max as well But it was clear we couldn’t give him a seat because we had Nico [Rosberg] and we had Lewis [Hamilton]. We offered to support Max in Formula 2 [known as GP2 at the time], but since Red Bull was able to offer them the AlphaTauri seat – or Toro Rosso back in the day – it got Max into the seat.”

Had Red Bull had not had that benefit of owning two teams in F1, or had not been prepared to use it by placing him at Toro Rosso in 2015, would Verstappen’s career and possibly the last 10 years of motorsport have looked very different?

As Wolff explained, the best Mercedes could offer was GP2, where neither it or Red Bull had an affiliation with a competing team. Although Mercedes had supported young drivers for many years, its F1 junior team was only launched in 2014 and in its preferred path for F3 graduates had been to send them to DTM where its Mercedes-Benz touring cars were raced. Pascal Wehrlein was already in the DTM when the junior team launched, and after winning the 2015 title he got moved to F1 with the Mercedes-powered Manor team.

It is, however, inconceivable that the Verstappen camp would have considered spending a year away from single-seaters.

Wolff had a longstanding relationship with ART Grand Prix’s then-team boss Fred Vasseur, and the team competed in the DTM (with a Mercedes car) and in single-seaters. Ocon got snapped up by Mercedes in early 2015 and with ART GP made a sideways move to GP3 (now known as FIA F3), where he won the title and earned a 2016 graduation to the DTM with the team before joining Wehrlein at Manor later in the year.

That first move highlighted that ART GP’s GP2 seats for 2015 were already unavailable. McLaren junior Stoffel Vandoorne had one, and a partnership with Honda meant the other went to its protege Nobuharu Matsushita. So would Mercedes have had to look elsewhere? And if so, where?

Top team or cheap seat? GP2 was a no-go for Verstappen

With Verstappen’s talent and Mercedes’ backing, a seat would surely have been identified. But would he have had the equipment to defeat the dominant Vandoorne in a battle of the Belgian-born stars?

In any case, it is unlikely that Mercedes would have promoted him to F1 even for 2016 with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg dominating the previous two seasons. Would he have been farmed out to Manor, F1’s de facto backmarker team?

Though a seat there would hardly have matched the Verstappens’ expectations, he would have then been in an ideal position to be drafted into the Mercedes line-up after Rosberg’s surprise retirement at the end of the year.

Had Wolff known that Rosberg was going to retire at the end of 2016 would he have acted differently?

“Well, maybe, but if I would know where the stock market is next year, I would decide to invest in it or not. We would be very happy and rich people if we would know what happens in 12 months,” he said on Beyond The Grid.

He also told ESPN that while he “certainly” regretted missing out on having Verstappen in the Mercedes fold, “it wasn’t an option back in the day”.

For their part, neither Jos nor Max expressed any regret at turning down Mercedes, despite the team’s dominance from 2015 to 2020.

Red Bull had alternatives it could have presented Verstappen in 2015, both in and out of F1. In GP2, DAMS fielded one of its juniors, Pierre Gasly, alongside 2014 GP3 champion and Williams’ new development driver Alex Lynn.

Perhaps realising that Verstappen’s fast-track promotion meant his chances of progressing to F1 with Red Bull were rapidly evaporating, Lynn had left the RBJT by mutual agreement at the end of 2014.

Photos: Philip Platzer/Red Bull Content Pool

The alternative to GP2 in Europe was FR3.5, and Verstappen had tested a car in torrential rain at the Red Bull Ring on his first day as a Red Bull junior. Furthermore, that series was a proven step between F3 and F1 for Red Bull juniors, examples being Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.

Carlos Sainz Jr, another Red Bull junior, was 2014 FR3.5 champion with DAMS and Arden’s Gasly was a distant runner-up. They were two of the four contenders to be Verstappen’s Toro Rosso team-mate in 2015, and Sainz was the chosen one.

The risk for Verstappen, as father Jos understood very well, was that today’s hot prospect can very quickly go cold if the results don’t follow. Although it was Verstappen’s rapid rise that prompted, although the FIA would never admit it, the creation of the superlicence points system that tied drivers down to multiple years in junior series before being eligible for F1.

In 2015, Verstappen noted that Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello had swept to the 2013 European F3 title then took one win in three GP2 seasons, and as far as single-seaters was concerned his star had faded. He didn’t want GP2 to stall his own career.

With no F1 drive potentially on offer, would Jos Verstappen have held off for another year in a junior series, hoping to reel in the top teams with another sensational performance?

That seems unlikely, as the Verstappens were already struggling to finance their F3 campaign without the inflow of Red Bull cash mid-season. A second season there would have been completely out of the question for the impatient Verstappens.

“I think we see now there’s a perfect match between Helmut and the family of Verstappen. They fit together,” concludes van Amersfoort.

“I knew that there was contact also with Toto but, you know, Mercedes is just more careful and the Verstappens don’t know what ‘careful’ is. They go for it and I think that the characters fit together perfectly and we see it now.

• Read more: Verstappen’s explosive arrival in single-seaters – the first time around

“Jos can really be a pain in the arse for the team but, whatever, he’s full throttle all the time. And as a team you have to cope with it. For sure, we learned a lot in that year,” he adds.

“To be the top you have to be special, and for sure Max was.”

The post What if Red Bull was unable to offer Verstappen a way into F1 in 2015? appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Roger Gascoigne

Ryan Briscoe was the first driver to win an international single-seater title for Prema when he won the inaugural Formula 3 Euro Series season in 2003.

He did so against a grid featuring full-time rivals such as Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg, and that title also made him the team’s first two-time champion having secured his first crown in Formula Renault 2.0 Italy in 2001.

At Prema’s 40th anniversary celebrations Briscoe discussed the impact the Italian outfit has had on his racing career, which has so far included podiums in A1GP, eight wins and 13 poles (with one at the Indianapolis 500) in IndyCar, two overall American Le Mans Series wins and three overall IMSA victories. Two of those were in the Daytona 24 Hours and Petit Le Mans.

“My Prema story. So it’s the beginning of my racing career really out of go-karts. As for so many drivers,” he recalled.

“End of 2000, I had my first races with Prema in FRenault. We did the winter series, and I was part of Toyota’s driver academy, so a huge step for me in my career.

“I never thought I could make it to race cars, and Angelo [Rosin, Prema’s co-founder] and Grazia [Troncon] were a huge part in teaching me so much, and we won a lot of races togeher. So many great memories. And for a time that expanded three to almost four years, so a very special time in my career.”

Briscoe took a total of 15 wins during his time with Prema. His eight victories in 2003, four of which came in the first five races, were enough to take the F3 title with a round to spare. This was despite not scoring in seven races, equating to more than a third of the season.

“It’s great [to have been a double champion with Prema]. So many great races that we had, and we won two championships together, so unbelievable.”

As for standout memories, Briscoe points to the food the team fed their drivers with.

“So many great memories. So much good food. I remember Giorgio, the cook, and just so many great meals at the race tracks. I remember so many unbelievable races as well.

“I think there was a pivotal point at which, I think – I give Angelo so much credit – in 2003 in the F3 Euro Series we started the year really strong, and then it was a third of the way into the season we had a really difficult round at Nurburgring and didn’t have a good result. I remember we spent two days at the race shop, and Angelo was just grilling me, the engineers, everyone that we had to fix the problem. We changed everything on the race car, geometry on the suspension, just pouring over data. And we went to the next race at the A1-Ring [now the Red Bull Ring] and dominated and won both races.

“I just remember it really came down to Angelo’s will to win and do whatever it takes, and I’ve carried that my whole career.”

The post Ryan Briscoe: I’ve carried Prema’s winning attitude my whole career appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: FIA F3 European Championship

Callum Ilott has revealed he struggled with mental health during his junior career, especially in 2016 when he also suffered from chronic fatigue

The IndyCar driver recently opened up on the Formula Scout Podcast about the feelings he had in his junior single-seater career, how he dealt with it and why he now sees overcoming such a tough period as a strength whereas at the time he didn’t.

“It’s one of those things [mental health] that sometimes people speak about it more. Lando [Norris] obviously dove into it quite a lot,” Ilott said as he admitted to also have struggled himself.

“An athlete is, it’s a weird life. You know, your mood is dependent on your results most of the time. And of course, those results can change during the weekend, weekend to weekend, year to year. When we were doing Formula 3, there was three races on a weekend, and you could do a great first two races and mess up the third race, and you leave that weekend feeling like you’ve done a shit job in a certain way,” he explained.

“There’s obviously up and down of emotions, which is in some ways is probably quite healthy and in some ways really isn’t healthy. And then having to deal with personal setbacks. This is life-changing things.

“It’s like exams. If you fail your exam or your university degree, you don’t get the opportunities that you want to and that affects you. In the same way if your family put all their savings into your university degree and you fail your university degree, I think that’s a lot of pressure and a lot of stress to deal with. And on a year-to-year basis, of course it’s not the same, but it’s a similar feeling and weekend to weekend it changes.

“So the answer is yes. I have struggled at times. I’ve had to see people to help with that,” he affirmed.

“I mentioned earlier that in 2016 I had chronic fatigue for almost nine months of the year. I was sleeping 14 hours a night, going to school and racing.

Photo: FotoFormulaK

“And still like every free period I would have at school, I’d be sleeping because I was so tired. And that was including the 14 hours a night, so whatever I could on top of it.

“I look back and I go ‘fuck, that’s not really, that’s not ideal, but I got through it’. I somehow recovered quite well thanks to the help of some people. These are the hidden things. Like I didn’t mention it at the time, I just got through it.

“To be honest, I didn’t even know what was wrong with me at the time. I just knew I was really struggling. And that year I got really depressed because of it. Because when you’re so tired, there’s nothing you can [do], mentally you’re tired as well.”

Ilott, who was 17 at the time, balanced school with competing in the FIA European F3 championship. He finished sixth in the standings driving for Van Amersfoort Racing, and won two races. The year before had been his first in single-seaters, and he did it as a Red Bull junior, driving in the Toyota Racing Series and then joining Carlin in FIA European F3.

“So with the exams at school, with school, every day was super tough for me [in 2016]. And of course I had parted ways with Red Bull the year before, the year was super tough driving-wise, racing-wise. So yeah, the answer is yes. And I think it’s very common, but again I wouldn’t speak about it all the time because that stuff is viewed still to this day as a weakness.

“Now I view that as a strength coming on from it that I got through 2016. But at the time, even later on, with the pressure and the stress you have that your whole career and your whole family is behind you on this, and you suffer at home because of everything behind. I would never speak about it because – I always thought it was a deemed as a negative, so that’s something I had to deal with myself. And I had to keep my world separate, if you know what I mean? Racing couldn’t mix with what I was feeling or the people I had to deal with to help with that.

