Photo: Top Speed
Formula 4 South East Asia’s 2025 return has been confirmed with the publication of a five-round schedule.
First held over eight years ago, F4 SEA kicked off with a six-round 2016-17 campaign that featured races across four nations and had all cars centrally run by ex-GP2 team Meritus.
The 2017-18 season slimmed down to three countries, with most rounds held in Malaysia or Thailand. Those two territories will form the basis of F4 SEA’s comeback season too.
In the second half of 2018 there was another F4 SEA season, with races as far north as India, then in 2019 the championship boomed with a 40-race, 10-round schedule that took in three countries. But the COVID-19 pandemic killed that momentum, leading to the cancellation of the 2020 season, a replacement 2020-21 schedule and then the 2021 season too.
It was committed to returning to racing in early 2022, but instead did a test programme to see whether it should switch to a second-generation F4 car for last year. The switch did happen and racing returned, with 12 teams competing and races in China, Macau and Malaysia. F4 SEA’s Macau races were non-championship fixtures.
Once again momentum was lost as no 2024 season followed the thrilling bouts of 2023, but rumours again began to circulate in autumn of this year that another revival effort was underway.
This week that became reality, and like last year the championship will continue to use the Tatuus T-421 car when it returns.
Sepang will host the first two rounds of the 2025 season on May 2-4 and June 6-8, then round three will take place at a yet to be determined Thai track in July.
Buriram, the former Thai venue of F4 SEA races, will hold round four on August 9-11 and then the season will conclude at Sepang on September 5-7.
Evans GP has already announced it plans to run four full-time entries in the championship, and contested Australian F4’s round at Sepang this September.
Australian F4 has come back from a similarly prolonged absence to F4 SEA’s, as after seasons run annually from 2015 to ’19 the championship disappeared off the map until this year. Low grids was what killed it off the first time around, and it was run by Motorsport Australia.
Top Speed, the China-based company which also promotes F4 SEA, F4 Middle East and the sister Formula Trophy series, chose to revive it for 2024 with the Tatuus T-421 chassis and a five-round schedule. It has only run four so far due to the cancellation of July’s event at Queensland Raceway, but the prospect of a fifth round taking place remains.
AGI Sport’s James Piszcyk has already wrapped up the Australian F4 title after going unbeaten through the first three rounds.
Next year Australian F4 will reintroduce the first-generation Mygale chassis it and F4 SEA used until the end of 2019.