Photo: TGR NZ
FRegional was launched as a open-wheel category in 2018, and since then has expanded all over the world
Next year will be the last for Formula Regional as we know it before second-generation cars are introduced. Currently Dome, Ligier and Tatuus supply chassis for the category, which was in its sixth year of competition in 2023, and Tatuus was the dominant brand on the market not only in how many of its cars are racing but also the fact that the base design for the T-318 has been modified for different series and for different engine suppliers.
USA
The presence of IndyCar’s support series means FRegional Americas has always struggled for numbers. It started off with an average grid size of 4.7 cars in 2018, grew to 11.8 in 2019, then to 13.5 in 2020, but back down to 11.9 in 2021, to 11.5 last year and then 9.8 in 2023.
Just like previous seasons, it was dominated by one driver too. For the fourth time the champion won more than 10 races, but after round one you would have expected that driver to be Ryan Shehan as he took pole and won the opening two races.
His Crosslink/Kiwi Motorsport team-mate Callum Hedge won race three, then went unbeaten over the next two rounds at Road America and Mid-Ohio
Jensen Global Advisors and Oliver Westling took their first podium of the year by winning race one at New Jersey Motorsports Park, where Hedge had taken pole. He and Shehan ran side-by-side at the start, and were not paying attention to those behind them. Westling took to the inside and passed both before turn one, and Hayden Bowlsbey – from fifth on the grid – followed him to get into second place.
He was back behind Hedge at turn two, then when Shehan tried to regain a position he made contact with Bowlsbey which sent him off. Stewards penalised Shehan 30s, and Cooper Becklin finished third for the seventh time in a row.
Photo: Gavin Baker Photography
Hedge won the next four races at NJMP and Virginia International Raceway, where Becklin won race three after 12 third places. Having held off a surprise attack from Westling at the start, sending him onto the grass, Hedge looked set for another dominant win until he had what appeared to be an engine issue. Becklin inherited the lead, and had a big gap to Shehan until a caution period to retrieve Hedge’s car. He resisted an attempted move from Shehan at the restart, then pulled away to win.
Circuit of the Americas hosted the season finale and Hedge was dominant again, but lost race two to Westling in a photo finish after the latter passed the former at the final corner.
Czech-Canadian teenage Nicole Havrda got three fifth places from the two rounds she contested, but was far more competitive in FRegional Western where she won the title against an opposition of four drivers in total over the season. The JMF Motorports driver won the first six races, missed race one at Sonoma (which was won by title rival Jay Horak) then finished third in race two behind Jake Bonilla and Horak.
In the Buttonwillow Raceway finale Horak took a second win in race one, ahead of Larry Schnur, Havrda and Jett Bowling in a season-best grid of four cars. In race two Havrda wrapped up the title with victory.
The FRegional Western Winter Series only attracted Havrda and David Burketh for its two-round season, and Havrda was also champion in that.
Japan
Another series with historically small grids (and another of the non-Tatuus series) is the FRegional Japanese Championship. It averaged 9.2 cars for its first season, which grew to 13.4 in 2021, then sank to 9.1 last year and 7.8 this season.
The two title contenders were the only full-timers, with champion Sota Ogawa winning four races and runner-up Liam Sceats winning three. Six other drivers won races, and in total 24 took part in the series.
Photo: FRJC
Yuya Hiraki, Ryunosuke Sawa and Ogawa shared the wins in round one at Fuji Speedway, and in round two at Suzuka it was Kazuki Oki who took pole for and won a wet race one. It started behind the safety car, and visibility started to worsen as soon as cars moved off the grid. The safety car led the field for two-and-a-half laps before red flags waved, after which the pack headed to the grid in hope of a restart.
They sat there for 11 minutes before it was decided conditions were too severe, so the results were taken from lap two.
Race two was not much better, with the track still drenched and water having to be brushed off the grid before the drivers could take to it. However, the drivers were able to start the race under green flag conditions.
Immediate drama occurred, as Oki bogged down and Kaleb Ngatoa initially did not get off the line. Those behind had to take avoiding action and were successful in doing so, and all seven cars made it to turn one. Ogawa streaked away up front, then Ngatoa spun off out of fourth place at the Degner Curves on lap two. The safety car was summoned and led the field until red flags were waved on lap six due to the rain getting worse.
This time it was decided immediately that the race was done, and so the results were taken from the end of lap five. Half-points were awarded as in race one, and Ogawa was the winner. He claimed three poles and a win in round three at Okayama, with former Formula Renault 3.5 racer Yu Kanamaru and Sceats taking the other wins, and repeated his qualifying lockout at Twin Ring Motegi but again shared the victories as Sceats and Jiei Okuzumi also stood on the podium’s top step.
Sawa returned for the second trip to Fuji and made his mark with pole and a win. The first practice session of the weekend was cancelled due to a typhoon, and fog hit the track at the end of the event when race two took place. Ogawa led from pole, despite going off on lap three as rain arrived, and when Sawa tried attacking him on lap five he went off too. A lap later Ogawa spun, handing Sceats a win that would reduce Ogawa’s points lead ahead of the season finale at Sportsland SUGO.