“And most people can’t help with it. It’s not something that’s as simple as seeing someone, you’ll be fixed. I don’t operate like that. I have to be at peace of mind first before I can even start thinking things. And that’s very tough when you are in the position of the stress that you have on all of this, and especially with the way that some of the championships were formed. I mean, you had two months between Sochi and Abu Dhabi, which was the final round of the championship on a normal year without the COVID-19 stuff.”

You can listen to the episode on Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and below.

The post Ilott recognises struggles with mental health during junior career appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Scuderia Ferrari

Antonio Fuoco has been at Ferrari nearly 10 years, rising up the single-seater ladder before moving to race GTs. He still works with the F1 team as test driver and recently experienced the Scuderia’s 499P hypercar

To have a long career with Ferrari requires results, loyalty and adaptability, and Antonio Fuoco – who is still only 26 – has just completed his 10th season racing with the Ferrari badge on his overalls.

Fuoco joined the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2013 for his first year in car racing, joining Jules Bianchi, Raffaele Marciello and Lance Stroll in the FDA’s ranks. That support continued through his single-seater racing career, which peaked at Formula 2, before he started combining his Formula 1 team roles with racing for Ferrari’s main GT sportscar teams.

“I’m in Ferrari for many years already and I hope that I can still be in this family for a longer time,” he tells Formula Scout. “And I’m still part of the development programme for the F1 with the simulator and all that stuff.”

Fuoco remains as passionate about life with Ferrari as ever. “I just try to give my best. I try to help as much as I can with my job. I’m proud of the job I’m doing. Being on this family, being in this team is a dream, so I just try to do my best and I do all the things they ask me to do.”

After exceeding expectations as a rookie by beating Luca Ghiotto to the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps title in 2013, Fuoco stayed with Prema for the move up to FIA European Formula 3. But not before he had taken four wins in the Florida Winter Series organised by the FDA and featuring several future F1 and IndyCar drivers all in Formula Abarth cars.

Despite a victory in the opening F3 round at Silverstone, Fuoco’s season was overshadowed by the battles between Prema team-mate Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen. He took one more win, and finished fifth in the standings.

Fuoco perhaps had the misfortune to spend his formative years in karting and junior single-seaters in the company of a group of outstandingly talented young drivers including Verstappen, Ocon, Charles Leclerc and George Russell. On his day, however, he could beat these illustrious contemporaries, and did so in both karts and F3.

Photo: Roger Gascoigne

“I was against some great drivers who are now in F1, for example Charles, Max, Esteban, so many drivers,” he says. “They are all really good drivers. There is not one particularly fast, but I think they are all really fast.”

After two seasons in GP3 with Carlin and Trident, coming third behind Leclerc and Alex Albon in 2016, he rejoined Prema as he stepped up to Formula 2 in 2017, with karting rival and fellow Ferrari junior Leclerc as his team-mate.

Fuoco struggled to make an impression, while across the garage Leclerc was sweeping all before him on the way to the title and a 2018 F1 seat. The only win of the year for Fuoco came at home in Monza’s feature race – a result that he considers one of the highlights of his single-seater career.

“It was for some reasons a good year, for some reasons a tough year, but I did my best,” remembers Fuoco. “It was a fun year.”

Naturally, his F1 test and simulator driver role at Ferrari ensures that he remains in close contact with Leclerc.

“I learned a lot from him, we shared a lot of information during that year, and I’m still learning from him when I see him racing in F1.”

For his sophomore season in F2, Fuoco moved to the debuting Charouz Racing System team, winning the sprint race in Monaco, “a special place and a special race,” and at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

“All the seasons I did I always tried to do my best,” he says, looking back on his single-seater career. “Sometimes it worked well, sometimes it worked a bit less. It’s part of the game. We try to give our best and take what we have in the end.”

What he never lacked was passionate support from his loyal army of travelling fans. Wherever in Europe he was racing, Fuoco would be greeted by a vocal band of supporters armed with horns, flags and banners, cheering on their man. Social media has made such fanbases more common now, but there were none as active as Fuoco’s when he was in the junior series.

Sharing the FR2.0 Alps title celebrations

“It was quite emotional at that time,” he recalls. “Coming to a small category, let’s say, with all those people around was something special. I always thanked all of them because they came from the south of Italy, [and it] is not easy going all around Europe and around the world.”

“But it was a pleasure to see all those people close to me and I still have a lot of fans close to me, so it is something really special,” he adds.

Fuoco formally left the Ferrari Driver Academy at the start of 2019, although he remains involved in a consulting capacity. At the same time, he was promoted into a direct role with the F1 team as a simulator driver. In the years since he has succeeded Davide Rigon in leading the development of Ferrari’s simulation facilities as well as the F1 cars modelled in them.

His first experience on track in an official F1 test came in 2015 at the Red Bull Ring, with further opportunities following in Barcelona in 2016 and the post-season tests at Yas Marina Circuit in 2020 and ’21. The latter have been key parts of his job to make sure Ferrari’s simulator calibrates as closely to its real-world cars as possible.

Ferrari handed its two mandatory rookie free practice outings this year to 2021 F2 runner-up Robert Shwartzman, but Fuoco was willing to drive on a grand prix weekend had an offer come and if it did not clash with his other Ferrari commitments.

Since the end of 2019, Fuoco has been racing for Ferrari teams in GTE and GT3 sportscars. This year he has accrued air miles by combining the World Endurance Championship with works team AF Corse, the IMSA championship in the USA with Cetilar Racing and GT World Challenge Europe with Iron Lynx – a hectic schedule.

Fuoco took the fight for the title in the GTWCE Endurance Cup to the final round at Barcelona, although finishing second there meant he fell short of being champion by just three points. However, he then completed his year by winning his class in the Bahrain 8 Hours. It was a significant victory as it was the last ever one for a GTE car in the WEC.

Photo: SRO

GTs are “a different concept of racing but, for sure, all the experience I took from single-seaters I bring to the GTs”.

Unlike in single-seaters, “you always need to share the car with the other drivers, so sometimes you need to compromise your driving style to help the others”.

But he is revelling in what are still the early years of his sportscar career, as he had only actually contested two races in total prior to landing full-time seats in GTWCE and WEC in 2021, and – perhaps surprisingly – says that he actually prefers the endurance races to the sprints as “I like to share the information with the other drivers, to share the car with the other drivers”.

Doing multiple series has given him the chance to race in three 24-hour classics: Daytona, Le Mans and Spa-Francorchamps.

“We know that anything can happen in 24 hours,” he says. “The important thing is to be in the right place at the right time. We just need to keep calm, keep cool and try to do our best.”

For 2023, Ferrari will enter the WEC’s top class with the highly anticipated 499P Le Mans Hypercar. It will be the first prototype sportscar to be designed and constructed in Maranello in over 50 years, since 1971’s 312 PB.

Fuoco got his hands on the car at a three-day test at Algarve in September. Though Ferrari has remain tight-lipped on who will be getting the coveted race seats in the 499P, Fuoco admits that “if I will have the chance, for sure I will take it”.

For now though, his mind is on the job in hand. “My focus is just to do the best in the championship I’m doing,” he says, before adding “it looks at the moment it’s working quite well” and that “I really hope that we can continue on this direction”.

The post “I learned a lot from Leclerc,” says Fuoco, Ferrari’s versatile stalwart appeared first on Formula Scout.

The case centered about a claim from Hitech over unpaid racing fees in relation to BRDC British F3 champion Ahmed and the Enaam Motor Sport Limited (EMSL) company that plays a role in financing his racing career and is controlled by his family.

A sum of £468,479.57 was asked for (plus interest) in accordance to two agreements from 2018 – when Hitech ran Ahmed in FIA European F3 – which the family were bound to. Hitech expected £367,148 direct from EMSL, and £101,331 from the family.

EMSL’s defence was that the claim was overstated, admitting it owed a lower sum to Hitech, but was not present at the trial. Ahmed said he had already paid off his racing debts.

The claim alleged Ahmed had incurred “expenses, and a liability for crash damage repair costs” under the season contract he had with Hitech. Ahmed also entered the Macau Grand Prix with the team that year under a different agreement, and crashed twice in qualifying before crashing out of 11th place in the main race.

The cost of the season was €750,000 – and €60,000 for Macau – and any damage to the car was agreed to be paid for by the defendants, as well as additional logistical costs from fielding the car. The crash damage was calculated to cost £58,221.25, and additional expenses at £101,331.44.

Of the £838,641.96 total, £513,141.26 was already confirmed to be paid. One payment of £150,000 was made by sports doctor Jerome Poupel, and that was brought to trial in Ahmed’s defence as the expenses he was solely liable for – but which had not been taken as the settlement of that debt and thus was still being claimed for.

An interest of “4% per annum above the base rate of Barclays Bank plc from time to time” was set on the late payments, although that was argued in the defence as not applicable as it was not “agreements for the provision of goods or services within the meaning of the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Act” used to regulate how interest is used in contracts.

However once the evidence was presented on this, the deputy judge made some interesting conclusions.

Firstly he determined, based off Hitech having never heard of an “expenses sponsor”, and that the team was to have “no idea whatsoever” that the £150,000 fee was intended to pay off a specific debt, therefore the way the Poupel payment was accounted was not “wrongful or inequitable on any basis”, although the crash damage debt was less than invoiced for.

The next thing the judge determined was that both team and driver were parties providing goods and services, which raises questions about how future cases in junior single-seaters could be interpreted by the law.

While Ahmed paid to drive, and therefore would be considered to have purchased a service from the team to run the car he’s driving, the deputy judge decided that the driving was in fact a service being provided to the team. Therefore he was paying to provide a service. However he also agreed that the team was also supplying a service to the driver.

The context here is that if a team wants to compete in a junior single-seater series, it therefore needs drivers to run to make that entry possible. And to compete at an F3 level (rather than say some club Formula Ford races), drivers will have agreed to make themselves available for all races and tests where the team would want to run the car, and worked to be fit enough to race in F3 and trained to have the driving skill suitable for the category to provide adequate driving services for the team.

Objectives of the team as a business would be to satisfy stakeholders, such as ensuring it’s providing positive welfare to its employees, being financially stable enough to remain in competition, but also of course to succeed in the market, i.e to win races and titles in the series it races in. Which is arguably the primary objective of most racing teams.

From these considerations, the deputy judge still determined it was the driver wanting to drive for the team, rather than a free market position where the team has picked a driver who could best provide its desired services of driving, and therefore it had been agreed that Ahmed’s services would be used by Hitech if he paid for the services the team would provide in return.

So Hitech’s costs for securing the services of driving was by running the car that would enable that driving to take place, and as a junior single-seater team it was also then the driver’s responsibility to pay (either through personal finance or that of a sponsor or backer) for the running of that car. That’s unlike Formula 1, where most teams take on the financial burden themselves.

The case conclusions were that Hitech was owed “the season fees, £244,727.14; the outstanding Macau fees of £64,199.74; and the crash damage claim being £52,864.58” by EMSL, and “as against the 2nd Def [Ahmed] and EMSL jointly, there will be judgment in the amount claimed of £101,331.44”.

