The Future of F3

[edenrace]

interesting show but sadly some information not correct.
1. British F3 budgets are below £700,000...£550,000 + is the correct figure
2. Teams do not make a big profit, in fact Carlins is not owed by Trevor Carlin as he failed financialy 2 years ago and had to be bailed out.
3. Spares are not marked up as Dallara have a price list that is readily available and teams cannot develop as much as they did before to charge higher prices for these items
4. Like all things in life you pay for quality and that is what F3 has together with lots of track time.

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by edenrace

2. Teams do not make a big profit, in fact Carlins is not owed by Trevor Carlin as he failed financialy 2 years ago and had to be bailed out.

Depends on definition of big. For example if F3 profits are big only when they are supposed to finance setting up a F1 spec base then you might have a point.

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by edenrace

You miss my point, the normal BF3 budget is £550 approx ,however some drivers pay more as they have extra winter testing, flats,road cars etc. If you state that BF3 costs £700 then WSR can cost £1,000 etc etc

The normal budget is the budget required to have a fair chance at winning. In GP3 or WSR you can win with any given team, in BF3 you can't. In GP3 or WSR you can be confident you will have as much testing as your rivals, in BF3 you can't. If you as a series enable any given kid named Sainz to test their hearts out then automatically others have to follow at least to an extend. And then of course you may get a huge variance in budgets except that then the minimum budget can not be seriously quoted as normal. GP3 or WSR budgets do not normally vary that much, in fact they only do if there are drives to be sorted at the last minute or very strong demand for limited places. People paying premium for the latter are good for business

Originally Posted by edenrace

Yes it is expensive but sadly motor racing is , savings can be made but not enough for a driver without financial support even £250,000 for a season is an awful lot of money and far out of reach to most people.

It is, yes. But then again that's not an excuse to charge £550,000 - £700,000. Logic suggests that if Euro F3 Open can attract 20+ cars priced at (give or take) 300k Euros then a historical name like BF3 priced at similar levels and with some promotional effort would have thrived. Yet those involved prefer to go "full fat" until the thing collapses. What do they care, most have their bets hedged anyway, don't they?

[edenrace]

Must say well done to T Sport, put Sims in car at Nurburgring ,fastest in test,bad qualifying but then fastest lap in 2 of the 3 races and a race win plus running 0.4 quicker than all the Carlin cars. So maybe you can win with more than one team.

[davyboy]

As I said previously, whether it's £550K or £800K, it's a completely ridiculous amount of money to ply to a 17 year old for a few months of 'fun'. That's the cost of a high end property - money many people would struggle to earn in an entire working lifetime ! It's just nuts.

Because of the [lack of any real] promotion package, a prospective BF3 competitor can not attract a sponsor who [understandably] needs exposure commensurate with their 'investment'. So what you're left with is half a dozen sons of very rich people topped up with a few more on Red Bull scholarships.

Advice to BF3.

o Get real and massively reduce costs.

o Swallow your pride and get on to the BTCC package.

o Do something to warrant BF3 as Britian's premier single seater category and provide a direct stepping stone for the championship winner to drive in F1 the following year.

[Flavio Galtieri]

Originally Posted by davyboy

As I said previously, whether it's £550K or £800K, it's a completely ridiculous amount of money to ply to a 17 year old for a few months of 'fun'. That's the cost of a high end property - money many people would struggle to earn in an entire working lifetime ! It's just nuts.

Because of the [lack of any real] promotion package, a prospective BF3 competitor can not attract a sponsor who [understandably] needs exposure commensurate with their 'investment'. So what you're left with is half a dozen sons of very rich people topped up with a few more on Red Bull scholarships.

Advice to BF3.

o Get real and massively reduce costs.

o Swallow your pride and get on to the BTCC package.

o Do something to warrant BF3 as Britian's premier single seater category and provide a direct stepping stone for the championship winner to drive in F1 the following year.

I agree with almost all of this but Turkeys don't vote for Christmas and just as we've seen with Formula Renault UK once it collapsed it has been replaced with BARC Renault as the leading single seater series at a fraction of the costs but with no loss of driver talent.

It comes as no surprise to see Sims do well on his return. The vast majority of a driver's laptime comes from seat time, track time, call it what you will with just a small amount of difference being down to natural talent. Look at the experience Sims has, the vast amount of testing some drivers have as opposed to others and you can see why eventually they appear at the top of the pile.

Until costs are reduced to the level that enables competitors to test relatively cheaply and effort is put into promoting single seater motorsport from the ground level up with marketable packages such as the TOCA weekends then we'll be seeing nothing other than the Sims. Saintz and Chiltons reaching F1 for the foreseeable future.

The FIA can do something about this right now and the middle of the biggest economic depression for nearly a hundred years might just be a good place to start.

[RickP:Clio51]

Spoke to a big BF3 team boss at Silverstone Classic... his quote was fabulous
"None of the drivers are any good, my 2 can win races and they are still cr*p because unless Daddy is loaded you can't run F3 in this economic environment"

I've always said that this financial crisis will not be over until the Premiership Footballers are repriced but the same can be said of racing. As correctly pointed out here, the sums are LUDICROUS in the real world.

It will all have to change eventually. GT's/F3 etc are all wrong price right now. I mean on what planet can a GT2 drive at Le Mans triple in value in 8 years and still make sense??? This is probably worse than BF3 in those terms as I know for a fact budget was £350k in 2000 (£450k with the very top team) so sounds like that has only doubled (!).

