Hitech interested in future Formula 2 expansion

The British team spent its first full-time season in European F3 last year, and took second in the teams' championship behind Prema as George Russell and Ben Barnicoat scored four wins between them.

On the heels of a successful debut - and with the 2017 F3 campaign having kicked off at Silverstone last week - team boss Oliver Oakes confirmed Hitech is looking to expand its operations in the future.

"Yeah [we're interested]. Of course there's many rumours about what we're going to do, we've had quite a lot of requests," Oakes told Motorsport.com during the pre-season.

"Also the marketplace in general is quite interesting at the moment, with different series which are on the up and which are kind of just growing step-by-step, and of course F2 is interesting now it's been rebranded."

Nonetheless, Oakes said Hitech remains committed to F3 - a series where, unlike in F2, teams can design parts and thus make use of their engineering expertise.

"At the moment we are just, how would I say, talking, meeting, but we're focused on doing another good year in F3 and we will see," he said.

"F3 is the last series where you can design some parts, you can really start to have engineering capabilities. It would be nice to keep growing that into a series which keeps this DNA.

"For us F3 is such a high level that starting to work with manufacturers is also important.

"To have the next step for our drivers from F3 to going to something like a sportscars or Formula E is really interesting."

Hitech is fielding four cars in European F3 this year, and scored a podium with new driver Jake Hughes in the Silverstone opener.