The post Junior single-seater case goes to High Court of Justice in UK appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Paul Kooyman

In the 1970s, a young Italian went from entry-level single-seaters through to Formula 3, Formula 2 and then Formula 1 in the space of just over one-and-a-half years. Riccardo Patrese tells his story to Formula Scout

There’s not many racing drivers who can claim to have successfully transitioned from a totally different sport, although Chris Hoy became a European Le Mans Series LMP3 champion after a record-breaking cycling career, but the man who sets the template for all who follow is Riccardo Patrese. And he happens to be the ninth most experienced Formula 1 driver in history.

Patrese skied and swum competitively in parallel to his karting career as a teenager, with the latter culminating in winning the world championship title in 1974. That success didn’t automatically make motorsport Patrese’s long-term future, as he saw little point in continuing karting beyond that point.

But Scuderia Nettuno came calling off the back the karting title and pointed him towards single-seater racing in the form of Formula Italia. The single-spec series used Abarth cars and engines, with a long-nose design and no aerodynamic appendages.

Patrese juggled his maiden car racing campaign with university, not expecting his racing career to go much further without a financial boost, but in finishing second in FItalia behind Bruno Giacomelli he earned the chance to race in F3 for 1976.

“Forget what’s happening now,” Patrese says to Formula Scout, referring to the current junior single-seater landscape.

“I had the offer from Trivellato Racing to come drive for them for the European Formula 3 championship. I accepted it. Of course. Because he [Jacopo Trivellato] offered me to go and race in European F3. Because he trusted me to be good.”

Trivellato had been the Italian importer for racing car constructor March, but for 1976 he defected to Chevron and had factory support to run its new B34 model in FIA European F3 as a one-car entry.

“At the end we did a one-day test at a circuit called Casale Monferrato. One-day test,” Patrese says of his pre-season mileage.

Photo: Riccardo Patrese

“And we went straight to Nurburgring. The old Nurburgring. It was a bit different to what is happening now that you make, especially in Formula 4, 3000 kilometres in wintertime of testing before racing. It was completely different to [that]. So I had to adapt to the car very quickly. And then on the top of that, the first race was at the Nurburgring. And that was a big challenge, but it went quite well I think.”

Over the April 3/4 weekend, the German and European F3 championships got their seasons underway on the Nordschleife.

The German F3 race ran on the Saturday, meaning Patrese got to rack up some important experience on the 22.84km layout before Sunday’s European F3 opener.

“It was good weather for the German race that was on Saturday, and I managed to finish second that race. Then following that, it was grey, grey sky on Sunday. We started dry, and I went into the lead, and then came a little bit of rain, and I slowed down a little bit because, you know, first race, first moment that I drove the car in wet conditions with slicks. And I finished third. But it was still a good result.”

Patrese had come 0.4 seconds short of victory in his German series cameo, and finished 23.1s behind the winner on Sunday.

“It was good experience, but difficult. But I managed to do it, and I took the car home safe and we got the podium. And the following race we were in Zandvoort and I won. So the start of the championship was good, and even the end was good because I came champion that year.

“We did Nordschleife, Enna-Pergusa, at Monza I won the Lottery Grand Prix, but the guy that won me the lira, never came to thank me. Because of course I was together with the ticket that won, in those days you won 500 million lira, which is like €1 million now.

“The car was the B34, and that was just for F3. And the B35 was for Formula 2, or Formula Atlantic. The car was the same in the European F2 championship or in the Atlantic championship or even in the Pacific, because there was also a championship that was called Formula Pacific. And the same car was used in all of these three championships.

“For sure in those days aerodynamics was very poor, and all the grip came from the tyres and mechanical set-up that you had. In the wet I think it was a challenge, because a lot of [it] was done from the driver. The way that you could adapt to the car, and you could drive in difficult conditions, so let’s say that it was hard work.

“You could change suspension, I mean geometry, roll-bars, shock absorbers, everything you could do – I mean it was free to do everything you wanted [when you were racing].

“You could change springs and rollbars during the sessions. If you had to change the shock absorbers maybe you could change between one to another section. It was quite quick to make adjustments to the car.”

All this set-up variation was the kind of learning that young drivers don’t quite get today in the lower rungs of single-seaters, particularly when so much of the decision-making is done outside of the car and aerodynamics has a greater influence.

“There was [car] development. We did some changes, like we changed I remember the set-up of the shocks,” Patrese adds.

“There was no aerodynamics basically in those days, so not much to do really. Two types of tyres from Goodyear. Two compounds. A softer, and one harder. So we could have it a little bit softer or harder depending on the weather or the asphalt that we got. So there was much less possibility to do things. We are talking F3, not Formula 1.

“Even in F1, when I came in ‘77, if you compare the car that I drove the first year in ‘77, and you compare the car of now, it’s like here to Mars.”

Using the softer Goodyear compound tyre was actually crucial to his season, as Trivellato got hold of the grippier compound for the Vallelunga season finale and it contributed to Patrese taking pole for the first heat race. He went into that round a couple of points behind factory March driver Conny Andersson, and Andersson got ahead of him off the line in their heat.

However drama ensued as the Swede was deemed to have jumped the start and he was handed a one-minute penalty. He therefore spent much of the 10-lap race keeping Patrese behind him – and some would say holding up – in the hope that delaying the Italian would prevent the title from going his rival’s way. Instead, the penalty dropped Andersson to 18th and meant he didn’t get through to the points-paying final while Patrese did and with the title now in his sights.

Patrese finished second in the 32-lap title decider to Gianfranco Brancatelli, enough to match Andersson on dropped scores.

“My big battle was with Conny,” Patrese recalls. “We finished on the same points, but I think I had one more win than him and because of that I was champion.”

It actually came down to third place countback, with both having four wins (Patrese winning the Enna-Pergusa Grand Prix and the Hessenpreis at Germany’s Kassel-Calden airport circuit in addition to Zandvoort and Monza) and two second places. Patrese made the podium’s bottom step twice in points-scoring races, while Andersson only did once.

“So it was really a very tight fight, but there were drivers that were like Bracatelli, sometimes Giacomelli came and drove with the March, but was busy with the British championship. But he came sometimes to drive in the middle of us. Rupert Keegan was there too, there were good drivers.”

It wasn’t only the European title that Patrese won, as in the same race he was crowned Italian F3 champion too.

“Now Mr Trivellato said ‘OK, now you are champion in F3, I give you a F2 to drive’. I said ‘thank you very much’. “

After bringing a lot of eyes onto F3 in 1976, Patrese did the same in European F2 in 1977. He came sixth and fifth in the opening two rounds, leading the Chevron charge, and then came third in Hockenheim’s Deutschland Trophy. After that was the Nordschleife, a circuit he actually knew, for the 205km-long Eifelrennen race.

“I got the pole at Nurburgring, at the beginning of May. I was 2.8 seconds in front of all the rest of the field. And in the field there were F1 drivers like Jochen Mass, Clay Regazzoni, Alan Jones. Because of that, the following Monday I got a call from Shadow, I tested the week after at Paul Ricard. I did 300km, and they said afterwards ‘OK, we go to Monaco and you debut there’, and I was in F1.

“It was not like now that you need the millions and millions and millions to go to F1.”

Patrese ended up retiring on the second lap at the Nordschleife, but once again the impact preceded the outcome. Three weeks later he was racing in F1 aged 23, just two years, one months and 22 days on from his single-seater debut.

“It was the period of [designer] Tony Southgate. It was not the best car in F1, but in those days, and in the end the opportunity came because Tom Pryce was killed in the accident at the South Africa Grand Prix. Because of that terrible accident, there was a free place and they asked me to replace him.”

Patrese drove his Shadow DN8 to ninth on his debut, and he got eight more chances in the car over the rest of the year. He scored his first point in the season finale, the Japanese Grand Prix, then flew straight back to England to complete his F2 campaign. Second places at Mugello, Rouen and Nogaro helped him to fourth in the European standings (while also winning the Italian title), and after that he flew all the way back to Japan to contest the Super Formula finale at Suzuka and won it.

He would remain Asia for the Macau Grand Prix, which ran to FPacific regulations at the time. As described by Patrese, the Bob Harper Racing-run Chevron B40 he drove was a very similar car to what he had stepped up to F2 in.

Photo: Paul Kooyman

“In effect, when I drove in Macau in 1977 the car was the same car that I drove in F2 but had a FPacific engine that was a little bit with less power, something like that,” Patrese says. “F2 had 300 horspower, here we had 240-something.”

While the challenging Guia circuit hasn’t changed too much since the 1970s, there were some notable differences.

“The circuit they didn’t change much, but at least now you have the barriers,” Patrese worryingly points out.

“In the first year I went there, there was no barriers. So when we were going up the hill there, for the very fast Esses, I remember that I was doing the walk of the track and there was a small wall about 40cm high, and I said ‘OK, for sure now it can be there’ because maybe it was Monday or Tuesday before the race so [I was thinking] ‘for sure they’ve put a rail or something, because you could see below there were cars, homes, houses.

“Maybe 20 metres [below] that there were houses. So I said ‘ah, for sure they’ll put a rail just for that’. But no, they didn’t put a rail. We raced with only that small wall, and if somebody was touching or going off, we were flying on the top of the houses. So it was also that quite a challenge. In those days, safety was not a big matter. We went, we raced, and [didn’t worry].”

Patrese took pole, and nabbed a cash prize in doing so, then drove one of the most unbelievable and sensational races to win. Alan Jones took the lead at first, but he then had mechanical trouble and was hit by Patrese, which ruined his race further and also sent Patrese to the back of the field. On top of that, the Italian had a lengthy pitstop and was then shown the black flag. He stayed on track though and fought his way back up the order before then lapping his opposition once in the lead.

In 1978 he returned to Macau to become a two-time winner of the grand prix, and cameoed in SFormula (then known as Japanese F2) again too, but he had also already established himself in F1 with Arrows and in sportscars too.

“From the driving point of view F2 was very similar because the F1 aerodynamics was very poor. But a lot more power.

“Because I went in one year I went from the 160hp of the F3 then to the 300 of F2 and the 550 of F1. With the more power the car was moving a lot. But in the end, that was not a big problem. I think if you are good, then you needed to drive everything. A part then of my career I also drove prototypes, endurance races; I won many six-hour and 1000km races. When you are good, you are good [in everything]. With the wheel, in the end [if] you are good you drive everything [too].”

Patrese’s F1 career ran all the way to 1993, and he did the GP Masters series in 2005 and ’06 for ex-F1 stars. Now, he’s following the fledgling single-seater career of his F4-driving son Lorenzo, who has also switched across from another sport.

“I don’t enjoy watching because I suffer a lot,” Patrese admits. “When I look at Lorenzo driving, I suffer. Not because I’m afraid of safety, [but] because you know all the fighting and I would like to see him always at the best if it’s possible.”