All IMHO of course
Rick

[ivanalesi]

It's end of August, one more month and the seasons are over. Right now you should be planning winter testing, but there is still no clarity about engines? If you're in Eurocup and looking to graduate, how do you commit to something uncertain? I have no idea what they are waiting for?
GP3/Euro Open/German F3 have everything clear and once again a move ahead.

[edenrace]

British F3 Series have announced a 10 round calendar with 6 races having live TV and on GP type circuits.
Engines should be the new version that have an extra 10 % power but if not available for all FIA F3 series then will probably stay with current engine, I believe this will be decided at the next world council meeting to be held at the begining of September, 6 months before the first event
Pretty clear realy.

[p-matt]

Any idea who will be showing the live British F3 coverage? I notice the press release says that it will be announced at a later date.

[strider]

If British F3 runs alongside the Blancpain Endurance Series, which I believe is the intention, it should be shown on MotorsTV.

That discussion on the Midweek Motorsport show was painful to listen to because none of them had a clue. It was indeed Ivan Capelli who won the last genuine European F3 Championship. Berger and Johnny Dumfries were his main opposition. JD nearly won both, but lost out due to concentrating on BF3, which he won.

Capelli had a bent engine at Monza and JD went off trying to keep up. In fact the engine was so bent that even the Italians felt obliged to exclude Capelli, so it was all rather a shame.

I'm glad that edenrace gave a mention to T-Sport. They have always been a top team, just understated and overlooked by some. Ditto Alexander Sims, but almost the biggest feature of their success was that it was achieved with the hitherto unregarded Nissan engine.

[ptclaus98]

Is that Nissan based off of the SR20VE block?

[strider]

Don't know the block number, but Marko Asmer said it's basically the same as he raced a few times in Japan and the problem with that was a heavy block.

[peebee2]

With the Euroseries morphing into the FIA F3 series, and the two top British teams openly saying they will race in that next year, where will this leave British F3.

MSV F3 Cup Super?

The Italian series is stopping, so it seems the weaker series are being weeded out.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by peebee2

With the Euroseries morphing into the FIA F3 series, and the two top British teams openly saying they will race in that next year, where will this leave British F3.

Probably headed in the direction we indicated earlier in the thread - merged into it as well.

[teabag]

Originally Posted by ivanalesi

If you have so many cars competing, it's normal to drive M5 or Aston, even with 5% profit, you'll be able to afford it. Same with hospitality units when they're required by the sponsors. What's not normal is what Peat said about technology.
Every other technological industry has the prices of its products falling down, only motorsport has the costs rising!? It's absolutely idiotic situation because the end losers aren't the fans or the drivers, it's the companies since they actually miss on the huge chance to become mass producers and earn truly huge profits. If you want to become rich in any industry, you must mass produce! Bill Gates didn't become super rich by selling Windows to a bunch of rich universities, right?
Take a look at the FR2.0, what has changed since the 2000 model? A simple gear changing mechanism and they introduced carbon bodywork(to save a couple of kilos). And what has happened with the costs? It has risen a lot. Nobody has invested in mass producing the car.
It's the same with F3 and in fact if you want up to GP2. Karting is of course the worst by faaaar. A kart is using the tubing for 3 bicycles yet it costs like 30! Most people use karts for fun, so is there adequate product for them? No. They try to sell them the world championship winning chassis!
Change of mentality is needed to escape from this super small niche market.

Im pretty sure that Frenault2.0 had a new car about 2 years ago? The new Caparo one?

[edenrace]

British F3 2013 dates
Oulton April 1
Pau May 19
Sillverstone Gp May26
Snetterton June 16
Paul Ricard June 30
Spa July 27
Brands GP August 11
Nurburgring September 22
Donington October 6

[FFfan]

Originally Posted by edenrace

British F3 2013 dates
Oulton April 1
Pau May 19
Sillverstone Gp May26
Snetterton June 16
Paul Ricard June 30
Spa July 27
Brands GP August 11
Nurburgring September 22
Donington October 6

Excellent Calendar

Dominic Malvern

[Richard B]

The "Snet" round is supported by the new Formula 4 series, should be an interesting meeting.

[PCR]

Originally Posted by FFfan

Excellent Calendar

Don´t think 3 races outside the UK are necessary, maybe one race in France or Belgium, but Germany is too far away imo.

Spa and Pau should be part of the European Championship.

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by FFfan

Excellent Calendar

Dominic Malvern

Originally Posted by PCR

Don´t think 3 races outside the UK are necessary, maybe one race in France or Belgium, but Germany is too far away imo.

Spa and Pau should be part of the European Championship.

Bring back Bucharest!!

[ivanalesi]

Originally Posted by teabag

Im pretty sure that Frenault2.0 had a new car about 2 years ago? The new Caparo one?

Yes, they did and they have a new car for this season as well. But the efforts to make this car more mass produced are minimal. In fact I think the parts price list for the new car from what I was told were not exactly an improvement for the better compared to previous cars.

[edenrace]

SRO are still working on a tenth event as part of the British series that will not clash with the FIA events.

[verde]

Originally Posted by FFfan

Excellent Calendar

Dominic Malvern

I unfortunately cannot call excellent a British calendar that doesn't contain Thruxton.

[Richard B]

British Formula 3 International Series team Double R Racing will run Italian Antonio Giovinazzi and Indonesian Sean Gelael in 2013.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104862