26 replies to this topic

[GMiranda]

Hello to all

 

I decided to open this topic because, while reading a book on F2 and looking for the drivers who became F1 stalwarts, it's possible to see that a consderable number of drivers almost or totally bypassed F2 or F3000 to become F1 drivers. I find it very interesting to discuss, and looking for the heydays of the European F3 Championship we can find a consdierable pool of talent. What you think about it?

[Ray Bell]

Larry Perkins did well in the European F3 title, didn't he?

The impression I got from him at the time was that the European Championship was a lot easier to crack than the British one.

[GMiranda]

I gave European F3 as an example, because the British crown always rivalled with it, as it was a very renowned Championship.

[john aston]

British F3 was, arguably , the 2nd of 3rd most important single seater series in the world for many years . I saw my first F3 race in 1970 at Croft - 66 cars , two heats and a final and a whole list of future F1 drivers like Pace. I saw Senna, Hill, Coulthard , Barrichello, Hakkinen , Brundle , Warwick , PIquet(both ) ,Nilsson, Sullivan , Hunt  and so very many others in the series .

 

Sadly ,it is now  a shadow of its former self, I saw a race at Oulton Park in April this year and was underwhelmed . The last  good F3 race I saw  was also at Oulton and featured Danny Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg - what happened to those guys I wonder ... ? 

 

But the best performance I have ever seen in F3 was from Takuma Sato. I have never seen anybody attack a circuit like he did . Erratic ? Yes . Prone to getting carried away ? Yes . Amazing to watch ? Oh yes

Edited by john aston, 01 July 2018 - 06:32.

[AJCee]

F3 proved a better breeding ground of F1 champions than F2 or F3000: none of the series winners thete went on to be WDC F1 champion.
I will always be glad that I watched F3 from the late 70s to around the late 90s, there was so much good racing and all those future stars as well as all the woulda, coulda, shouldas.

[Charlieman]

F3 proved a better breeding ground of F1 champions than F2 or F3000: none of the series winners there went on to be WDC F1 champion.

 

Former F2 champions made up a quarter of the grid at WDC GPs up until the early 1980s... The top end of the F2 championship table was headed by serious drivers but quality of entry at individual races varied considerably. There were more than a few rich hobby drivers or local heroes having a try-out in a rent-a-car. If you were a lucky spectator, you saw a graded F1 driver in a decent car.

 

The FIA F3 European Championship and the big national F3 series in UK, Germany and Italy varied in entry quality from year to year. My main recollections of UK F3 in the 1970s and early 1980s are the variety of marques and strong performances by underfunded drivers in last years cars. F3 was largely for aspirant young drivers (and professional teams) and there were fewer hobby racers with a budget; rich hobby drivers raced elsewhere.

 

A significant education lesson of F2 and F3 championship racing came from the number of starts and number of laps. Even an F3 race was more than a sprint. It's something that the FIA considered recently when raising the qualifications for F1 licences.

 

And let's not ignore Formula Atlantic, B and Pacific, or the Japanese F2 series and its successors.

[GMiranda]

Which were your best drivers you watched on Formula 3?

[Richard Jenkins]

Jan Magnussen was immense.

Martin O'Connell too.

Someone who impressed me but never really did much subsequently was Hoover Orsi. I think it's fair to say that after F3 he sucked 😉

Edited by Richard Jenkins, 01 July 2018 - 09:43.

[Stephen W]

Which were your best drivers you watched on Formula 3?

 

Dave Walker, Patrick Depailler, Michele Alboreto and Ayrton Senna

[Michael Ferner]

Sadly, I didn't get to see too many F 3 races, but Takuma Sato was something else, I agree! I also enjoyed watching Pedro Lamy do his stuff.

[GMiranda]

And what's your opinion on Brett Riley?

[Mallory Dan]

Very good, though, as with many, usually handicapped by lack of money. And Dolly engines... 

[GMiranda]

I am always interested in those story of the drivers who never reached F1, but were pretty good

[sabrejet]

Jan Magnussen was immense.

Martin O'Connell too.

Someone who impressed me but never really did much subsequently was Hoover Orsi. I think it's fair to say that after F3 he sucked

 

Glad someone else remembers Martin O'Connell in F3: he was impressive in 'historic' F3 back then and still is!

[Sterzo]

Which were your best drivers you watched on Formula 3?

F3 has probably been my favourite category of racing. Easier to list the best drivers who did not feature in F3.

 

I just missed seeing Stirling Moss, then Formula Junior became the thing (saw Jim Clark), but then F3 featured again. Somehow missed Jackie Stewart, but saw Emerson Fittipaldi, Ronnie Peterson, James Hunt, Nikki Lauda, Alan Jones, Nelson Piquets x 2, and everyone all the way through to Mika Hakkinen, Jenson Button, Sebastien Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton.

 

Lando Norris and George Russell? Of course. Now watch out for Enaam Ahmed.

 

Gone are the glory days for British F3. We in the UK were immensely fortunate that for decades this was the place to race. The championship was the main destination for people from all over the world, who knew they wouldn't be taken seriously unless they'd shone at a wet Snetterton. Why has it declined? It was always going to. It makes more sense for there to be F3 series around the globe, and for the European F3 championship to take precedence over the British series. Surprising it lasted so long, but I'm glad it did.

 

PS The current British F3 series is still great to watch, though, and has drivers from China, India, Venezuela, Denmark, France, Sweden and Britain.

