The state of Formula 3

Image courtesy of www.fia.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. For the past couple of weeks, I was trying to get an article out about spoiler culture in entertainment media, I scrapped it because I just wasn't satisfied. I also really wanted to make this article, and have it be the second of my 'Racing Blab', because I did want to make that a mainstay of my blog. But whilst I never want to write about too many familiar things consecutively, I realise I am putting myself in a box with this racing blab series.

I love motorsport, and whatever I love, I'll always have something to say about it. So in this article, I'd like to tell you all about my efforts back in 2013 when the FIA European Formula Three championship came to be, and what the future holds as a result of them continuing to ignore me. Okay that was probably a tad arrogant at the end but this series is on its way down and I'm trying to do my utmost to put it right, because I don't want to see it die.

For those of you who don't know, allow me to bring you up to date. In 2011, the FIA sought to certify the existing F3 Euro Series as the leading F3 championship, and it did so in 2012 with the FIA European Formula Three championship. Prior to the FIA rebranding, the Euro Series had been a combined effort of the previously existing French and German championships, and resulted in many champions that went on to compete in F1 such as Lewis Hamilton, Paul di Resta, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hülkenberg and the late Jules Bianchi. Sebastian Vettel also competed in the series but lost out on the title to team mate di Resta.

Being a combined effort of the German and French F3 championships, the Euro Series merely existed as bi-product of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters or DTM and as a result, would mostly race on the support schedule to DTM. However as it began to gain credibility on the motorsport junior formulae ladder, the FIA sought to get their hands on the series in order to solidify it as the premier F3 championship for drivers intending to get to F1.

I once had a conversation with former F3 Euro Series driver Alexander Sims, who competed in the Euro Series in 2009 and 2010, finishing fourth overall both times. He also competed in the revitalised FIA European F3 part time so he was the perfect guy to talk to regarding the gripes I had with the FIA championship.

So when the series didn't have FIA support and wasn't designed to be a stepping stone for young drivers making it up to F1, the DTM was an amazing platform for these drivers to race alongside on the same circuits but when the FIA stepped in to make it appropriate for the drivers racing to really prepare for F1, what should have happened was a major overhaul of the circuits that the series visited. That really didn't end up happening.

Back in 2013, one year into the complete takeover by the FIA, the series had expanded by quite a bit outside of the DTM but still for some reason it retained a lot of unnecessary circuits that the DTM utilised, the worst culprits being Brands Hatch Indy and Norisring. Don't get me wrong, the Norisring offers up some incredible racing, but it isn't entirely relevant for an F1 driver, certainly though a hell of a lot better than Brands Hatch Indy.

Having mentioned I spoke to Alexander Sims, he agreed with a point I had made that DTM's choices of circuits over the years whilst probably line up with the manufacturer driven showcasing of their cars, it doesn't align with the need to develop junior drivers. DTM tends to use the shorter versions of circuits, they're thankfully moving away from this habit now more and more but back in the day, they'd use Brands Hatch Indy which was a pitifully short 1.2 miles long, and also over the years used the shorter variants of the Nürburgring GP circuit, Hockenheim, Catalunya and according to Alexander, he even heard discussions about using the shorter version of Zandvoort.

So in 2013, I spoke to someone who I won't name here but who was an editor for a motorsport reporting publication at the time for DTM and F3, and put forward a schedule merely based on the best bunch of circuits balanced between multiple different championships, some of which were some decent and appropriate circuits that DTM were utilising. The schedule included the following:

Monza supporting the World Touring Cars, or indeed any series that was racing at Monza with an opening since WTCC abandoned its Monza round for 2014. It also included Silverstone alongside the WEC, racing at both Pau and Monaco, the Hungaroring, Red Bull Ring, Spa-Francorchamps, Nürburgring (actual full Grand Prix loop), Zandvoort and Hockenheim. My contact actually did pass it on to the head of F3 at the time, though I can understand why they didn't act on it to the exact specifics. Though I had planted the seed of thought in mind, I assumed it meant by 2014 or a little bit later, the series heads would get their act together.

I was wrong, and the series has never managed to break free of its DTM stranglehold completely and it has all come too late since as of 2019, the FIA F3 name will be moved over to what we know now as GP3 and whilst the F1 hopefuls will be racing on the F1 support package, we will lose the magic that the current F3 has when we go from three races to two, have reverse grid races and Pirelli tyres instead of Hankook. Not to say GP3 is bad or anything, quite the contrary, but the departing F3 series really does have a unique quality about it that we are set to lose.

Having been under the impression that the current F3 championship will cease and all the teams that don't already run in GP3 will move over to the new FIA F3, I have been told that the organisers of the current series will be trying to continue the series under the guise of European Formula Three without the FIA's support. If the organisers want to seriously hold a candle to the new FIA F3 championship, they can't just cling to the DTM like a terrified toddler grips onto its mother's hand, they need to remain branched out and only commit to DTM's schedule when it suits them.

