Photo: Ida Wood
Euroformula has attracted three more drivers to this weekend’s season opener at Algarve, meaning the grid provisionally consists of seven cars.
BVM Racing has retained Francesco Simonazzi for a fourth season, with the 20-year-old Italian having debuted with the team in the penultimate round of 2021.
He took a victory and three second places en route to sixth in the 2022 standings, then last year won two races and had six other podiums as he improved to third in the championship. However he was one of only three full-time drivers on the grid.
Motopark has brought its line-up for 2024 up to six cars with the retention of Jakob Bergmeister and signing of Lorenzo Fluxa, although the latter will be a part-time entry and is only confirmed for Algarve so far.
Fluxa could potentially do rounds two to six of the season, but will definitely miss the last two rounds due to them clashing with his European Le Mans Series campaign with Cool Racing where he is sharing a car with Super Formula champion Ritomo Miyata and currently leads the points after winning the season-opening Barcelona Four Hours.
So far Fluxa has only done two days of testing in the Formula 3-level Euroformula car, which he describes as “not much at all”. The 19-year-old Spaniard’s single-seater experience prior to 2024 consisted of 43 Formula 4 races, with two wins in the United Arab Emirates championship the highlight, and 103 Formula Regional races which resulted in six podium appearances.
Bergmeister is set to do the full Euroformula season, and only has one year of car racing under his belt. The 18-year-old German did three F4 UAE rounds at the start of 2023, taking a best finish of 20th, then stepped up to Euroformula with Motopark and did three quarters of the season. Three second places were his best results, and he came fifth in the standings.