That fighting aspect of racing in F4 does get Patrese’s approval, despite the costs of modern entry-level junior single-seaters.

“F4 prepares very well for fighting, you know. Sometimes in F1 you don’t see much fights, here you see a lot of fights. So it’s a logical consequence from karting, because also there you are really having to fight hard. So, in the end, yes [F4 cars prepare drivers well.

“I think the car is very basic, and difficult to drive. The car is quite physical. If you jump to the next step, I think from the driving point of view it’s easier. Because you have more downforce, OK then that doesn’t mean that then you are the quickest, but from the driving side I think when you go the step forward it’s a little bit easier.”

And what of Patrese Jr’s own racing accomplishments? “His start in F4 is promising. He has a lot of passion.

“I never asked him to drive, because he was born as a rider, not as a driver. He’s quite good on showjumping with horses.

Photo: ACI Sport

“He was in the Italian team in the European championship in France only three years ago. And in karting he started very late compared to the other guys, because he started when he was 11.

“Usually they start in karting when they are seven, eight. My wish was him to go and ride, because I like also myself riding now. But he wanted to drive, so we started with karting, and then yes OK we started with F4, and then you needed to fight because if you want [to race], you need to have budget, because you have to spend money, especially at the beginning. So we will see [where he goes].

“You cannot predict anything from the formula point of view, because from here it is a cost, and then if you go the next step it’s a cost, and then even more and even more as you go. It’s important that he makes good results, I think, and then maybe somebody puts an eye on him.”

The younger Patrese did five races with AKM Motorsport last year in Italian F4, then has returned to the team for a full campaign in 2021. In the Paul Ricard season opener he claimed his first point, and is currently 14th in the standings.

“Let’s say that from the sporting point of view and the agonism, he started when he was seven,” says his father.

“So when he came here, he was already prepared to have pressure and fight for the good result. Especially in horse riding, he was in the national team and he was doing national cup, so it means he was in a team of four riders and he was competing for Italy. So you have also the responsibility to be there for your nation. I think it was taught there to have pressure, let’s say he didn’t start when he started karting from this pressure point of view, he had this already in his baggage.

“Now he has to make a little bit of experience, as normal, because you know for example he still has to improve the start. You can make pole position, but if you don’t start too well then you lose all the advantage you had. So he needs to raise his game, but I think he has a lot of will and a lot of passion, and that is the most important thing. Because it’s not my will that he has to be a racing driver, it’s his!”

Photo: ACI Sport

The post Riccardo Patrese on his rapid rise to F1 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Haas F1 Team

As Mick Schumacher prepares for his Formula 1 debut, Formula Scout runs through his best races to date

The Formula 1 paddock is in Bahrain today to conclude pre-season preparations before racing gets underway on March 28. There will be three rookies on the grid this year, and one of them is reigning Formula 2 champion Mick Schumacher.

Aged 21, Schumacher has already left his mark on the steps immediately below F1 with a dominant second half of the season landing him the 2018 FIA European Formula 3 title, and consistency earning him last year’s F2 crown.

The son of seven-time F1 world champion Michael is unsurprisingly excited to now graduate to single-seaters’ pinnacle tier.

“As a child, I’ve been dreaming about this for 15 years – and now it’s actually happened,” said Schumacher.

“It’s emotional and just something very nice. My father actually had his first race in F1 30 years ago this year – that makes it even more emotional and even nicer.

“Coming from F2 we have very little experience on the F1 tyre. But we do have a good amount of experience with Pirelli tyres, so that’s really going to be one of our focus points.

“We need to get even more information on how to prepare a single lap and also how to prepare the tyre for race distances. The races this year are very much longer than the ones we had in F2 and obviously now we only have one race each weekend. We have to be able to extract as much knowledge from the free practice sessions and qualifying to be able then to put everything into the performance for the race.”

From the 196 single-seater races that Schumacher has started on his way up to F1, which performances stand out the most?

ITALIAN F4 Misano 2016 Race 1
Grid: 2nd (+0.464s from pole)   Race: 1st (win by 2.307s)

Schumacher’s first season in cars with Van Amersfoort Racing produced solid points-scoring finishes and a race win, but it was his debut with the Prema outfit he would spend five years with that earns the first spot on this list.

An eventful opening lap at Misano included Schumacher being chopped at the start by Marcos Siebert, which dropped him behind Ian Rodriguez. To top that, he had contact with Marino Sato, to which he avoided any substantial damage while Sato broke his front wing. Despite the eventful opening tour, Schumacher was able to keep his head down.

He pressured Rodriguez into a mistake and started to edge into the gap that Siebert held. A spectacular move around the outside for the lead set the tone for what turned out to be a highly successful season in Formula 4 across Germany and Italy and was the first real indication that Schumacher had substantial potential in his possession.

Read the report

FIA EUROPEAN F3 Spa-Francorchamps 2018 Race 1
Grid: 16th (+1.220s)   Race: 4th (+16.506s)

The Schumacher name is totally synonymous with Spa-Francorchamps – beginning with his father Michael’s legendary F1 debut with Jordan 30 years ago. In 2018, Schumacher was almost a year-and-a-half into his European Formula 3 stint and rarely looked like he could challenge for wins. While he would win at Spa, it is his first race that weekend, a superb climb through the field, that gets the nod here.

While Jehan Daruvala won an exciting race in itself out front, Schumacher made up a staggering 12 places from an inadequate qualifying position to kickstart what turned out to be an exceptional run of race results. Spa allows for slipstreaming, and Schumacher utilised this to good effect. A stellar start allowed him to avoid the standard La Source carnage and, by the time the safety car was called, he was up into 11th.

From there, Schumacher simply picked off place after place, battling with future F2 rivals Juri Vips, Robert Swartzman and Dan Ticktum in the process, and crossed the line in fifth. A subsequent penalty for Ticktum elevated him into a fine fourth.

Read the report

FIA EUROPEAN F3 Red Bull Ring 2018 Race 1
Grid: 1st (-0.247s)   Race: 1st (-0.903s)

Schumacher’s run of consecutive wins in the latter part of the final European F3 seasons remains debated and questioned to this day, due to ambiguity over the engines both he and Shwartzman used. Regardless, the duel the pair had in the first race at the Red Bull Ring in the rain was a fine example of the talent both drivers can display – something both have continued to do while climbing up the single-seater ladder. It was only right for one of these wins to feature because the level of driving from Schumacher had noticeably improved.

The opening stages of the race featured a fascinating scrap between the pair – with the German coming out on top. After that, he was able to open up a small gap, but Shwartzman was able to reel him back in. Despite the late pressure, Schumacher was able to hold on to take his fourth successive victory. More importantly, it also gave him the championship lead over Ticktum – whose form started to crumble. The second half of the season was about the sudden rise of Schumacher and Shwartzman, and this is the standout memory of that part of the season.

Read the report

FORMULA 2 Red Bull Ring 2019 Sprint
Grid: 18th   Race: 4th (+5.781s)

Schumacher fourth from front

Schumacher’s maiden Formula 2 season featured few highlights – it was a difficult campaign as the Prema outfit tumbled down the order. Schumacher often was luckless or made highly unnecessary mistakes while in strong positions. While he did win a sprint race in fine style at the Hungaroring, it was another sprint that stands out from his first season at that level.

He stalled on the grid in the Red Bull Ring feature race and finished a lap down – while also having an effect on Nyck de Vries’s race – and started on the penultimate row on the grid for the sprint. His pace, however, was stunning.

He started well once again, and he started to methodically pick off each of his rivals. Admittedly, a safety car for a crash involving Louis Deletraz did benefit him as it closed the pack up, but he was still able to utilise his superior race pace to exceptionally good effect. He also had worked his way up into a strong position before the pause in proceedings. He managed to get as far as to the gearbox of de Vries by the finish and narrowly missed out on what would have been a very well-earned podium. Afterwards, he boldly claimed he had more confidence than his opposition.

Read the report

FORMULA 2 Monza 2020 Feature
Grid: 7th (+0.348s)   Race: 1st (-3.185s)

Photo: Getty Images

There were a select few candidates for the final spot coming from Schumacher’s successful title-winning F2 campaign, but the magnitude of the win at Monza – a venue that holds such importance to Prema, Ferrari and to the Schumacher family – was the ideal candidate to put into this list.

His weekend started pretty dismally with a qualifying crash leaving him seventh on the grid. At this point, Schumacher wasn’t considered a major title contender, as fellow Ferrari juniors Shwartzman and Callum Ilott were way ahead in the points.

Schumacher’s launch at the start was simply exquisite – gaining a whopping five spots on the run down to the first corner.

The first part of the race was about Schumacher and Ilott trading laptimes, with the Briton having the upper hand coming into the pitstop sequence. The lead went to Schumacher after Ilott stalled – prompting one of the finest recovery drives from the latter. While it appeared Schumacher’s job was done there, he had to keep an eye on Luca Ghiotto and Christian Lundgaard in the closing stages.

Schumacher’s lack of feature race wins came under scrutiny, and he was asked regularly – including by Formula Scout – when such wins would come. This was the result that quietened those critics, firmly thrust him into title contention and was part of a very solid run of form that formed the basis of his successful title campaign.

Read the report

The post Mick Schumacher’s top five race drives appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: DTM

Gerhard Berger’s work as FIA Single-Seater Commission president and chairman of DTM promoter ITR laid way for many of today’s F1 drivers making it to the top. But his next move might have the opposite effect

Since the DTM’s revival in 2000, as a domestically focused high-spec touring car series, it has had a strong relationship with Formula 3. Had W Series not opted to cancel its 2020 season, F3 would have been on the support bill for all 21 seasons of ‘Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters’.

At first it was German F3, then in 2003 that merged with its French counterpart to become the F3 Euro Series. That was run by Formel 3 Vermarktungs GmbH (F3V GmbH), a subsidiary company of DTM promoter ITR, and evolved into the FIA F3 European Championship that ran from 2012 to 2018.

Throughout that time the DTM updated itself by following sporting and technical developments from Formula 1 and IndyCar, categories it compares itself to, and in recent years has been based on a ‘Class One’ formula also used by Japan’s Super GT – a closed-wheel counterpart to Super Formula. It has been one of the most popular professional series for drivers and automotive manufacturers in the world, and is often referred to as single-seater racing with a roof. It’s no surprise the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award tests young drivers in DTM cars.

But for 2021, after its manufacturer appeal started to wane, the series will run for GT3 sportcars. But more on that later.

The creation of FIA European F3 in 2012 was effectively a Euro Series rebrand by the FIA Single-Seater Commission, then fronted by Gerhard Berger.

The Austrian had a long relationship with F3 and the DTM, having finished third in the final season of FIA European F3’s first era in 1984, then finished eighth in his sole DTM start a year later as he started to make waves in F1.