Photo: FRJC
Enzo Trulli took pole for race one, but it was Okuzumi who came through to win and he did the same in race two. Michael Sauter was then the surprise victor of race three, as fourth place earned Ogawa the title.
Middle East
FRegional Middle East acted as a preview to the title fight of the European championship and also to FIA Formula 3’s midfield battles due to how many teams warmed up for their main 2023 campaigns by heading to the Arab peninsula last winter.
After spending 2022 fighting each other for F4 titles, Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Taylor Barnard and Ferrari junior Rafael Camara did battle again as FRME’s title contenders and with the same teams they had been racing for the year before. Although in Antonelli and Camara’s case, their Prema-run cars were branded as Mumbai Falcons entries.
Their team-mate Dino Beganovic drew first blood, winning the season opener at Dubai Autodrome, then Nikhil Bohra and Mari Boya also took wins. Yet it was Antonelli, Camara and Barnard who were the top three in the points at the end of that event.
Beganovic kicked off round two at Kuwait Motor Town, which was rained on in the days leading up to the event, by charging from ninth on the grid to win. PHM Racing’s Joshua Dufek won race two but then got disqualified, gifting team-mate Barnard victory, and R-ace’s Sami Meguetounif won from pole in race three. Antonelli took two second places to stay in the points lead.
After two days off the field was back on track in Kuwait, and Antonelli showed he meant business in the title fight by winning the first two races. The second was from 10th on the grid. Barnard won the third race, and while he was now Antonelli’s closest rival he was already 44 points behind having failed to score in four of the nine races up to that point.
On the return to Dubai, Barnard showed he could be consistent by making the podium in all three races. Antonelli took pole and a third win, but followed it up with a 10th and a fourth as Pinnacle VAR’s Pepe Marti took a dominant victory and then Nikita Bedrin led a PHM podium lockout from pole.
Photo: FRME
Antonelli still had 34 points in hand as the paddock headed to Yas Marina Circuit for the final round, which didn’t quite go to plan. Although he took pole for race one, he lost the lead to Barnard at the start and later made contact with him. It sent the leader spinning down the order, and earned Antonelli a penalty. Boya took victory as a result.
In the reversed-grid race two Antonelli got another penalty for contact that resulted in a spin, so finished 13th. But Barnard was only ninth, making Antonelli champion with a race to go. Marti was the winner, then Bedrin held off Antonelli to win the finale.
New Zealand
The Toyota Racing Series failed to go ahead in 2022, then returned this year under a new name: FRegional Oceania. It attracted the usual mix of Kiwi drivers and international talents, and the New Zealand Grand Prix featured on the calendar.
Like FRME, it appealed to drivers who wanted to spend winter racing to warm up for longer series later in the year.
The 2023 champion Charlie Wurz joined the Formula Scout Podcast to discuss why he chose New Zealand over the Middle East (having won the Formula 4 United Arab Emirates title the year before) and how his title-winning campaign went.
He won four times in the 15-race season with the usually dominant M2 Competition team, but it was team-mate and Nyck de Vries protege Laurens van Hoepen who was victorious in the grand prix. He missed the first three rounds but topped qualifying at Hampton Downs and then finished second and third in the first two races before winning the all-important one.
As it turned out, for neither driver did their success down under translate into the winning FREC form that Antonelli, Camara and co. enjoyed after racing in FRME.
Photo: TGR NZ
Hedge was the top local talent in FRegional Oceania, winning three races and taking nine podiums (two more than Wurz) to trail him by 14 points in the title fight. Indy Nxt driver Jacob Abel came third in the standings, but failed to win, and Liam Sceats was fourth despite never finishing higher than third.
Europe
Created this year as a series for drivers and teams from Spanish F4 to step up into, Eurocup-3 took the Tatuus’s T-318 and put a tuned-up engine in it as well adding a new Tatuus-designed bodykit to improve performance.
The result was a series which nabbed Drivex School from the F3-level Euroformula championship and also attracted IndyCar champion Alex Palou’s own team. The calendar, like Euroformula’s, was a continental one with races in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.
Campos Racing’s Esteban Masson beat MP Motorsport’s Boya to the title with victory in the season finale after a back-and-forth fight, and had Boya not missed a round it likely would have been even closer. Masson went unbeaten in the rounds at Motorland Aragon, Zandvoort and most importantly Barcelona – where the title decider was – while Boya did the double at Monza but also won at three other tracks.
Sebastian Ogaard (MP) and Francesco Braschi (Campos) were the only other two drivers to make it to the top of the podium, and Braschi was initially the surprise benchmark as the former FREC and FRME backmarker won Eurocup-3’s first ever race then was on the podium in the next three.
The Ultimate Cup Series raced in four European nations, but only had three drivers who actually raced in all four. French teenager Paul Trojani was one of them, and he became champion by winning 14 of the season’s 18 races. Nicolas Prost’s teenaged nephew Gaspard Le Gallais managed to beat Trojani three times, and was second to him in 12 races, then the cameoing Francisco Soldavini was the only other winner when he was victorious on his FRegional debut at Estoril.