Column: Louis Foster
It’s a good weight off the shoulders to know we’re going to be racing this year and what we’re going to be doing. I’ll be competing in Euroformula Open with reigning champion CryptoTower Racing Team backed by Motopark. I had a difficult decision to choose between Motopark and Double R, which I’ve been a frontrunner with for the last two years in BRDC British Formula 3 and British Formula 4. But Motopark is the most successful team in Euroformula; you look at the results and it’s just doing something right. I’m a little bit sad I’m leaving Double R though, it’s really helped my development and I can’t thank the team enough.
Motopark is a really nice team and very professional. It is quite international, and with different backgrounds in racing comes different perspectives and that adds up to a successfully engineered car.
I’ve already had a preview of Euroformula racing in a couple of rounds towards the end of last year with Double R, and I won on my debut weekend!
The opportunity was a little bit on the spot; I was really excited because I’d never raced outside the UK other than going to Chennai last year. I hadn’t driven the Euroformula car before and had one test day at Pembrey in the pouring rain. At Spa for our first Euroformula meeting we jumped into the car and got settled in right away, and won the second race of the weekend. There was luck with the front two guys taking each other out but I still would have got a podium.
Then at Barcelona we again had good pace. Due to issues we only had one real proper qualifying session and in that we were P4, two tenths off pole and very close to P2. And I came second in that race.
It was all a surprise because Euroformula is a competitive series with really good drivers. I was hoping for the top 10 but I wasn’t expecting to go out there and win and be challenging for podiums right off the bat.
My qualifying has come on a lot in the last few years. Back in Ginetta Juniors I always qualified very poorly and raced my way to the front, then in F4 and F3 my qualifying got better and better. And, not to sound cocky, my racecraft is among the best. I’ve never been outraced by a driver from memory.
Because I did well and now have some experience of Euroformula, the only decision for this year was to return. Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine was an option but we had some issues with weight, I’m six foot and quite heavy for a single-seater driver and don’t have much weight to lose. It is something I wish was changed about single-seaters.
Motopark’s Euroformula Dallara 320 feels like a completely different car to
Double R’s because of the way the team set it up. Double R’s car was very entry focused whereas Motopark’s car is the opposite, you keep a bit of entry speed up to get good exit. But sometimes you’ve got to step out of your comfort zone which is what we’re doing.
I prefer the Euroformula car to those in British F3 and F4 because it’s a more clean way of driving. The Euroformula car is a lot more planted, and its 0 to 60 is a lot faster. With the British F3 car you can plant the throttle; in the Euroformula car you’ve got to be very careful on it. It’s more rewarding, more precise and feels like more of a formula race car.
This year will be very very busy, as towards end of the year I’m moving to the United States to live. The initial reason for moving was that I’m looking to do IndyCar. It’s a more realistic career ambition over something like Formula 1. And then I realised that I could also study out there, because racing isn’t 24-7. Unlike a lot of drivers these days I still care quite a lot about my education. Hopefully this time next year we will be signing a deal in an American single-seater series: Indy Lights, Formula Regional Americas or Indy Pro 2000.
In 2021 my racing aim is to win the Euroformula championship, but my ultimate year’s aim is learn and develop as much as possible and if that means we’re champion then we’re champion. My Euroformula performances last year put pressure on me, but I have faith in myself and we’re working hard towards repeating and bettering it.
Out of all the drivers that I know are doing Euroformula this year, or might be doing it, I can beat all of them. If you don’t think that then you have already lost. And the better the drivers that race in the series the more developed I’ll become.
“My racecraft is among the best: I’ve never been outraced by a driver from memory”