Photo: Votava / Imagno / picturedesk.com

Berger called time on his race-winning F1 career in 1997, and had a short break before becoming BMW’s motorsport director. That job ended in 2003, after BMW had won the Le Mans 24 Hours and successfully returned to F1 as an engine supplier. After that, Berger part-owned Toro Rosso (now called AlphaTauri), and joined Sebastian Vettel (a Euro Series graduate) on the podium after his historic 2008 Italian Grand Prix win.

By the time Berger took over the Single-Seater Commission presidency from Barry Bland – the late and great creator and organiser of most of F3’s classic races – it was already the norm for F3’s top talents to be DTM-bound.

Under Berger’s direction that changed. He bowed out of the role after a 2014 season that produced four future F1 stars (including Max Verstappen), five Formula E drivers and eight who went on to race in IndyCar or Super Formula.

Berger vacated the position – after also influencing FIA Formula 4’s introduction – to focus on his family’s business, and was replaced by ex-Ferrari team principal and future F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali. But he was dragged back into F3 in 2017 when he succeeded HWA, AMG and effective DTM founder Hans Werner Aufrecht as ITR chairman.

A few months into that job he was pitted against Domenicali, who planned to end European F3 to create the current F1-supporting FIA F3 Championship. Berger responded by continuing the F3V GmbH series under a new name, and those efforts were recognised with the awarding of a substantial 25 FIA superlicence points to the champion.

The continuation ultimately failed, partly down to Euroformula swooping in to fill European F3’s market space, but Berger had already struck a deal to keep F3 with the DTM by having W Series, another startup, support for 2019.

Part of the motivation for that, beyond W Series boosting ticket sales, links to a comment Berger made in a 2015 interview with Autosprint: “F3 has always been the best school for a driver, and should remain so.”

However, when Formula Scout heard from Berger prior to last weekend’s era-ending DTM title decider, his thoughts were somewhat different when asked if ITR would retain room for F3 in the future – as it now has a GT4-based DTM Trophy support series – and how GT3-spec DTM plans to attract young drivers.

“For us, the DTM Trophy is a very important element,” Berger began.

“We’re always getting questions: ‘back in your day, in F1 you had six French drivers, six Italians, where are the Italians, where are the French now?’. I think the reason is these countries didn’t pay enough attention to supporting and nurturing young talents, and for us – and with the DTM Trophy – it’s very important to give young talents the possibility to get started in motorsport, to make their way in motorsport, to build a basis for a future career.

“Be it sportscar racing, touring car racing, that’s for us an important aim. To create a platform for up-and-coming drivers to enable them to make a career in motorsport as professionals and at the end of the day maybe even be in a position to earn some money as a race driver. We’ve seen the DTM Trophy season has been very well balanced, great racing, and it’s a clear element for the DTM platform.”

With schedule space freed by having no F3V GmbH, ITR introduced the DTM Trophy in 2020. One of the series’ goals was to be a feeder to its namesake, and being pitched at drivers with a International D license meant that as well as appealing to sportscar enthusiasts, its place on the DTM support bill – and junior title for drivers born after 1997 – made it attractive to young drivers without the money for F3: be they F4 graduates or car racing newcomers.

The first champion was Esports convert Tim Heinemann, a protege of DTM legend Bernd Schneider, who now looks destined to race in the DTM. Like F3 Euro Series drivers who raced with Mercedes-Benz or Volkswagen engines, there’s already a line into professional drives for the Trophy’s best.

It’s clear – despite Berger’s hope W Series returns in 2021 – that there’s a new proving ground on the block, and one that prepares drivers directly for DTM’s future. It ticks some of the boxes that made DTM and its support paddock a popular career choice for young drivers, but frankly sportscars can also be of little-to-no interest to many rising talents and their sponsors.

But what do DTM’s current drivers, many who made their names on the support bill, make of the GT3 switch?

Ferdinand Habsburg raced in FIA European F3 in 2017 and ’18, picking up one win but becoming known for the finish to the 2017 Macau GP, where he claimed the lead at the final corner before understeering into the barriers and finishing fourth. Since 2019, he has raced in the DTM and recently took his first podium and pole.

“First and foremost, when you racing as a support series to the DTM, you get to meet people,” Habsburg told Formula Scout.

“They get to see you, so you’re directly in front of their noses. And although DTM teams are always busy on race weekends, there is always somebody keeping an eye on the support categories to see how the young talent is coming along.

“Then moving into DTM; I mean you meet so many people, you’re introduced to this whole new world of professional motorsport and if you end up shining and being able to do well in that sort of field, then it’s something that nobody can take off your CV and it’s something that seems to be very attractive to the motorsport community around the world.

“It gives you an interesting portfolio for more manufacturers and more job opportunities in the future, which is awesome.

“Of course, DTM is in a lot of ways and has been an end goal. It’s been the dream to race there, and to try to win the championship. So once I got there, my eyes were set, my mind was focused, and my progression I feel has been positive, going into the first podium and pole position. Your goals change along the way obviously, but you’re also opened up to a whole new world which changes your perspective often as well. And also of course, growing up. I’m in my young 20s, you’re changing all the time [at my age]. DTM also helps you with that.”

As a direct result of driving for Aston Martin and Audi-linked DTM teams, opportunities appeared for Habsburg to race those marques’ GT3 cars, and so he also has an eye on how a young driver will see DTM’s future.

“It will make the transition easier for people that don’t necessarily have the financial background – like I had the privilege of having – to do F3, which is an expensive series.

“And then it gives more opportunity for people that still want to go racing, but have to start off like Rene Rast did.

“What he did was something very special, and not everybody was able to do. Most of them came from single-seaters in DTM. So it means you can go and race touring cars and have a more honest chance at getting up to speed quicker in a DTM car. That’s great. It will still keep the same attractiveness; it’s DTM. It’s the same format, we’ll see that the drivers will still always be very competitive, that’s the thing that everybody looks for. And the fanbase is huge.

“You know what, it is difficult to say still. Because it hasn’t happened yet, and we’ll see how it goes along. But it’s always been a professional series, and I believe it will stay that way.”

Habsburg and Rast disputing the lead of a DTM race

It’s not just Habsburg who’s holding up Rene Rast as a career template for the DTM. The series itself is, too. The 34-year-old German’s latest swathe of career momentum (and domination) has come just at the right time, as his story makes its new platform and DTM Trophy a more convincing sell to drivers and punters.

Rast did actually race single-seaters, but his one-and-a-half seasons in Formula BMW ADAC had little in the way of results. He moved to touring cars, lighting up Germany’s single-make series as a teenager, then to Porsche Carrera Cup Germany. He became champion, and moved up to the F1-supporting Supercup where he won the title on his second attempt – then won again for the next two years. It earned him DTM tests, but no race seat.

In 2013 he diversified, becoming a winner with Audi’s factory teams in FIA GT and ADAC GT Masters (the German GT series DTM is now a direct rival to) as well as becoming champion in Germany’s low-cost Dacia Logan Cup of all things.

Rast won the 2014 GT Masters title while getting his first taste of prototypes, and was then picked to join Audi’s LMP1 line-up for its penultimate Le Mans attack. The long-awaited DTM debut came in 2016 as a substitute, but it didn’t get the same attention as his winning LMP2 exploits or single-seater return with Team Aguri in FE’s Berlin E-Prix.

His dreams were finally fulfilled, and then surpassed in 2017 as he became DTM’s first rookie champion since the 1990s. He came four points short of a sophomore title, despite winning the final six races, and is now a three-time champion.

On top of his latest title success, Audi brought Rast back to FE this year in Berlin and he picked up his first single-seater podium and bagged himself a full-time drive with the factory Abt team for next season.

Photo: FIA Formula E

Rast’s story, and success, undoubtedly makes him DTM’s poster boy. Mercedes has had a few F1 proteges in the series, like Red Bull has in SF, but it can be queried if they earned DTM seats solely because F1’s top team had them spare.

In the end, F1 spat di Resta, Esteban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein back out and they found salvation by returning to the DTM or, in Ocon’s case, switching allegiances. Rast meanwhile forged his own path, spent less money than his contemporaries in getting to a professional level, and later proved the DTM’s calibre of competition by matching the best in F1’s new single-seater world championship rival.

Rast’s DTM journey inspires Habsburg as much as it would drivers far younger, and another great example of a driver to look up to in the series is F1 grand prix winner Robert Kubica.

Attracting ex-F1 drivers has actually been a DTM strength, and most have raced there to end or extend their career rather than as a holding cell until they find a way back into F1. Here’s what Berger had to say about the topic, and if Aston’s likely 2021 DTM return (having competed via R-Motorsport in 2019) could incorporate its F1 signing Vettel.

“I’m sure Sebastian would say yes immediately. I think his path is F1. I would rather have Sebastian committed 100% to F1. So from today’s perspective: no. But maybe in the future it’s a possibility. We’ve had drivers like Jean Alesi, David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, many ex-F1 drivers are on this platform and that has to be the goal for the future.

“Be again where we were in the past. We need to have a platform that’s fascinating for drivers, who will be thrilled by the cars and the machinery. That’s where we will like to end up.”

The fascination was an attraction for Kubica, who alongside F1 reserve driver duties this year contested his rookie DTM season with ART Grand Prix – the big rival team when he raced in F3 Euro Series.

Kubica revealed to Formula Scout that racing in the support paddock actually played a part in his 2020 return:

“Lets start from many, many years ago. Being on the same weekend, on the same track as [the DTM] in the championship I was racing in – F3 Euro Series – which was I think one of the most challenging and most ‘looked at’ championships in the [lower] formulas, it was really something special.

“I remember crowds of people around the DTM paddock, grandstands, it felt really amazing. Probably that’s why I always followed DTM very closely, and somehow I did try to come back after 17 years to this paddock because in the end what attracts our sport and what makes it so special are fans.”

The COVID-19 pandemic meant spectators were barred in 2020 and cut – as it did for most series – the appeal to sponsors.

“DTM has always been very close and very open to fans,” continued Kubica. “It’s one of the few series which give opportunity to fans to come so close, to [be] part of race weekends, enter the paddock, come close to the teams, cars, and stuff like this.”

While Kubica hopes to see a return of spectator interaction in 2021, he’s decided he won’t stick around to race the GT3s.

The ruleset change means the loss of turbochargers, the Drag Reduction System, and a host of other technical upgrades that has kept DTM relevant not only as a final step in a driver’s career, but as a preparatory tool for F1.

“Regarding preparation of young drivers? We have seen some young drivers come into F1 via DTM, and I think it’s a good opportunity [for them],” added Kubica. “For sure, once the DTM switches to GT3, I think it will be less attractive to young drivers, to be honest. Because the driving style and what you learn in a GT car, it not necessarily works on formula cars.

“But definitely nobody’s putting any doubt about the drivers’ level and the competitiveness which we are having in DTM, they have been always very, very high level. Whatever year you look, there have been always amazing drivers in a very, very competitive field. And the teams.

