SHOULD FORMULA FORD EVOLVE INTO FORMULA 5 WITH THE FIA?
Formula Ford has been a hot topic recently as Motorsport Australia scrambles to find a replacement “formula” for its defunct Formula 4 category.
A working group in Motorsport Australia has been made to revive the category.
Members of the Formula Ford Working Group include:
Michael Smith (Chair) (Motorsport Australia – Director of Motorsport & Commercial Operations)
Ryan Story (Chair of the Australian Motor Racing Commission)
Andrew Jones (Member of the Australian Motor Racing Commission)
Michael Ritter (Director of Sonic Motor Racing Services)
Phil Marrinon (Formula Ford Association Committee Member)
For 52 years, Formula Ford has been the racing category that has groomed future racing champions not only in Australia and New Zealand, but around the world into Formula 1, INDYCAR, NASCAR, Supercars & so on.
Unfortunately, FIA Formula 4 failed to take off in Australia a few years ago. However, there’s now talk in the media of bringing Formula Ford back into the mainframe as a curtain raiser to the Supercars once again in the near future.
As much as I love racing in Formula Ford myself, the issue is the category needs a few updates and maybe even requires a new name to make it relevant once again. In this day and age, you can’t rely on nostalgia in motorsport.
The general car company brands outside of motorsport are changing rapidly with most road cars going electric or hybrid. So, maybe it’s time for the junior formula to head that way on a budgeted scale. Here is my idea for the new and improved category to work successfully.
I call it FIA FORMULA 5!
THE CONCEPT:
The category can stay relatively the same to its predecessor Formula Ford and it even takes some lessons learned out of the defunct Australian Formula 4 book.
Formula 5 or ‘Formula Australia’ as the media has dubbed it could be a one-make category with chassis’s being built in house by local Australian manufacturer Spectrum from Borland Racing Developments. The reason I’ve chosen Borland Racing Developments is because they are local and can turn around making new chassis very quickly and still produce cars for overseas motorsports. Most other formula ford manufacturers have stopped producing chassis. Only two in the UK still manufacture FF1600’s Firman and Ray Race Cars.
I’m going to get some hate from some people saying “one-make categories don’t work in Australia”, but in this case it just might.
My version of the Formula 5 category will include a halo over the cockpit going in line with FIA standards and rules aligned with FIA Formula 4, but the rest of the chassis will remain mostly the same as a Formula Ford Spectrum chassis.
The category will run slicks and wets. For example, we will use the American tyre manufacturer Hoosier, which the s5000 category in Australia already uses.
FIA Formula 5 will be budgeted to a $100,000 in total for a season. For this to go any further Motorsport Australia can’t hold onto the chassis and lease them out like before. It failed with Formula 4 and it would fail again with this project.
So, we need to try something different for it to take off and for the other board members not to get greedy and actually think of the smaller budgeted teams and drivers in mind, like myself if I was to compete in the new category.
It would be a five round championship and you would limit the tyre amount per driver making the teams work to a strict budget. This will make the drivers learn about tyre management as soon as they leave karting.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE OLD GEN CARS?
The older generation Formula Ford’s will still continue to race as they are now, but only at state level events.
The winner from every state championship in each series in the duratec series will get a seat reserved for them in FIA Formula 5 at a discounted price.
WHAT ENGINE WILL FORMULA 5 USE?
That is a huge question in my opinion. You see right now in Formula Ford, Duratec & Kent motors are hard to come by and already there’s less and less parts available for them.
Formula 5 needs something more modern. The category could use Honda horsepower like they’re doing over in America or we could still use a Ford power unit. Toyota could also be another option due to its Formula Toyota links in New Zealand. Either way the motor/power unit needs to be made easier to maintain, whilst sourcing parts needs to be seamless for the engine builder.
Speaking of engine builders, Formula 5 won’t just have one main builder it will have multiple because each builder might give their drivers a slight advantage over the other. Kind of like that old school karting vibe where you would choose your own engine builder for your kart, since every chassis is the same frame.
The engine and tyre management budget will be the key factors to making this new one-make category great.
Well, that is my rundown on what the new revamped Formula Ford category should look like. What are your thoughts? Do you agree/disagree with me? I would love to hear what everyone else thinks.
DH
Here’s a photo of me racing at Sydney Motorsport Park in Formula Ford Duratec. These cars reach speeds of 240km/h around Eastern Creek.