Competing in the FIA Formula 2 Championship this season is Australian Oscar Piastri. He’s the current FIA F3 champion, winning the title at his first attempt in 2020, beating Theo Pourchaire by three points in a nail-biting season finale at Mugello. Look into Piastri’s racing CV and you will find he has no single seater experience on Australian circuits.
Piastri won multiple Australian kartsport titles before heading off to Europe in 2015. He stayed in the Northern Hemisphere competing in the British F4 championship, finishing runner up in 2017 then moved to Formula Renault Eurocup in 2018, winning that title in 2019 before competing in the FIA F3 in 2020.
Strange as it may seem, Australia keeps producing great Supercars drivers but doesn’t have a sound single seater career path, especially after the demise of the CAMS Formula 4 Championship in 2019.
While pundits laud the new S5000 category, it is a hell of a jump to make from Formula Ford. Then, where does a young driver head after S5000?
One could be forgiven for thinking that the Australian Formula 3 Championship had died sometime ago. Well it is still alive and MTEC Motorsport’s Bruin Beasley, who runs a Toyota Racing Series team here each season, is trying to kick some life into it.
There is to be a new Invitational Class as part of the Australian Formula 3 Championship incorporating other single seaters such as Formula 4 and the FT50 cars from the Castrol Toyota Racing Series.
Beasley has bought a number of FT50 cars from Toyota GAZOO Racing NZ in order to encourage more young drivers into the category and help set up a progressive pathway for single seater drivers in Australia. He may very well succeed as well as attracting a few Kiwi drivers over the ditch who want to make the jump from Formula Ford to the new FT60 currently used in the Castrol Toyota Racing Series.
For more on the Australian Formula 3 Championship, head to the Australian Motor Racing Series website.
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There’s a class running in NZ called Formula Open New Zealand (FONZ). It’s proved to be perfect for the FT-40 and FT-50 cars. Currently four FT-40s and a couple of FT-50s have been running along with the older Swift DB4s. In my mind it’s a great class to step into before giving the full TRS (FT-60) a go. A step up from Formula Ford but without the TRS cost. You get some true wings and slicks experience. And you don’t have to go over the ditch. Final round coming up at Hampton Downs May 15th, 2021. And a young fella in an FT-40 is going to take out the series. Be great to get some media coverage around this and entice more and more of the cars out of garages for the 2021/2022 series.