“Once you get car manufacturers involved directly in the series, it brings the series into the highest level of professionalism, of the technical aspects and stuff like this. This is also one thing which is quite difficult with a small team like we are, to race against the teams which are backed by factories, and they have huge experience.

“I don’t know how the situation will be on this topic next year, but from what I understood, the DTM is trying to attract privateer teams, which they can handle and offer opportunities to race to young drivers. But as I said, I think the biggest limitation for young drivers in the future will be that DTM will use GT cars. And this isn’t exactly the same as F1.”

Habsburg called the ‘Class One’ vehicles “a F3 car with more power, more downforce, and a little bit more weight” with a similar driving style requirement, and is more optimistic about DTM’s GT3 future than Kubica.

“From the driver point of view, I think it’s a big shame and probably all of us will miss this feeling of driving the car, which looks like a touring car or a GT car but is more like a formula car,” Kubica said.

“This is what I think all drivers enjoy, the feeling of downforce, the ability of actually extracting maximum from those cars. But from the other end, if the change of cars will grant a good future for DTM, I think it’s the correct move.”

Habsburg and Kubica efficiently summarise how DTM’s overhaul could impact young drivers.

DTM Trophy could prove to be more affordable entry to becoming a professional than through lower-level single-seaters. If a driver can carve a route through the DTM paddock’s new structure, learn enough as a driver in the GT cars and impress a manufacturer there, then not only could they get find an opportunity later in life in FE or beyond, but having built professional connections so early in their career via the Trophy they could probably stay in racing far longer than the average junior single-seater entrant. And at the core of this image switch is ensuring there is still a DTM for those drivers to go to.

But at the same, so much of what made the DTM famous is now going, and being replaced by a ruleset neither new, inspiring or visually identifiable as the DTM. It will cost more than its sportscar rivals too.

Grid sizes may grow in 2021, and there will absolutely be more marques than the current two, but are the professional drivers going to stay loyal when there’s greater driving challenges elsewhere? And can a GT3 series populated by customer cars fitted with assists such as anti-lock braking really prepare a young driver for the extreme management skills needed in FE or the high-speed processing and ultra-professional world of F1?

And for all of Berger’s previous success, how did the DTM come to this point?

Further reading
The timeline of European F3’s demise – Teams’ memories of a F3 era
Creating the young driver competition 2020 never got to see
How W Series plans to rebound ‘bigger and better’ in 2021
How Robert Kubica set the perfect example for young drivers

Photo: GT World Challenge Europe

The post Why DTM’s sportscar switch could go two ways for young drivers appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Zak Mauger/GP3 Series Media Service

When Lotus was rebadged as Renault for 2016, its young driver support was totally overhauled. Two of its juniors in F3 were left in the cold. Both made it to F2 after starring in GP3, but only one returned to F1’s radar

Alex Albon’s journey to Formula 1 is well-documented, and his tale of Red Bull rejection to AlphaTauri driver after a title-fighting season in Formula 2 is what contributed to him being such a popular addition to the 2019 F1 grid. His spell in Lotus’s junior ranks if often forgotten though, possibly because the man guiding it – Gravity Sports Management’s Gwen Lagrue – continued to support his career afterwards despite following protege Esteban Ocon to Mercedes-Benz’s junior team.

Lagrue was in the FIA European Formula 3 paddock in 2015 with Lotus-backed Signature drivers Albon and Dorian Boccolacci, and was seriously impressed by the performances of George Russell – which led to the Briton joining Mercedes.

Signature was a returning team with a point to prove, having dominated with full Volkswagen support when racing in the preceding F3 Euro Series, but its planned return to the category with Renault engines in 2014 had fallen apart and it ended up putting a team together for 2015 instead with VW power and a relatively inexperienced crew as its top personnel were responsible for running the Venturi Formula E team and Alpine’s World Endurance Championship efforts.

Both Albon and Boccolacci had a tricky year in F3, but still impressed, and Albon’s three years in Formula Renault 2.0 unsurprisingly prepared him better for the move than Boccolacci, who had a single season in French Formula 4 to his name.

Boccolacci had finished second in the points in F4, as well as Junior champion for being the best driver under 16 years old, and like most drivers there he was part of the FFSA Academy programme. He’d also been part of the Gravity-run Lotus junior line-up since karting, where a surprise win in the KZ2 Super Cup on debut led him to graduate to cars earlier than originally planned.

But going straight from a centrally-run entry-level series to the most competitive junior single-seater series in the world at the time is something Boccolacci now regrets.

“I stepped up to Formula 3 but this I think was not a good decision for me, because at this time, I was not prepared for the high level of Formula 3,” Boccolacci tells Formula Scout.

“[There] were like 46 drivers and I think it was one of the most difficult categories at that time. Before GP2 and GP3, you could go to F1 from F3 without doing the others. So a lot of the academy drivers were not doing GP2 because it was much more expensive for the academies, like Ferrari or Renault, so they were doing F3 or DTM or directly GP3 and F1.”

Boccolacci’s point is, as a money-saving operation for F1 teams and personal backers, the 2015 European F3 grid had been packed with talent. And he was not prepared for it.

“At this time the championship was very strong. Charles Leclerc was in F3, Russell, Antonio Giovinazzi, Felix Rosenqvist, all these guys and I didn’t know any tracks except for one during the season. The step up was too big. I was driving with some drivers who already had three, four, five years of single-seaters, this was only my second one. The academy is good but you don’t learn any of the tracks of the championship. I probably needed to go into Formula Renault before F3 I think.

“This was a big mistake in my career, but I didn’t make this mistake. I was part of Gravity Management and they had some problems to continue with the academy and they did this choice because it was better for them to find sponsors. So it’s only about budget and they couldn’t do anything except for F3 at this time. In the end, it was a mistake but we couldn’t do too much.”

Five points finishes in 33 races left Boccolacci 19th in the points, but the list of names ahead of him is mouth-watering. In addition to the drivers Boccolacci mentioned himself, there was also future single-seater pros Lance Stroll, Maximilian Gunther, Santino Ferrucci and Nick Cassidy, and F1 testers Callum Ilott, Sergio Sette Camara and Pietro Fittipaldi.

“I think this year was really hard for me mentally, and that the only thing I really learned was that I was strong in the head. But otherwise, no, because you are always fighting for the top positions in go karting early in your career. I was fighting with Charles, Max [Verstappen], with George Russell, all these drivers who are in F1 and when you are not prepared enough for this step, you don’t understand why you’re not performing. There are so many questions in the head, so it was not quite a good year for me, for sure.”

It was made all the worse at the end of the year when ‘Team Enstone’ was bought back out by Renault and Gravity’s services were no longer required for its young driver programme, and neither were the young drivers on it.

This is a tale of caution to Renault’s juniors now, as the F1 team they intend to progress to is being renamed as Alpine for 2021 and has already filled its two seats. While this is more of a Toro Rosso to AlphaTauri rebrand than a change in ownership, a new name above the door is still an excuse to restructure, including the Renault Sport Academy. Since its 2016 inception it hasn’t produced a single F1 driver, with FE race-winner Oliver Rowland its most successful graduate.

Alpine still has its WEC LMP2 programme, and it may be inclined to reward its 22-year-old sportscar star Thomas Laurent with an F1 test or more if it retains the highly-rated Frenchman’s services into 2021 and wants to create some synergy between the two projects.

There was a strong chance Boccolacci and Albon would have remained with Lotus had it stayed in F1, and moved on together to GP3 or even GP2. But its departure left both with a major budget deficit. Lagrue secured Albon a top GP3 seat with ART Grand Prix and he challenged Leclerc for the 2016, while Boccolacci stepped down to Formula Renault before echoing Albon’s GP3 heroics and follow-up underfunded F2 performances.

“Last year I did only a half season in Formula 2. It was quite a big difference to Formula 3 and GP3,” Boccolacci says.

“I had two chances, the first one I missed was when I was with Lotus, the junior team. They stopped so of course to find the budget was complicated so this, I had a bit of bad lack. Then I went into Formula Renault, was vice-champion behind Lando Norris, we were fighting all the season together and yeah, it was something that was… now we know that Lando was not a bad driver, so I think it was a good season.

“Then I stepped into GP3 and I think I did a good job. I was the second [driver] behind the top four who were all from ART.”

ART’s quartet of drivers dominated the season, with Boccolacci’s Trident team-mate Giuliano Alesi often picking up sprint race spoils. Those wins meant he bettered Boccolacci, who got his own win in the season finale, for fifth in the points.

“I think that was a good season overall and I had a chance to go with ART for the next year. But the problem was the budget again, we finally found the budget late in the season and ART, they are of course one of the best teams, they had already their four drivers. There was no space for me so that was quite a big chance missed there.

“We know that with ART, they give you a chance to fight for the title. Teams like ART, Prema, DAMS, they are really good teams and they also had many, many good drivers and a lot of good information. They know what is working and what is not working, so it’s easier for a driver to have all the questions answered and you are clearer in your idea in how to drive the car.

Photo: Sam Bloxham/GP3 Series Media Service

“This is probably what makes the difference, more than just the set-up. So, I think we missed two chances to arrive to the top, to F1 and then yeah, as soon as you lose two chances, it’s almost impossible.”

A DAMS seat wasn’t free either for 2018 as the team had left GP3, and Boccolacci landed a drive at MP Motorsport, which had taken its place in the series. He won twice (although one was lost to a disqualification for failing to supply an adequate fuel sample), and after round five of nine he was called up by MP to fill in a place in its F2 line-up where with little preparation he scored three points in eight races. Not great, but in the first year of the current F2 2018 car and when the competitive order was set very much on which teams got over the technical gremlins quickest, it was no embarrassment. And while he ended the GP3 season 10th in the points, his scoring rate probably would have put him in sixth again.

“I did F2 after but again I had no budget to do a full season so it was a bit disappointing to know that I wouldn’t be able to drive all year, I would only do five rounds. We had some good results like in Monaco, I was P4 and the first rookie. So in the end there were some good results, but in single-seaters, you need money or be part of a junior programme.”

Boccolacci’s five-round spell with Campos Racing in 2019 earned him a decent haul of points, and while bettered by team-mate Jack Aitken his qualifying and race pace was still impressive at a team on the rise. But aside from a one-off call-up by Trident at Silverstone, that was Boccolacci’s last single-seater opportunity. Even being signed up alongside Arthur Leclerc as a Venturi junior at the start of 2018 has led to nothing.

While Boccolacci undeniably deserves a full season in F2 (which incidentally the developers of the official F1 game series seem to agree on after giving him one of the highest values on the F2 grid for the pace attribute in F1 2020), the Frenchman’s opportunities now lie elsewhere. Which includes going up against Valtteri Bottas in rallying.

