MOTORSPORT’S TEAM GB GOES FOR GOLD
Jonathan Palmer tells Graham Keilloh how GB3 hasn’t missed a beat since getting its new name, and how the GB4 championship will provide new opportunities for young talent
What a difference a year makes. Or even four months. Back in July, had MN mentioned the ‘GB3 championship’ you probably would have thought it was a typo, referring to the former name of the Formula 1 weekend support.
Not now, as the GB3 championship is established on the UK junior singleseater scene. In early August it was announced that the BRDC British Formula 3 championship was being renamed thus, as the FIA wanted the F3 name solely for its own use.
And even though BRDC F3’s lineage didn’t lead directly to the British F3 of Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen et al, the name’s heritage value was undeniable.
“This is why we hung onto it so hard because the heritage of British F3 is enormous,” Jonathan Palmer, chief executive of GB3 organiser MotorSport Vision, tells Motorsport News, “and I didn’t agree and I don’t agree now with the FIA’s insistence that only the international FIA championships use the name, but ultimately they are the world governing body and we’re not in a position to fight them on that. In the interest of harmony of everything we agreed to change the name.”
Further MSV had established BRDC F3 from its BRDC Formula 4 predecessor after relinquishing to the FIA the UK right to the F4 title, MSV hoping in return to run a FIA northern European regional
F3 championship that didn’t arrive.
“But nevertheless, we’ve moved on from that,” Palmer says of the name change. “It’s a great shame that we lost the heritage from British F3 but nevertheless were creating rapidly our own heritage already with GB3.
“We created what has been a very good car for [BRDC F3] by taking the
FIA F4 Tatuus core and running a different engine, more downforce, we’ve taken that platform and put it on steroids in every direction, whether it’s engine, gearbox, brakes, aerodynamics and it’s proven to be a superb race car.”
As for proof of the category’s driver pudding, this year’s top two Zak O’Sullivan and Ayrton Simmons seek
FIA F3 drives for 2022 while Ollie Bearman – who sampled three GB3 rounds this year – continues to reach for the stars. Eight GB3 graduates took part in the recent FIA F3 end-of-season test, 2019 champion Clement Novalak has just moved into Formula 2 while Lando Norris, George Russell and Colton
Herta also sampled the championship.
“It’s morphed very seamlessly from British F3 into GB3,” Palmer insists, and his view is backed by the 21 cars racing in last month’s Donington Park seasoncloser, its biggest turnout since 2016.
“So it hasn’t impacted it at all,” he notes, “people have got used to it very quickly.”
Team bosses concur. “A name’s just a name isn’t it?,” Hitech Grand Prix head Oliver Oakes told MN shortly after the change. “The series now’s got its own legacy from the past few years. For me as Hitech this series is important because it’s bringing drivers through to our [FIA] F3 and F2 teams and I believe a lot in the British racing just simply because you’ve got to drive in the wet, dry [and] they get a lot of testing.
“Drivers like this series because they love the car, they love the format and I don’t think many really have focused on the name. It’s the main series in England for young drivers to get spotted in.
“I don’t see any [drop in interest from the name change], if anything it’s been announced and the last two days we’ve had lots of inquiries. The fundamentals of the series are still good definitely.”
Fortec boss Ollie Dutton added presciently: “I think people will talk about it [the name change] for a couple of days or a week and then it will be forgotten about it.
“It’s still a fantastic car and a strong grid, we’re still excited about its future, we know it’s going to be a strong championship moving forward.”
Douglas Motorsport boss Wayne Douglas muses: “Bearman, he still
“Britain can become the place to come”
Jonathan Palmer
sees the value in it and he’s lots of opportunities in Europe, he could be doing FREC [Formula Regional European Championship] races, he could be doing Euroformula races, he’s decided to come and do this.
“It’s very difficult for someone, be it budget wise or be it talent wise or result wise, to jump from an F4 British championship to [FREC] Alpine or to
FIA F3, so there has to be some kind of championships somewhere in between. FREC Alpine still has pretty limited testing, so one of the things [about doing GB3 is] doing the laps to get up to speed.”
It seems further that there are positives from being called GB3. “It’s a very crisp name isn’t it?,” Palmer notes. “It’s very short, GB3 really is easy, the logo looks good, looks good on the cars, people have got to know it quickly. They like it, teams like it, drivers like it.”
