BRITISH F4: MANY HAPPY RETURNS?
British F4 has a bumper grid this year and as usual it’s tough to pick a favourite, as Graham Keilloh explains
British Formula 4, the traditional first UK step on the single-seater ladder, returns this weekend for its latest campaign on the British Touring Car Championship’s undercard. And for 2021 things look healthy, with 17 up-andcomers on its roster, up on the 15 that started 2020 (and the 12 that ended the campaign).
“It’s looking really good isn’t it?,” championship promoter Sam Roach tells Motorsport News. “It would be easy to have a narrative that this is Covid-related, that our country is doing better than some other countries that host rival F4 championships, but this grid was set before anybody had heard of vaccines. So this is more likely one of those years where the numbers are a little bit higher. This is some payback from a couple of good years of running.”
And as usual in the British F4 class there is an eclectic mix both in nationality and racing background, with karters, Ginetta alumni and those from a few other places besides.
As usual too, picking a likely winner isn’t easy. “I’ve got genuinely no favourites,” Roach adds. “Normally by now I’ve got a few people in my head that I think are looking a bit tasty.”
But the returnees from last year’s field, with their obvious head start, seem a good place to begin. And the last to join the 17 has good claim to be our first consideration. Last week James Hedley was in with a shot, confirming his place for the first three rounds at least. Last year with JHR Developments he placed fifth in standings, and was likely ill-served by the place as he was a consistent sharp-end runner, particularly early in the campaign.
For 2021 he’s back and has shifted to Fortec Motorsport that took Luke Browning to last year’s drivers’title, with it becoming the first squad to beat Carlin to the prize. Plus the forthcoming opening round is at Thruxton, where Hedley just so happened to get three wins from three last season.
“I’m definitely one of the [title] favourites if not the favourite,” Hedley tells MN. “It’s going to be tough because everyone else has done a lot more days in the car, but we’ve just to rely on my skills.”
He’ll have a likely returnee rival for honours in former team-mate
Abbi Pulling, who finished just one place behind Hedley in last year’s standings. She was another ill-served by her points total. And unlike
Hedley she has the benefit of continuity, remaining with JHR.
“This year it’s looking really good,” Pulling says, “[in] pre-season testing [I’m] finding what I want in the car. The first-year [drivers], I’ve made all their mistakes! I’ve come back as a completely different driver [this year] and I want to go for the title. The preparation is to a whole new level; this time last year I was quite ignorant, I didn’t realise how much time I had to put into it. Working with Alice [Powell] made me open my eyes.”
Another returner who starts among the favourites is Peru’s Matias Zagazeta, who’s made the audacious call of leaving powerhouse Carlin. Now he’s with Argenti Motorsport, in its sophomore year after taking over from Double R. So far Zagazeta’s call is working: he’s been near or at the top of much of pre-season testing. Perhaps though his ability to race is in more doubt than his ability to be quick.
“Last season was very difficult but we’re here to take advantage of all the experience gained,” he says. “The main goal [is] the championship.
I’m working four times harder than last year. I thought [Argenti] would be a great fit.”
His new boss Michael Meadows adds on Zagazeta’s move: “All the teams have a pretty good grip on the cars now, ultimate pace is quite similar. Sometimes just a change of scenery helps.”
And of course any British F4 season preview has to detain itself, at least for a few sentences, with Carlin. It’s British F4’s perennial: having won the drivers’title and the teams’title in four out of the five years it’s competed in the category.
Carlin has a returnee of its own in for 2021, albeit one who, like Zagaeta, has switched squads. Roman Bilinski has joined from Arden, after coming eighth in the table with three podiums last year. “[Carlin’s record creates] quite a lot of pressure but I’ve got a really good team behind me and so I’m going to be pushing all the way,” Bilinski says. “For sure the drivers from last year are going to be quick. Coming back to a second season will be really good for me.”
He’s joined at Carlin by Japanese karter Dougie Bolger, his fellow karter Kai Askey, and recent F4
UAE frontrunner Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak from Thailand.
The debutants are not to be ruled out though, particularly if they’ve had lots of testing. This was evidenced last year with Ginetta graduate Zak O’Sullivan coming within the fall of a red flag of claiming the title (see sidebar).
Alongside Hedley at Fortec there is Swede Joel Granfors – who has a particularly interesting background of having claimed closed-wheel and open-wheel Scandinavian titles last year – plus karting champion Oliver Gray.
Joining Pulling at JHR there is someone for whom, from one perspective, things can only go down. Joseph Loake won every single BRSCC Fiesta Junior race last year, and the 15-year-old is now trying his hand at single-seaters. Karting graduates Matthew Rees, also 15, and McKenzy Cresswell – British born but raised in Austin, Texas, and who has shown surprising testing form – complete JHR’s selection.
Zagazeta also is joined by a couple of karting graduates: his Argenti team-mates are Australian Marcos Flack and Eduardo Coseteng, the first driver from the Philippines to compete in British F4.
Arden’s driving complement is Ginetta Junior podium-finisher
Zak Taylor and karting and Ardenaffiliated Young Racing Driver Academy alumnus Thomas Ikin. And there are once again six competing British F4 teams this year as Richardson Racing returns, with Georgi Dimitrov, currently its sole driver, who won four races with the team in Ginetta Juniors last year.
And there’s another way the championship will look different in 2021, as it has its first significant weekend format change in its F4 history. The entire grid will reverse in the second race based on qualifying, rather than 50% of race one’s classified finishers reversing. The move has, at this stage, universal approval from drivers, and with competitors having a couple of extra tyres per event this year it all could open up new strategy approaches.
But, as noted, it’s rarely easy to predict what happens in British F4. n