“[That] was my first experience in rallying and it was really enjoyable. It wasn’t really a ‘rally’ rally, it was circuit rally, so it was kind of halfway there,” Boccolacci clarifies.

Photo: Sebastiaan Rozendaal / Dutch Photo Agency

Based at French Grand Prix venue Paul Ricard and the surrounding roads, Rallycircuit Côte d’Azur ran last December and attracted a diverse entry list. Bottas predictably won in a more powerful World Rally Car, but Boccolacci was a clear second place in the class for the second-tier R5 cars before he received a 20-second penalty.

“Honestly, it was really interesting to drive with this kind of car, it was nice to drive not on the track, because we had some portions which were not on the circuit. I drove the Paul Ricard circuit so many times, and honestly, nothing is better than a F3 or F2 car but all the interior of the circuit, around the track there are some really tight parts, some junctions, some jumps, you need to use the handbrake and all of these sections which this car was really interesting.

“And in the end I was quite quick as well which was nice. Having the co-driver too was also difficult because you need to focus on what he is saying and you need to know what notes to put in order to anticipate the corners. But after the first day, we did a lot of repeat stages so I got to know the corners quite well actually, so it was fine. I knew almost 95% of the stage.

“But at the end of the first day, I had to focus on what he was saying, and also what is different between rallying and circuit is that if you do a mistake, it has a big consequence and you keep it for the rest of the rally. And from the first kilometre, if you crash, that’s it and your rally is finished. So, this was a bit different. It’s not like you have a race two, or qualifying two to do things again. If you crash, you crash and that’s it finished.”

Boccolacci was arguably more prepared for the off-road element of his first rally than he was for F2, having already starred in the Andros Trophy. Little known outside of France – but massively appreciated within it – the ice racing series has been around since 1990, raced in Paris and held regular rounds abroad in Andorra (which is south of France in the Pyrenees) and Canada. Champions in the top class include Alain Prost and touring car legend Yvan Muller, whose rivals included Romain Grosjean, Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve, and the series was an early adopter of electric power.

After a victorious cameo in the electric category in 2018, he moved up to the secondary Elite category for the 2018-19 season and claimed a convincing title win. His performances in the rear-wheel-drive BMW M2 impressed ice paddock rival Sainteloc Racing, and when Boccolacci’s money ran out for F2 he was granted an “emotional” opportunity to drive in GT World Challenge Europe in one of the team’s Audi R8 LMS Evo GT3 cars as team-mate to Stephane Ortelli.

Suffice to say, Boccolacci – who turns 22 today (September 9) – had impressed one of sportscars’ best in the same car and for the first time since he entered cars gone into the next year feeling confident of a full racing season in a decent car.

Little did he know that he’d end up with three times what he was asking for.

The first of these is a drive with Oregon Racing – which was the launching pad for Albert Costa and Mirko Bortolotti‘s professional careers after they dropped off the single-seater ladder at the final step – in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe as an official young driver of the manufacturer.

“When you look at GT racing, there is a lot of manufacturer involvement across many teams, and Lamborghini is one of them which has a lot of opportunity to progress.

“And with the Super Trofeo, it is all Lamborghinis so you know that they are watching everyone. This is a good opportunity for me to become a factory driver and my overall ambition to be a professional driver and be paid to race.

“Lamborghini is known to have a good system and the chance for young drivers like me to build a career in motorsport. Quite a lot will change for me moving from single-seaters to GT this year. First, we have the traction control, everyone has ABS and then there is the driver change during the race. So, it will take some getting used to of course, but you need to adapt your driving style because the car is so heavy and you don’t really use the lateral of the car like in single-seaters.

“But I am looking forward to it of course. The aim is always to do as well as we can, to win races and challenge for the title, so we will see what happens when the season starts.

“There are some differences but also some things are quite similar from F2 to GT. Like managing the tyres, that is something we used to have to do a lot of in F2 and it’s the same in the GT car.

“I don’t have a lot of experience in the GTs but for sure, controlling the tyres and being good with them helps a lot so that is maybe something I can bring from F2 into GTs.”

Boccolacci is targeting wins in Super Trofeo, and maybe even the title, and scored his first podium with co-driver Kevin Gilardoni (winner of the 2012 FR2.0 Italy title) last weekend at the Nurburgring.

He could pick up further success in Germany this year, as he’s also racing for ex-Formula 1 team Zakspeed in ADAC GT Masters.

In that championship he’s racing a Mercedes-Mercedes-AMG GT3, and is 10th in the points after two rounds. The names ahead of him could genuinely be described as a list of the greatest GT racers in the world right now, and it is a series where he could also earn a living as a factory driver for F1’s current dominant force.

There’s a third name in the frame, as he has been retained by Audi customer Sainteloc for the GTWCE Endurance Cup. He finished fifth in the season opener, and once again the names ahead are the current class acts of GT racing.

The question now is not if Boccolacci has a car racing future, but with which manufacturer it will lie.

Interview by Stephen Brunsdon

Further reading
When Leclerc, Russell and Albon stood out in F3
Giacomo Ricci: The GP2 underdog leading F2’s dark horse
The underfunded Techeetah beater who had to reset his career

The post The junior driver spurned by Renault’s last F1 name change appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Carlin called up McLaren GT driver and ex-European F3 racer Ben Barnicoat for the recent FIA F3 rounds at Silverstone after losing one of its drivers. It’s not the first surprise return to junior single-seaters

Most returns seen in sport are attempts by athletes to recapture former glory with an old partner or team in a familiar series, or because there is unfinished business in need of attention before a career can move on to its next step.

But sometimes there are totally random moves that are logical but would not have been predicted by anyone, are too last-minute to have any gameplan behind them, or come about more for the benefit of the PR department than for the sporting challenge the athlete faces.

Drivers racing in junior single-seater cars are supposed to be in the development stage of their career, bar maybe Formula Ford 1600 where value-for-money and historic tournaments keep competitors coming back for sometimes decades.

Some drivers do reach a professional status and quickly return to the junior ranks when they realise they require more learning, and more results, to genuinely establish themselves at the top level.

GP2 champions Timo Glock and Giorgio Pantano are excellent examples of this, having both made it to Formula 1 with Jordan in 2004 and then Champ Car/IndyCar in 2005. They couldn’t keep themselves in either series, so sought to find a second way in by landing seats in GP2.

They finished fourth and fifth in the 2006 points, then first and third in 2007. Glock earned a solid F1 seat at Toyota for 2008, the year in which Pantano won his GP2 title. He secured a Superleague Formula drive off the back of his success, but then raced in Auto GP in 2010 as he still aimed for F1. After four further IndyCar starts in two years, his hopes dried up.

For the purposes of this article, such junior single-seater returns aren’t considered. Ideally a driver should have spent at least two years outside of the junior sphere, preferably having gone on to race at a professional level in that gap, and their return cannot be down to a pre-existing development or test driver role.

Mathias Lauda AUSTRIA 2014-15 MRF Challenge
Junior career: 21st in 2005 GP2, 9th in 2004 Auto GP, 13th in 2004 Int. F3000   Return: 6th in 2014-15 MRF Challenge

At the end of 2014, M&N Racing’s Jose Pottamkulam Ootta attracted two very big names to the India-based MRF Challenge. Neither driver was actually massively known in motorsport at the time, instead signed up due to the reputation of their fathers and the movie-making possibilities of their single-seater exploits.

Mathias Lauda actually skipped karting at the start of his career and went straight into single-seaters in World Series Lights (formerly Formula Nissan). He didn’t embarrass himself, and picked up two podiums in his second season in the series. Already in Formula 3000 by his third year in motorsport, Lauda seemed to adapt quickly and was 13th in the F1-supporting International series.

After his three-time F1 world championship-winning father Niki bought him a A1GP seat for winter, he then contested the new GP2 series in 2005 but was firmly at the back. Regardless, he landed a place in professional racing with a four-year stint in the DTM. That was followed by a move to sportscars, where he’s had a long-term role with Aston Martin.

Lauda’s MRF appearance came around after his friend Freddie Hunt, whose father James famously beat Lauda Sr to the 1976 F1 title, called him up on behalf of Ootta. Hunt had previously raced in British Formula Ford and ADAC Formel Masters.

The first MRF round took place at former GP2 Asia venue Losail in Qatar, with Lauda and Hunt qualifying sixth and eighth on the 14-car grid. Lauda challenged for the podium in the first race, while Hunt scored a point in 10th after starting from the pitlane due to a formation lap stall.

A photo finish denied Lauda a podium in race two, and sixth in race three put him on race four pole. After being deposed of the lead, he dropped to ninth with a mechanical issue, while Hunt crashed heavily. Neither were competitive in Bahrain, but Lauda did pick up a reversed-grid race win. He skipped the Chennai season finale but came sixth in the standings.

Antonio Felix da Costa BRAZIL 2016 Macau GP
Junior career: 3rd in 2013 FV8 3.5, 2012 Macau GP winner, 3rd in ’12 GP3, 4th in ’12 FV8 3.5   Return: 2016 Macau GP winner

In the first six years as a professional driver, recently crowned Formula E champion Antonio Felix da Costa only won six races. It was this barren run that he immediately referred to upon taking the 2019-20 FE title in Berlin last weekend.

Two of those race wins came in the 2016 Macau Grand Prix, when he made a surprise return to F3 after having already established himself as a BMW factory driver in the DTM and as a giant killer with former F1 minnow team Aguri in FE.

“There is no aim as such in going back for me,” da Costa said ahead of his Macau return, having won the event for Carlin in 2012. “I’m just doing it for the love of the sport, so when I got the call from Trevor [Carlin] a few weeks ago I couldn’t say no.”

Unlike many of the quick drivers, da Costa had a trouble-free first qualifying session of the Macau weekend to put him on provisional pole. In the second session he also made it to the top of the times until the very end, when Hitech GP debutant George Russell and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Callum Ilott surpassed him.

The qualification race was delayed due to the heavy braking zone at Lisboa being wet, and there was immediate chaos once it got underway. The safety car came out, and da Costa slipstreamed into the lead once action resumed. He then held off Ilott for the rest of the race.

Sergio Sette Camara passed his Carlin team-mate da Costa for the lead at the start of the main race, and the latter once again benefitted from a the long run to Lisboa on a restart to move back into first. After fending off an attack from Sette Camara into Lisboa on the next restart, da Costa managed his race to win the FIA F3 World Cup.

Ben Barnicoat BRITAIN 2020 FIA F3
Junior career: 9th in 2016 FIA European F3, 2015 BRDC British F4 Autumn champion   Return: currently 19th in 2020 FIA F3

For almost all of Ben Barnicoat’s career he has been representing McLaren, and it was a great shame that after four titles in four years in karts and cars he parted company with the F1 team before his single race-winning season in FIA European F3 in 2016.

In karting he kept Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen on their toes, and moved into single-seaters with the financial aid and management of British driver support programme Racing Steps Foundation behind him. He debuted in Formula Renault BARC’s three-race Autumn Cup at Rockingham, where he took two wins and a second to top the points.