Arden boss Gary Ward adds: “It locks it in a bit more exclusive to Jonathan who’s put together a really good championship. And as long as we don’t steer away from there I think we’ll be fine.”
Palmer continues: “Also there’s no doubt that operating outside of directly controlled FIA championships, clearly they have benefits of being part of the
FIA system but that can also mean an individual country doesn’t have the ability to change and tweak regulations as easily.”
Even the change happening mid-year is considered a plus. “It’s better it changed mid-season so it’s done with now and by the time we get to the end of the year it’s going to be on everybody’s tip of the tongue,” Ward said at the time.
Perhaps the timing was helped also by that more change awaited at the year’s end anyway, as GB3 gets a technical boost for 2022. “We’ve got a Halo-equipped new tub, which is from Tatuus, there’s a power upgrade, 250bhp [from 230bhp] and there’s the aero upgrade, it’s 20-25% more downforce,” Palmer explains.
“Teams are excited about it, driver interest is great. GB3 is clearly in for another really good year, an even better year I’d say for next year too.”
And next year GB3 gets a little brother in GB4, designed as an entry-level affordable single-seater category for talent of 15 years old and upwards. It will use the first-generation Tatuus F4-T014 chassis seen in Spanish, Italian and ADAC F4 series recently.
GB4 experienced though what appeared an underwhelming start, with not much news following its early September launch. Palmer says however this was from waiting until Motorsport UK’s championship control panel – whose sitting shifted from July to October – approved the new championship.
There also appeared some tension with Motorsport UK, which is also British Formula 4’s new organiser.
“Let’s be honest it’s been a bit of a sensitive subject with them,” Palmer notes of Motorsport UK. “We wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page before we announced the calendar and pushed it forward and now we are at that point.
“Motorsport UK fully understand this now, but we very much see GB4 not as a head-on competitor with British F4, but as an alternative for those drivers that can’t raise the £300,000-£400,000 that British F4’s going to take.
“There’s probably barely anybody in the in the world, certainly not in this country, that’s got the level of experience we’ve got at not just running these championships but running them with a good reputation.”
Now 11 teams have expressed their intent to compete in GB4 next year, ranging from existing GB3 squads to established Formula Ford outfits Kevin Mills Racing and Oldfield Motorsport.
Big technical overlap between GB3 and GB4 – 80% of the parts are the same – is also intended to create economies of scale for teams to compete in both categories simultaneously (for both, seven out of their eight race gatherings in 2022 will be at the same meetings).
“With GB4 it’s very important that we give the opportunity for privateers to come back and have a go,” Palmer explains. “Kids that have gone through karting, done quite well, not a wealthy dad but believes in his son, the lad’s desperate to get on, and you can go and buy an existing Tatuus F4 car for £25,000 running and you could run that car on £5000 a race weekend so with eight race weekends you could do it on £40,000 or £50,000, to get into a high-quality singleseater championship.
“There are a lot of drivers out there whether it’s out of karting, out of Ginetta Juniors, that would love to try and have a shot to try to become the next George Russell [or] Lewis Hamilton but trying to find £300,000 in year one is a huge amount of money and I certainly couldn’t have done anything like it when I started, and my own experience plays heavily on these.”
Running on British GT’s calendar also gives drivers a chance to race on Silverstone’s, Donington’s and Brands Hatch’s GP layouts plus, in GB3’s case, at Spa.
“We do have a responsibility and we are just enjoying providing young drivers with very modest means the ability to learn, develop their talent, showcase their talent and help them move on to bigger and better things,” Palmer adds.
“And of course most recently a great example is George Russell whose first car racing championship was with us in BRDC F4, and we all know where he is now, which is enormously satisfying. And look back on my Formula Palmer Audi days, Justin Wilson again came from a very modest means family, hugely talented driver, wonderful person, and the journey to get him to Formula 1 and ultimately IndyCars was really exciting.
“When I started in single-seater motor racing Britain was a hell of a place to come, it was the place to come to develop your single-seater racing career, and it’s faded away from that a bit. And we’ve done a very good job with BRDC F4, with British F3/GB3 championship, and I think we’re in for an exciting time now. We’ll have GB4 championship and with British F4 and with GB3 we’ve got three very good championships that have got their own niches that can really help reinvigorate Britain as being a singleseater destination of choice for aspiring young drivers.”