2015 Eurocup FR2.0 Season thread

[WSR Fan]

As there's been a recent flurry of driver announcements, I thought it'd be good to start a thread for the 2015 Eurocup FR2.0 series.

2015 Calendar:
25/26 April - Motorland Aragon
30/31 May - Spa
13/14 June - Hungaroring
29/30 August - Silverstone
12/13 September - Nurburgring
26/27 September - Le Mans Bugatti
17/18 October - Jerez

And the confirmed drivers so far are:

ARTA Engineering: James Allen
Fortec Motorsports: Ben Barnicoat
Koiranen GP: Jack Aitken / Jake Hughes / Anton de Pasquale
Manor MP: Dennis Olsen / Lasse Sorensen

The main off-season news is that 2014 runner-up Dennis Olsen is back for another title attack, switching from Prema to Manor MP Motorsport. He'd planned to step up to FR3.5 this season, but couldn't find the budget. He's joined at Manor MP by Lasse Sorensen, the 2014 French F4 champion (and younger brother to Marco).

There's also a trio of talented young British drivers signed up in Jack Aitken, Ben Barnicoat and Jake Hughes, plus Australian Anton de Pasquale, the reigning Formula Renault 1.6 NEC champion.

[JD Media]

Just like the FIA F3 again a lot of talent in this series with the FR1.6 NEC Champion, FR2.0 NEC Champion, F4 Champion and runner-up from last year.

Olsen should be the man to beat! Aitken & Hughes will probably be the other drivers to beat unless Parry & Morris will join the grid... Let's hope for a suprise talent in front like Sorensen or DePasquale

[Formulahistory]

With the national F4 series time will be very difficult for Formula Renault...

[bella]

i think strakka are going to have a pretty decent lineup when they decide to announce it, in whichever series they can get the drivers to sign up for. the big names might be going elsewhere but all it means is you're gonna have to look harder to find the talent to add to the next big thing thread

[JD Media]

Louis Deletraz doing full time Eurocup this season with Josef-Kaufmann, he should be in top 3!

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

The Spanish weekends and Hungaroring will feature 3 races instead of the normal 2.

[10TENTHS]

http://www.paddockscout.com/aitken-h...-mans-session/

Jack Aitken and Koiranen looking good in pre-season testing.

[Formulahistory]

There will be less cars on the grid then last year. F4 will win that race.

[bella]

oh there's plenty less. but there's been entries to european f3 that last year would have gone to the eurocup, and amongst the eurocup teams there's been a lot of undercutting on budgets. i think strakka coming in has shaken it up a bit too.

[kotkot]

Sure, the F4 way is quite popular this year although I don't imagine it's as cheap as they sell it. The Italian series in its second season has only seven entries, only one European and zero Italians. How is that a regional series? We know Italians have very limited options but if F4 is so different, shouldn't it change things? First seasons are looking good for most of the F4 series but are they going to work long-term? I wonder if FIA will only care as long as Renault is a healthy rival.

[Go_For_Pole]

Arguably many F4 series ended up a world away from Berger's vision especially in cost. And of course they will fail because of that.

[10TENTHS]

Originally Posted by kotkot

Sure, the F4 way is quite popular this year although I don't imagine it's as cheap as they sell it. The Italian series in its second season has only seven entries, only one European and zero Italians. How is that a regional series? We know Italians have very limited options but if F4 is so different, shouldn't it change things? First seasons are looking good for most of the F4 series but are they going to work long-term? I wonder if FIA will only care as long as Renault is a healthy rival.

There's not much money on the Italian scene for junior single seaters, most of the non-Prema cars were on a shoestring budget. Strangely enough, MSA Formula and BRDC F4 both seem to have good grids for 2015...

[Go_For_Pole]

Different national economy though. The thing that historically the Italian junior series was viable at 60-80k budgets, double that and you got a disaster

[ivanalesi]

Originally Posted by kotkot

Sure, the F4 way is quite popular this year although I don't imagine it's as cheap as they sell it. The Italian series in its second season has only seven entries, only one European and zero Italians. How is that a regional series? We know Italians have very limited options but if F4 is so different, shouldn't it change things? First seasons are looking good for most of the F4 series but are they going to work long-term? I wonder if FIA will only care as long as Renault is a healthy rival.

I'm not sure this information is correct at all! May be 7 teams, but only one of these teams will have at least 5 cars, most likely 6 cars.
The German series is going to be huge this year as well... It's not cheap, but it's still much cheaper than FR2.0

[kotkot]

I'm sorry, in seven entries I meant seven drivers have signed up so far (now it's eight, adding Siebert from Argentina). As opposed to the 27 drivers in ADAC F4 (about 35 drivers are expected there). Not sure I understand you fully but do you really expect teams with 5-6 cars in Italian F4? I don't see how that's happening.

[10TENTHS]

How expensive is the FR2.0 Alps series compared to a typical F4 budget?

Incidentally it seems the Alps junior championship that was planned last year never got off the ground: http://www.paddockscout.com/formula-...for-2014/14452

[kotkot]

Well, I stand corrected. 28 drivers signed up for Italian F4. Didn't see that coming based on the pieces of information I heard over the winter.

[ivanalesi]

Originally Posted by 10TENTHS

How expensive is the FR2.0 Alps series compared to a typical F4 budget?

Incidentally it seems the Alps junior championship that was planned last year never got off the ground: http://www.paddockscout.com/formula-...for-2014/14452

FR2.0 is about 40% more expensive than F4 When I put it in percentage it looks great, but it still has to go down.
And then European F3 has to go down by some 80% or something and everything will be alright

[bella]

you think it's that much? there's been a lot of competition for drivers in two litres this winter...

[ivanalesi]

170-180 Italian F4 x 1.4 - 250-60 Alps.
At the end of the day, FR2.0 is a F3 level car and there are many drivers who don't have the 700+ for Euro F3 and they prefer FR2.0. If you get top 3 in Alps, NEC and especially Eurocup, you can go to FR3.5 and be competitive right away, no need for F3.
F4-FR2.0-GP3/FR3.5 for me looks like the best route. The recent F1 drivers who have come on merit, not on sponsor budget, they have come from FR3.5 and GP3, and FR2.0 is a proven training ground for these two.

Just occurred to me, when you think about the ladder now, a lot of the $$$ perception comes from GP2. Remove GP2 out of the picture and we are back to 2005 levels of required funding! Easy fix.

P.S. Verstappen excluded

[10TENTHS]

That's expensive for an entry level category. The prize money for winning the championship is a fraction of the season budget...no wonder there are so many rich kids (of questionable ability) and sons of racing drivers.

[ivanalesi]

Yes, it's a lot of money. This is what F3 should cost.

[ivanalesi]

42 cars for ADAC F4: http://www.adac-motorsport.de/adac-f...nsaison-209546

[10TENTHS]

Originally Posted by ivanalesi

42 cars for ADAC F4: http://www.adac-motorsport.de/adac-f...nsaison-209546

Last I saw there were 28, surprised there is so much interest in German F4 in particular (ADAC Formel Masters struggled to get a grid of 15 last year).

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

19 seats confirmed in MSA Formula and 20 in BRDC F4 means at least 39 in the UK...

...F4, as it turns out, has worked for 2015 as well...