Photos: Gurel Sahin / Bjorn Niemann
Germany’s ADAC has announced the three drivers it will support in the French Formula 4 championship this year after deciding not to run its own series.
Having had only five full-time entrants last year, the ADAC confirmed in December that it was not accepting entries for its F4 series for 2023 and that it would instead place two drivers in the centrally-run French F4 as members of the ‘ADAC Formula Junior Team’.
That team will now actually compose of three drivers, including Max Reis who raced in French F4 last year and was expected to return this year. Last month he was announced as a recipient of support from the separate ADAC Sports Foundation (which covers all motorsport disciplines) along with Formula Regional racer Tim Tramnitz.
Reis came 15th in the French F4 standings last year, his best result being a second place in the reversed-grid race on the streets of Pau.
The other two drivers the ADAC will send to French F4 are stepping up directly from karts. Finn Wiebelhaus is the reigning ADAC Kart Masters champion in the X30 Junior class driving Lando Norris’s LN Kart, and took part in the season-opening WSK Champions Cup last month in OK.
Tom Kalender meanwhile was runner-up in the German Junior Karting Championship, just three points behind champion Jens Treur. He was an ADAC Kart Masters champion himself in 2019 in the Bambini class. The 14-year-old, who turns 15 at the end of March, also took part in WSK events and the World Karting Championship last year.