Teams welcome new British F4 engine support provider for 2018

British Formula 4 teams have welcomed the decision for Neil Brown Engineering to become the category’s engine support provider from next season.

The renowned company will be responsible for balancing the F4 Ford Ecoboost engines as well as providing trackside support at all rounds and official tests.

Double R team boss Anthony Hieatt has been critical of the engine support provided by Sodemo and the equality of the motors in the past – describing it as the “worst thing about the championship” – but he says the addition of Neil Brown Engineering is very positive.

“It’s a fantastic step in the right direction – it can only be a good thing,” said Hieatt. “It was a crazy decision in the first place for an MSA championship to go with a foreign engine tuner when we’ve got so many good ones in the UK. The championship will just become stronger now as people will have confidence in the engines.”

Hieatt added that, as a Frenchbased company, Sodemo didn’t have an easy task providing full support to the British series. Sodemo will remain as homologation partner.

Neil Brown has a long history of working with Ford and currently builds engines for a number of British Touring Car squads.

Double R will expand into the Euroformula Open category for 2018, with the series for Dallara FIA F3-spec cars “gaining momentum”. Hieatt said: “I like racing against Trevor [Carlin] and teams like Fortec and there’s some good foreign teams too. Nobody really knows what’s happening in the future [with F3 merging with GP3] and for an independent team like us it’s a good place to be.”