After some research and looking at the Formula Renault EuroCup's schedule, I came to the conclusion of what I believed would be the best schedule for the future European F3 championship, which included the following: Paul Ricard alongside ELMS (as much as I despise Paul Ricard as a racing circuit), Monza either alongside ELMS or Blancpain Endurance, Spa alongside WEC, ELMS or the Blancpain Endurance 24 hour event, the Silverstone WEC event, the Grand Prix de Pau retaining its F3 host race, alongside the DTM for rounds at Hockenheim, the Hungaroring and Zandvoort, the Blancpain Sprint event at Nürburgring and finally the Blancpain Endurance event held at Catalunya. Maybe even a round at the Algarve circuit alongside ELMS as well.

This is the best case scenario, though I fear the resources for the series will dry up and we will be getting grids the size of Spanish F4. There's more of a chance of more teams going to the European F3 series if the circuits were relevant for the F1 development, rather than going back to being a by-product of DTM like the old Euro Series. But if the series doesn't end up being sustainable as a full time campaign possibility for a young driver, the only possible route I can see it going down is downsizing.

Back again in 2013, the British F3 championship downsized to just four rounds which I thought was a travesty, not because of what they ended up doing wasn't a good idea but because the British F3 championship should always have been a national series. 2013 proved to show a great concept that would have worked without the British F3 name, scaling the series down to just four rounds.

In doing this, the British F3 grid garnered names of FIA European F3 regulars such as eventual champion Jordan King as well as Antonio Giovinazzi, Tatiana Calderón, William Buller, Jann Mardenborough etc. as well as the occasional F3 graduate like the previous season's runner-up Jazeman Jaafar attempting to qualify for the Macau Grand Prix, and also the odd lower category racer looking to garner some experience for an attempt to race in F3 the following year. At a heavily reduced cost due to logistics, it was a great concept that I have wanted to see expanded upon.

So if the European F3 championship schedule I proposed for it to remain a full season, instead a part time campaign can be ran so many teams can enter and drivers looking to add onto their full time campaign in FIA F3, British F3 or the many F4 championships out there, the grid I reckon would be filled. My suggestion for a downsized F3 series would be to run at Monza, Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps and Nürburgring.

The third and final proposal I have for the soon to be departing FIA Euro F3 championship, if you're going to go back to being a DTM major support series, why not embrace it? Partner up with ADAC F4 and support the DTM and ADAC GT Masters at a majority of events, and go back to being the German F3 championship? Since the original Euro Series formed from the French and German championships and there is more than likely going to be a lot of teams from the current series that probably won't be able to transition over to the new FIA F3 championship.

So these are my proposals to save the current top tier F3 championship because I don't want it to die. Will the organisers listen to me? Probably not. I'm just a 21-year old British guy who likes motorsport. I have my good intent of course, so I hope they don't dismiss me. I am not naïve, I know I will miss a shit load of factors in this blog post that contribute to my ideas not working, but hopefully I can trust the pros to take my very unfiltered and ambitious concept then ground it down to realistic.

I hope you've enjoyed my article! Those who are still here despite the tonnes of information that was probably a bit too much to read for some people, I hope I've put it in a concise and straightforward manner.

I've also got some news for you people, well not news really but an exciting set of updates. This Sunday, I will be off to my local top level racing circuit Croft to watch the British Touring Cars, then next week I'm flying out to the Netherlands to meet a long time friend for the first Nadine, who I've known for about seven or so years, and we are going to attend the Dutch TT MotoGP event!

Finally, today I had an email from someone at Carlin Motorsport (whose 2017 FIA Euro F3 car you can see in the header photo of this article) inviting me down to their base of operations due to my keen interest in making a novel centred around a British racing driver. I am going there probably in the weeks following the British Grand Prix, to learn about how junior formulae teams operate, and how they would run in FIA British F4, BRDC British F3, FIA Formula Three and FIA Formula Two.

I also intend on meeting a few of my favourite drivers that race for Carlin at the moment such as Lando Norris (driving the car in the header picture), Sérgio Sette Câmara, Sacha Fenestraz and also Billy Monger, who lost his legs after a crash last April in British F4 but now races in British F3. It isn't the sole purpose of attending, but it'd be nice to meet some of these drivers who I know will all be stars of the future.

So I am very excited at the moment! Motorsport is my life, so I think you can call understand why I want what's best for as many series as possible. Let's see by 2019 if one of these eventualities happens or if we lose this series completely, I don't want that to happen.

Alright! That'll be it from me. If you're new here and are keen to stick around, you can either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or put your email into the 'Follow By Email' option in the top right if you're on your laptop. Hope to see you all back here soon for more of me blabbering on nonsensically and hoping you find enjoyment out of it.

So until we meet again,
Luca.