The merger that levels the junior single-seater playing field

The hideous chain of decisions that led to Formula Renault competing with Formula Regional for two years has been reversed. Now one massive grid of future stars is getting ready for F1 support action.

Marcus Simmons Apr 14, 2021, 8:36 AM

Upd: Apr 14, 2021, 1:48 PM

It’s an outbreak of common sense. One team boss declares that “it’s more or less like the old Formula Opel Euroseries”. Another team manager enthuses that “it’s finally sorted that old crap out about the F1 superlicence points. It’s taken away a lot of confusion, given clarity and simplified it.” And a member of the combined series top brass says “there was a common will – it was obvious”.

This weekend, at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, there will be no FIA Formula 2 or F3. Instead, there will be the inaugural event for the newly merged, FIA-endorsed Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine. No fewer than 32 cars (at the time of writing) are expected on the grid. That’s a massive step forward from 2019-20, where the historic Formula Renault Eurocup and the ‘upstart’ Formula Regional European Championship sat uncomfortably alongside each other, using the same Tatuus Regional F3 chassis and diluting the marketplace.

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Author Marcus Simmons

Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.