Photo: ADAC
Fourteen teams will compete in the inaugural season of the revived German Formula 4 championship in 2027, according to series organizer Gedlich Racing.
The list is headed by a four-car entry from Van Amersfoort Racing, a mainstay of F4’s previous incarnation in Germany, ADAC F4. The Dutch team took three drivers’ titles with Joey Mawson in 2016, Jonny Edgar in 2020 and Oliver Bearman in 2021.
VAR gave Mick Schumacher his first taste of single-seaters in the series in 2015, as well as providing current Racing Bulls F1 driver, Liam Lawson with his European debut three years later.
Two other teams have committed to four-car entries: Mathilde Racing and a new team with illustrious names behind it, Vanwall F4 Racing. The Vanwall name itself will be returning to single-seaters for the first time since 1961…
Mathilde Racing has run F1 Academy race winner Mathilde Paatz in the Central European Zone F4 championship and the Formula Winter Series this year under the leadership of her father, Michael.
Vanwall F4 will be fronted by Colin Kolles and Trevor Carlin, both extremely experienced single-seater team bosses. Carlin’s eponymous team was the most successful entrant in the history of British Formula 3 before taking four British F4 drivers’ titles between 2015 and 2019.
Kolles and Carlin will be renewing an acquaintance that stretches back almost 25 years to when the pair teamed up for the Macau and Korea F3 races in 2002. Their paths briefly overlapped at Jordan Grand Prix when Carlin took on the role of sporting director with Kolles as managing director following the team’s acquisition by Midland.
One of the drivers who found success in both F4 and European F3 with Carlin was World Champion Lando Norris, whose recently announced LN4 Fusion team will join the German F4 grid. Norris himself was an ADAC F4 race winner at Spa-Francorchamps in 2015.
Two Swiss teams have lodged entries for the championship with another ADAC F4 stalwart, Jenzer Motorsport, joined by newcomers, FS Motorsports. FS has been set up by Augusto Farfus and Brazilian motorsport promoter Mauricio Slaviero.
Regulars making the transition from FWS include the Danish STEP Motorsport team, Austria’s Renauer Motorsport, CRAM from Italy and Slovenia’s AS Motorsport.
All four, together with Jenzer, Mathilde Racing and Dutt Motorsport, currently compete in F4 CEZ, which has undoubtedly benefitted from the absence of a national series in Europe’s largest economy. It remains to be seen whether they will all continue with both programmes in 2027.
Belgium will be represented by Comtoyou Racing and PK Carsport, both moving to single-seaters from GTs and touring cars, and the grid will be completed by drive.solutions, another team intending to make its F4 debut in 2027.
The championship has also published a provisional calendar, confirming that the Red Bull Ring will host its “foreign” round on 31 July to 1 August as part of the ADAC Racing Weekend. The championship will begin at Oschersleben on 7-9 May as a support to DTM.
Announcing the capacity grid for the series first season, Robin Selbach, Managing Director of Gedlich Racing, said: “The huge interest in our F4 German Championship is a vivid indicator of the region’s desire for junior single-seater competition. Enquiries totalling over 70 potential entries exceeded our internal expectations and allowed us to curate a compelling list of participants for the first season. We are over six months from the first race start, and we’re already feeling immense anticipation!”