2014 British F3 Silly Season

[jondownunder]

Unbelievable arrogance and lack of foresight from the FIA:

FIA warns against use of F3 name

National Formula 3 championships in Europe - including the British - have been warned by the FIA that they may not be able to use the 'F3' name, AUTOSPORT understands.

European F3 Open is set to announce a name change on Friday, and looking at the FIA calendar published 7/2/14 it's going to be called "Euro Formula Open".

[JohnMiller]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

Unbelievable arrogance and lack of foresight from the FIA:

FIA warns against use of F3 name



European F3 Open is set to announce a name change on Friday, and looking at the FIA calendar published 7/2/14 it's going to be called "Euro Formula Open".

... for F3 Open cars

[Juntos]

"British Formula Open" sounds good to me.

[Richard B]

How about erm.... British Formula 3 ?

[kipper]

Originally Posted by Juntos

"British Formula Open" sounds good to me.

I disagree. By including 'open' in the title, it implies a libre style championship of which British F3 isn't.

[gomick]

Some of these championships have huge history where f3 has been used for 50+ years - FIA, why are you interfering, if it was good enough back then, it is good enough today...

[Flavio Galtieri]

Originally Posted by gomick

Some of these championships have huge history where f3 has been used for 50+ years - FIA, why are you interfering, if it was good enough back then, it is good enough today...

I agree, but the FIA have never represented the "end user", the drivers or up and coming teams. (neither does Alan Gow's MSA in my opinion).

What they are doing is supporting the engine manufacturers and large teams who have committed to FIA F3 to "protect the brand" and devalue the other series in the minds of competitors and spectators.

Personally, I think it's spiteful.

[ivanalesi]

I think the engine manufacturers are only for the profit. It doesn't matter if it's called F3 or not, but the recent engine rules suck big time. They are just not relevant, they might be relevant for all the road car crap, but not for driver development and at the end of the day the driver pays the bill. It's not serious to have F3 still at around 210-220bhp. If F3 had GP3 spec cars, the situation would be a whole lot more different.
Currently after 2 seasons in FR2.0 and F3, you might have done something like 20-30 overtakes in total. How is this preparing you for F1!? Even for GTs.

[The SpeCTator]

Is there any news on confirmed entries for British F3?

[Alessio]

The most recent announcement was in February with Camren Kaminsky announced at Double R...only 4 drivers officially announced and so far only 2 teams with 7 cars...

[peebee2]

Surely nobody expected a big grid really. 4 to 6 I think. Ratel will cancel just like Renault

[EastonNeston]

Fortec have been testing at spa all weekend with two drivers who will be doing the series.

[kipper]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Surely nobody expected a big grid really. 4 to 6 I think.

To be fair, the season is still six weeks away, as such there is still a fair amount of time for deals to come together. I also imagine that some deals have been held in abeyance depending on the outcome of the Euro F3 silly season (i.e. there may be drivers interested in British F3, but wanted to see if they could get a decent seat in Europe as a first preference).

[Juntos]

They can join forces with MSV F3 Club series. This is a much better idea than spending the day pretending to be what they are not anymore - a top international racing series.

[andrewc]

I think most of the F3 Cup drivers and teams with the newer 05-07 cars have been given an invite to the F3 media day / test day.

The listed entry fee for the Cooper Class championship is £ 7k plus VAT which is at least twice the cost of a seasons entry fees in F3 Cup.

Whilst I suspect the Cooper Class could be a stepping stone into F3 on a comparative budget as there are eligible cars out there to buy or hire, I suspect most of the F3 Cup grid who are generally not career drivers will stay put unless there is a special deal on a particularly attractive circuit.

[edenrace]

The FIA have told National series that they cannot run pre 2008 cars if they wish to keep the F3 title. Therefore the MSV Cup cars are not eligible.
This will affect the ATS Cup in Germany as well. Expect 8 to 10 cars in Britain and 10/12 in ATS Cup.

[Alessio]

Originally Posted by edenrace

The FIA have told National series that they cannot run pre 2008 cars if they wish to keep the F3 title. Therefore the MSV Cup cars are not eligible.
This will affect the ATS Cup in Germany as well. Expect 8 to 10 cars in Britain and 10/12 in ATS Cup.

I thought that they were allowed to run pre-2008 cars so long as the engines used met that of the FIA regulations in the year the chassis was constructed?

[edenrace]

Not if you want to use F3 title

[andrewc]

So the Cooper Class is now a dead duck?

[Richard B]

The media day is next Tuesday at Donington. Guess we'll find out a bit more then.
Incidently it's open to the public aswell as media.

[Alessio]

Originally Posted by edenrace

Not if you want to use F3 title

Where did you see this information? The last report I had seen on the matter was this one: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112815

"Following a meeting of the FIA Single-Seater Commission, the ASNs - including Britain's MSA - have now been advised that their championships can be named as F3 as long as they run to the FIA regulations that were in place when the cars were built."

"The move also appears to leave undisturbed series predominantly using older cars, such as Australian F3 and the lower-level MSV F3 Cup in the UK."

So an F302 may be used so long as the engine used matches those of the regulations used in 2002/03/04 when the chassis was in use.

[jobdone]

Really hope British F3 is going to be in a healthier state than the mooted 6-8 cars at the moment. I guess the whole name drama a couple of months ago but the brakes on progress for a while, but you really feel a grid of 12-15 cars is really needed in order to give the series a fighting chance of surviving to fight another year.

[Juntos]

Add one more Chinese to the grid - http://www.carlin.co.uk/news/LiZhiCongjoinsCarlin.htm

Curiously this is the kid who beat Mika Hakinen to the pole of GT Asia race at Zhuhai last year. Curiously this fact was wiped out in Autosport mag.

[edenrace]

It is very probable that only 5 cars will run at Donington on Tuesday, Fortec and Carlin are expecting to run extra cars at Rockingham as are Double R and CF. The new FIA F3 engine build has affected supply of the rebuilt British/German engines but the enquiries for drives is low even though budgets have been reduced to similar levels to F Renault in Europe.
Interested to hear constructive comments.

[bella]

difficult to know what to say, isn't it? admittedly, looking at it from the outside, it's hard to see where it would fit in to someone looking for a conventional path through single seaters. there doesn't seem to be the same desire to run british and european campaigns alongside each other in the same way that there is in formula renault for the alps/nec and eurocup. i wonder if perhaps the european series was a few rounds shorter then it'd be more appealing for drivers to consider running a british or european national f3 series alongside it. i'm not sure the fia actually wants to sustain more than one series on a continent for each of their formulae though :/