Edited by Sterzo, 02 July 2018 - 13:16.

[cheesy poofs]

It’s unfortunate you didn’t get to see Canadian Bertrand Fabi. He was killed before the 1986 British F3 season started.

Edited by cheesy poofs, 02 July 2018 - 13:07.

[Sterzo]

^ Saw him in (I think) British Formula Ford 2000.

[Cirrus]

F3 could justify a whole forum on its own. The pictures that GaryC recently put up show that there is still a lot of interest in the 500cc F3.

 

Formula Junior filled the gap for a few years and has a huge following now (I saw at least 3 novices in the FJ race at the Brands Superprix yesterday)

 

1 Litre F3 produced fantastic racing and many wonderful stories (which we need to hear while the protagonists are still around).

 

1600 F3 couldn't quite match the MAE era but still provided some amazing races at many scary circuits which are no longer in existance

 

2 Litre F3 (ie the Toyota Novamotor period) provided the backdrop to some great rivalries - Nilsson/Ribeiro, Giacomelli/Keegen, South/Daly, Piquet/Warwick, Senna/Brundle

 

Aah - happy days...

[john aston]

I adored the 1 litre cars , even though I saw them only a handful of times in early days at Croft and  Rufforth. The 1.6 cars were  a bit ..err...meh when they appeared and didn't ever impress  much in looks , noise or body language .And 2 litre , lots more chassis than later but , heresy to say this , it didn't improve either until the 90s,  when they were allowed to breathe  more . It was the drivers that made F3 such an addictive spectacle, as the cars might have looked sweet and cornered on rails but they sounded awful - which is what you get from a power band of about 1000rpm or less, an underwhelming 160bhp and a rev peak of about 6k Or so I recall- I hope correctly ?     

 

By the Sato era the cars looked even better, and even though they wee nearly all  Dallaras , they were  like  little jewels, the engines were revving more and up to about 220bhp I think  and the whole field's standard of preparation  was of a much higher standard than before . Seeing and hearing a 28 strong  field of teenager drivers, all drunk on adrenalin and immortality, holding the engines against the rev limiter seconds before the start was breathtaking , if not as much as the first corner was...

[Sterzo]

Some periods were better than others; any of us who lived through the 1 litre screamers was changed for life and nothing will quite match it. Nevertheless they were all good. In the nineties in the UK there was a club series called Toyota F3, for roughly ten to fifteen year old 2 litre F3 cars. Skirts removed, minimum ride height, single engine supplier. It was great.

 

Thank you, john aston, for your description of the drivers. Previously I thought F3 drivers were all supplied by an agency called Rentaloony.

[F1matt]

Jan Magnussen was immense, clearly on another level I often wonder what could have been, I think he found the lower level too easy and when he had to step it up for F1 he couldn't deliver, he is still impressive in GTE class, at least Kevin looks better prepared than his dad was and is highest placed driver in the championship after the big teams.

 

Pretty sure every time I saw Martin O'Connell he was in class B running his own team which must have put him at a disadvantage but he turned in some impressive drives, I thought he would have followed the family and ended up in hill climbing. 

 

Like many have said, British F3 was a great series, used to love watching them trackside. 

[john aston]

Always thought Jan was of quite modest stature . ...

 

Like Dave Walker, and many others  , he stalled once the  numbers got serious  . Others did the reverse- both D Hill and Mansell found their real mojo once they had more horses to ride

[2F-001]

A few others who, I thought, looked classy in F3 include Reine Wisell, Alan Rollinson and Tim Schenken. (Though I suppose you could say that Wisell and Schenken 'made it', if not becoming household names.

What became of Russell Wood? He looked like he was going places for a time.

[Sterzo]

One of the differences between F3 and F1 is the sheer unimaginable commitment needed to compete at the highest level. The intensity of those guys is out of this world. Jan Magnussen was described as talented but "lazy", which probably means exceptionally hard working by our standards but not obsessive enough to succeed in Grand Prix racing.

 

My favourite example was Beppe Gabbiani. I recall enthusing over him in F3. He made it to F1, but disappeared when he realised that for one year's budget he could buy a house with a pool and fund a bevy of beauties to share it with him for several years. Allegedly.

[ensign14]

Kerr did pretty well in A1GP but never got the budget to do anything more serious. 

 

Between 1985 and 2002, every single British F3 champion who was not British got a drive in F1 or Champcar.  Yet only one British F3 champion who was British did so. 

 

The real British miss was Jamie Green, who beat Hamilton and Rosberg in Euro F3,  Hamilton had the excuse that it was his rookie year; Rosberg did not.

[Michael Ferner]

Johnny Herbert, Ralph Firman jr. - that's two in F 1 alone. And didn't Jonny Kane drive in Champ car, at least once or twice? If not, it was probably down to his marginal Indy Lights results. Come to think of it, British F3 stars often had mediocre results in F 3000, which certainly didn't help. Or went off into tin tops as soon as possible (Kelvin Burt, Oliver Gavin, Marc Hynes).

[ensign14]

Firman is Irish.  At least he raced under an Irish licence, and made his F1 bow when he was arguably past his peak.  Kane didn't drive in Champcar.  Gavin should have driven a Pacific, but for some reason being British F3 champ didn't get him a superlicence, albeit the real reason was that Gachot had the cheque and would probably have gassed Bernie.