Monday 14th July 2014

Motorsport on Monday: the demise of British F3

...and why it's very much a bad thing despite a recent resurgence

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Look through the list of previous Formula One World Champions, even just drivers from the top echelon of motorsport, then cross-reference them against British F3 titles or race wins and you'll see a correlation coefficient close to one.

OK... but Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen's names are but just a few on the trophy, with the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo more recent graduates of the series.

With most of the teams on the F1 grid based in Motorsport valley, the British series has always acted as a great cauldron in which to prove yourself as a young single-seater driver looking to progress to the next level.

But with more championships and promoters looking to get fat on a slice of the action in recent times, it's proved a nasty infection for British F3, and one that it's only just starting to shake.

Half of 2013 British F3 wasn't in Britain!

Round cull
Back at the start of 2013, it was announced that the championship was being cut from 10 rounds to just four triple-header events, of which only two would actually take place in the UK. This on top of dwindling grids cut in half compared to those in the early 2000s.

Silverstone and Brands joined Spa and the Nurburgring on the calendar, with the European rounds included to help boost grids through a crossover with F3 on the continent.

So while the German national championship and the Europe-wide series looked strong, British F3 took a bit of a pasting when it came to numbers - and that was the best it could have hoped for, acting relatively quickly to actually secure some rounds to put a calendar together. Any more dallying and the championship would have gone to the wall just like Formula Renault UK.

Stewart on the long list of famous F3 racers

Berger me
Getting the traditional F1 stepping stone back on track is a difficult job for the FIA's single-seater commission president, Gerhard Berger, but one he knows must be tackled to set the sport straight. But what are the problems that need to be ironed out?

Regulations, for a start. F3 should be a constant across the globe, so drivers from all territories can be judged equally and fairly in similar machinery. However, in the recent past, differing regulations for differing national and international F3 titles have meant it wasn't entirely clear who was racing to what rules, blurring any lines of comparison.

This also creates a problem for teams in the form of budget, Money makes the motorsport world go round, and with around £400,000 per year minimum needed to make your British F3 world revolve, it's not exactly a cheap business. Which leads to sponsors.

If there are too many splintered F3 championships running to different rules, TV audiences are more than likely going to be lower than if the setup featured a few core F3 series. The potential ROI doesn't exactly encourage sponsorship, which is unsustainable. And we're back to square one.

Remember Mika Hakkinen too?

Formula Resurgence
Some will argue there are still too many junior formulae around, with a multitude of F3 championships around the world, F4 and GP3 all vying for similar ground. However, Berger's plans to knock heads together in Formula 3 from the moment he started at the FIA seems to have got the British championship back on track. Even if it's not in the way he intended.

For this year the new era of bespoke racing engines used in FIA European F3 (the series Berger brought in to try and level the playing field) wasn't adopted in the British championship on cost grounds, with teams able to use the older, cheaper production-based motors and electronics in a bid to boost numbers.

A similar thing has happened with aero for the same reasons, with British F3 organisers banning the use of barge boards, bridge front wings and aero parts in front of the rear wheel of the older, faster Dallara F308 chassis and Mygales of a similar age in a bid to balance pace out against the newer F312 chassis.

Making things equal and cutting costs needed to run a full season seems to have worked initially. More team support coupled with the realisation by series promoter SRO that the British F3 championship needs to be run mostly in Britain means we have seven of the eight rounds on home soil.

Yes, that's Ayrton Senna on a British F3 podium

FIA forcing the hand
However, what will happen next year is still uncertain. Could 2014 be a resurgent blip in the continuing demise of British F3? I hope not when the series has such a rich history and has managed to pick itself up off the floor.

Engine and chassis regs will be key to keep a lid on costs, as will the FIA's willingness to get involved. Or not as the case may be.

With British F3 not keen to adopt the new power unit rules for this year, the FIA expressed its "surprise" at the use of the F3 tag, as the championship didn't actually conform to its rulebook.

The wrangling looks set to continue long into the future, which is a shame, because British F3 deserves to have a bright future, just like its past.

[Images: LAT]

[PtheP]

Being an old f*rt I remember going to Brands Hatch in (probably) 1969 and watching the F3 which had two heats and a final and probably a load of non-qualifiers too. In the final a very tight battle saw Ronnie Peterson, Reine Wisell, Tim Schenken and a newcomer by the name of Emerson Fittipaldi battle it out. There was also a works Lotus team in Gold Leaf colours (Roy Pike and Mo Nunn????)

Happy days!

[PtheP]

I guess the nature of the beat is part of the problem. You try and create a level playing field and immediately everyone is looking for an edge. Part of the psyche in all sports seems to be that anything that is not specifically excluded is allowed, and that always leads to mor eexpense as competitors endeavour to maximise any advantage they can get. Mind you, shiny transporters are very exxy too. Whatever happened to the converted clapped out Bedford Vega Major?