Carlin to Take Sabbatical from British F4

January 31, 2018 January 31, 2018

The Carlin Motorsport team, which has succeeded in winning all of the drivers and teams titles over the past three seasons of the F4 British Championship (and MSA Formula), announced on Wednesday that they will pull out of the series.

With Carlin extending their 2018 operations to include Indycar and FIA Formula 2, the team feel it is not suitable to run in seven series at the same time.

So far, only three drivers have announced they are driving in British F4 for the coming year, all of which have been signed by TRS Arden. Having finished runner-up in the past three years, Arden are expected to become the new team to beat.

The news means that the future is uncertain for a few drivers, including Lucas Alecco Roy and Patrik Pasma who were expected to return for a second season with the team. Instead, this could open the door for Pasma and others to step up the teams British F3 operations which still has two spaces remaining.

“Due to an increase in the number of programmes the team is involved in this season, we will be taking a sabbatical from British F4 in 2018.

“Having won every teams’ and drivers’ title since the series’ inception in 2015, we’re obviously very sad to miss the 2018 season, but will watch with interest the next batch of F4 stars coming through the ranks.” said a Carlin representative to Autosport.

It is unlikely that a new team will arrive to fill their space though, with Carlin reportedly keeping their cars as they assess a return in 2019.

“We will continue to make our F4 cars available for testing throughout the year and in preparation for 2019.”

Young drivers are still free to test the cars during the year away from the 10 rounds (Credit: F4 British Championship)

“We’d like to thank the organisers of British F4 and Ford Performance for their support over the last three seasons and look forward to rejoining the series in the future.”

Carlin will now run cars in F2, IndyCar, Indy Lights, European F3, EuroFormula Open and BRDC British F3.

Return of the Rookie Cup

In recent weeks, the championship also revealed that they will return the rookie cup format they used in the first two years, with the Challenge Cup format being scrapped.

As part of the prizes for the rookies, the first to win an overall race will win £5000 while the overall winner will receive free entry to the 2019 campaign, an award won by CC winner Hampus Ericsson last year. As for the overall champion, they will get a fully funded test drive in a FIA European F3 Championship team.