HHC TO OUIT BRITISH F3
Leading BRDC British Formula 3 Championship outfit HHC Motorsport has left the series.
The team has competed in the championship since it was launched in 2013 – then as BRDC Formula 4 – and won the drivers’ title last year with Will Palmer, who went on to win the Mclaren Autosport BRDC Award.
It ran cars full-time for Ben Hingeley and Sisa Ngebulana in the championship in 2016 until Ngebulana was sidelined by an anterior cruciate ligament injury, and also fielded entries for Formula Renault racers Palmer and Harrison Scott as well as Omar Ismail and Raoul Hyman.
But HHC, which also runs a team in the Ginetta Junior Championship, has now called time on its involvement in the BRDC F3 championship.
It has sold its three Tatuus F3-016 chassis to P1 Sport, which will return to competition for the first time since 2012 next year.
Charlie Kemp, HHC Motorsport’s commercial director, said: “At the moment in terms of the size of the team and what we’re trying to achieve, we’ve got to look at what we can do effectively and well.
“We’re trying to put together a number of different programmes for 2017, and if all of those come off we just won’t have the capacity to do F3 as well.”
Kemp instead said that the team would switch its attention to competing in sportscar racing, and is considering both GT and LMP3 programmes for 2017.
“When we started the team six years ago we wanted to specialise in bringing upcoming talent on, but alongside that we said we’d like to see the team compete right at the very top level of endurance racing, with the ideal of racing at Le Mans,” he added.
“We’ll start in the UK, so British GT and LMP3 in the UK are what we have our eyes on. There are a number of possible programmes; I’m just trying to work out what’s best for us, and our customers.”
P1 ran Giedo van der Garde to the 2008 Formula Renault 3.5 Series title in its first full season in the World Series, having first entered a year earlier in collaboration with Cram Competition.
The team also raced in the previous British F3 championship, which folded in 2014, and helped Adam Carroll to runner-up spot in 2004.
Led by Roly Vincini, the team will make its first competitive appearance in motor racing since it took part in FR3.5 in 2012 – after which it was bought by Strakka racing – with an assault on the British F3 Championship next year.
“It is great to announce our return to front line motorsport and we think the BRDC British F3 Championship is the perfect category in which to do so,” said Vincini.
“The team has been successful in single-seaters, and we can’t wait to get out on track and continue that form in the UK’S leading single-seater series.”