Palmer's new junior formula

A new entry-level single-seater series has been launched for 2013 by Jonathan Palmer’s Motor Sport Vision group and the British Racing Drivers’ Club.

Formula 4 is conceived as the first rung on the car-racing ladder in Britain. MSV is predicting budgets of between £35-65,000 for a season’s racing in the new formula.

Palmer said: “It is clear that British motor sport needs a brand new single-seater championship that really attracts the young talent of today to produce large competitive grids of drivers aiming for F1.”

Crucially, the champion will win a purse of £25,000 to put towards their budget for the following season.

A Carlin F3 prize test will also be on offer.

Unlike Palmer’s previous series – Formula Palmer Audi and Formula 2 – teams will purchase the machinery to run themselves; cars were centrally run in FPA and F2.

The slicks-and-wings F4 car, which will cost £29,750 plus VAT, has been developed by Van Diemen founder Ralph Firman’s RFR company. It is built around a spaceframe chassis powered by a two-litre Ford Duratec engine developing 175bhp.

The new series will be a competitor to Formula Ford, which this year adopted new rules with a switch to Ford’s turbocharged EcoBoost engine. The category, which has run without aerodynamic appendages since its inception in 1967, is expected to announce in the coming weeks the introduction of wings for 2013.

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