Sticking with the Fortec Motorsports team he debuted with, Barnicoat concentrated on the FR Northern European Cup for his first full year in cars in 2014 and won the title. Fourth in the Eurocup followed – a season which underwhelmed until he changed engineers, and he also won BRDC British Formula 4’s Autumn Trophy.

It wasn’t enough to retain McLaren’s support, but he became one of its young drivers again when he moved to sportscars in 2017. That evolved into full factory status, although success with the brand has been hard to find bar a sole British GT4 win despite showing plenty of speed. Last year he fronted Carlin’s first foray into prototypes, and just missed out on the Asian Le Mans Series title. That set up the relationship that led to him being called by the team two weeks ago to replace Enaam Ahmed in its FIA F3 line-up.

McLaren had to give permission for Barnicoat to race twice at Silverstone, and he may have driven at Barcelona too had it not summoned him back. He started and finished 20th on his single-seater return after his progress was thwarted by contact, and improved to 12th the next day. On the second weekend he fared even better, qualifying in ninth (Carlin’s best result this year) and scoring a point with a 10th place finish. That put him on pole for race two, where he was in contention for a podium before retiring with a fuel pump failure.

If he returns to FIA F3 again at Spa-Francorchamps, it will be more proof his single-seater career should have gone further in the first place.

Antonio Pizzonia BRAZIL 2007 GP2, 2012, ’14 & ’15 Auto GP
Junior career: 6th in 2001 Int. F3000, 2000 British F3 champion   Return: 27th in 2007 GP2, 1st in 2015 Auto GP

Antonio Pizzonia worked his way up the British junior single-seater ladder in the late 1990s, winning a third title in as many years in British F3 in 2000, and the Brazilian showed his credentials to the F1 paddock in two seasons in International F3000.

First he bagged a Williams test role, then a race seat at Jaguar for 2003. But after scoring no points, he was dropped with fives races to go. Williams rehired him, and he stood in for the injured Ralf Schumacher for four races in 2004. He was far more competitive this time, admittedly in a race-winning car, but demoted back to test driver status for 2005.

Once again injury enabled an F1 race chance in place of Nick Heidfeld, and he finished seventh on his return before four disappointing races. Pizzonia didn’t want out of the top level, so raced part-time in Champ Car in 2006. That wasn’t going to bring him back to F1 though, so he stepped down to GP2 for 2007 with Fisichella Motor Sport but was replaced after three rounds.

A return to Brazil beckoned, and it looked like Pizzonia would be giving up on F1 for good. After three years in Stock Car Brazil and Superleague Formula, where he represented local team SC Corinthians, he returned to the junior ranks again.

Auto GP had grown from an Italy-based series to a global championship by 2012, and Pizzonia joined the field with the Zele Racing team when it headed to Curitiba in Brazil. Two problems for Adrian Quaife-Hobbs meant a double win for Pizzonia, and drove him to find a way on to the grid for the Sonoma season finale. He qualified third there, but a crash with Quaife-Hobbs ruined his weekend. He was invited back by Zele for the 2014 season finale and another podium made him pursue a full-time seat alongside his Stock Car duties.

Pizzonia topped 2015 pre-season testing, and a last-lap pass denied him a double win to start the year at the Hungaroring. He dominated the first race at Silverstone, but a stall meant he had to start the second from the pitlane and could only recover to third place. A lack of entries forced Auto GP called off the rest of the rounds, but points leader Pizzonia wasn’t awarded the title.

Emma Kimilainen FINLAND 2019 W Series
Junior career: 5th in 2009 FPA, 10th in 2008 ADAC FMasters, 2nd in 2006 FFord NEZ   Return: 5th in 2019 W Series

The second run at junior single-seaters for Kimilainen is notable in that it’s been considerably more successful than the first.

In her youth, the Finn was a race-winner in Formula Ford but did not get the same sort of results when she moved into slicks-and-wings championships. She actually went into open-top sportscars between FFord and the next level of lower formulae, which started with an ADAC Formel Masters campaign in 2008 as a Volkswagen-Audi junior.

She claimed one podium and 10th in the points with Van Amersfoort Racing – only two places behind a young Daniel Abt – before moving across to Formula Palmer Audi for 2009. The opposition in the British series was weaker, but she visited the podium four times and was fifth in the standings, and only twice across 20 races did she finish outside of the top 10. Admittedly those kinds of results in a series such as FPA don’t set the world alight, and when the global financial crisis hit Finland her career was done.

Kimilainen used her time out of racing to earn a degree and start a family, until a phone call several years later drew her back into motorsport in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship. But she originally only had eyes on single-seaters, so W Series was a no-brainer move when it was created last year.

Arriving as the oldest in the series, Kimilainen turned out to be the surprise of the season. A clumsy crash from one of her rivals in the season opener reaggravated a neck injury and forced her out of two rounds, but she returned with fifth at the Norisring, victory from pole at Assen, second place at Brands Hatch and three fastest laps. Had she not missed races, she would likely have been right in the title hunt.

An even greater ‘what if’ is if W Series hadn’t cancelled its 2020 season, which Kimilainen was one of the title favourites for.

Roberto Merhi SPAIN 2014 FV8 3.5, 2018 F2
Junior career: 2011 F3 Euro Series & Int. Trophy champion   Return: 3rd in 2014 FV8 3.5, 4th in ’14 Macau GP, 12th in 2018 F2

Photo: Zak Mauger / FIA F2

One of the lesser-known stories of Mercedes-Benz’s young driver patronage is the case of Roberto Merhi, whose time in F3 and the DTM was supported by the manufacturer.

Merhi made his F3 debut aged 16 in 2007, and was winning races a year later while also fighting Daniel Ricciardo for Formula Renault titles in his main programme. As a Mercedes-supported driver, much in the same way Felix Rosenqvist was a few years later, he earned a seat at Manor in the F3 Euro Series. He made the podium on his debut, but he scarcely replicated that form and struggled in particular with reversed-grid races. A move to Mucke Motorsport for 2010 was an improvement, but he limited his potential by also juggling a part-season in the new GP3 series.

Returning his focus solely on F3 for 2011, and with the lead Mercedes-powered team Prema, Merhi dominated the Euro Series and won the only ever running of the FIA F3 International Trophy despite start-line crashes in both the Masters of F3 and Macau Grand Prix. He reportedly turned down a GP2 drive to move to the DTM for 2012, forming part of a revived Mercedes Junior Team under the mentorship of Michael Schumacher, who was part of the Junior Team in the 1990s.

The results in Merhi’s two-year DTM spell were pretty damning bar a wet-weather podium at Hockenheim from 21st on the grid in his last start.

So came Merhi’s first junior series return. The Spaniard signed up to race in Formula Renault 3.5 for 2014, and despite his talent was not tipped for title as he was with unfancied Russian team Zeta Corse. The season started with a second place, and a mid-year charge to three wins in five races against eventual champion Carlos Sainz Jr catapulted him right onto F1’s radar. Before he knew it, he was contesting free practice sessions for Caterham and being linked heavily to a race drive.

That didn’t come about, and he ended up third in the FR3.5 points, with his focus on securing an F1 seat for 2015. That too didn’t materialise, so he signed a deal with Pons Racing to stay in FR3.5. Then a few days later, Manor signed Merhi for the upcoming F1 season. At first he juggled both, with each sapping momentum out of the other, until a Red Bull Ring crash earned him a FR3.5 race ban. Two months later, his F1 seat became only a part-time gig too that he had to share with Alexander Rossi.

Manor Motorsport founder John Booth moved to the World Endurance Championship for 2016 and brought Merhi along, with the Spaniard claiming its first class podium at Spa with a last-lap move. Like Pizzonia, Merhi wanted back in to F1 – and he took his limited backing and re-stitched 2015 overalls over to Campos in GP2 successor Formula 2.

A failed one-off at Barcelona didn’t put him off, as he landed a part-time with Rapax late in 2017 and scored 16 points. A new car for 2018 meant a new start, and Merhi brought a brand new plain-black racesuit as he joined MP Motorport. He stood on the feature race podium twice, but his victory ambitions were unrealistic and he left the team before rejoining Campos for the final two rounds. He intended to race in 2019 too, but re-obtaining an FIA superlicence was by then an unlikely reality.

And one that didn’t quite happen…

Nelson Piquet Jr BRAZIL 2016 Pau GP
Junior career: 2nd in 2006 GP2, 2004 British F3 champion, 2nd in 2003 Masters of F3   Return: two races in 2015 Indy Lights

After being shown the door in F1 in 2009 and being involved in the ‘crashgate’ scandal, Nelson Piquet Jr sought to rebuild his career in as many avenues as possible. Which inevitably did not miss out junior single-seaters.

Piquet won the British and South American F3 titles as a teenager, then spent two years in GP2 and was second to Lewis Hamilton in the 2006 title race. After a year on the sidelines he entered F1 with Renault, and took a podium as a rookie.

His first post-F1 activity was NASCAR, and he worked his way up the junior ranks there too, with two years with wins in American stock cars’ third tier, and then a full season in its equivalent of GP2. He also started a rallycross career at this point, and it wasn’t until 2014 that he returned to single-seaters with the Campos-run Team China Racing in FE.

Ahead of the London season finale where he would claim the inaugural FE title, Piquet was called upon by Carlin to race in Toronto for its new Indy Lights setup. The British outfit had entered the North American series with Euroformula champion Ed Jones and former F1 driver Max Chilton, whose father Grahame is Carlin’s CEO, and wanted a driver of equivalent experience to Chilton due to his Le Mans 24 Hours debut with Nissan falling on the same weekend.

Piquet took pole on his Lights debut, but was denied victory when RC Enerson hit his rear tyre and flew over the top of him, causing him to retire. A less spectacular but similar incident ended his second race too, but his street circuit form was rewarded with the FE title a few weeks later.

The reunion with Carlin, which ran him to the British F3 title, kept junior single-seaters in the back of Piquet’s mind. Further street circuit experience was only going to be beneficial for FE, and a shot at the 2016 Pau Grand Prix in European F3 opened up when Raoul Hyman couldn’t take up his Carlin seat. It was intended to open up the possibility of entering Macau too.

An opportunity to race against his younger brother Pedro, driving for VAR, was denied by the FIA through a line in the series’ sporting regulations that stated “any driver application to participate in the Championship will be studied by the FIA and accepted or rejected at its absolute discretion”.

FIA Single-Seater Commission president Stefano Domenicali’s reasoning was Piquet’s entry was against the spirit of the championship, which had already moved to reduce the age of drivers in the series and how long they could spend in it.

The winner of the first race in Pau that weekend was Barnicoat, and thankfully his F3 return wasn’t denied by the rulemakers.

The post The most surprising junior single-seater returns appeared first on Formula Scout.