A new campaign of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine kicks off this weekend with fresh faces, a new team on the grid, and a calendar to make your mouth water! 

By George Sanderson

The season opener for the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine takes place this weekend at Hockenheim and will see a grid of 33 drivers aiming to start their 2024 campaigns as strongly as possible.

A total of 18 rookies will also make their FRECA debuts this weekend, including two names that perhaps catch the eye more than others: Marta García and Doriane Pin, racing for the new team Iron Dames. However, the team is not as new as it may seem, having already become well-established in endurance racing – even finishing fourth at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023.

Feeder Series FRECA editor, Percy Wolff, also points out that “the two Dames cars will be two rebranded Prema [Racing] cars.” Prema is owned by the same parent company as the Iron Lynx, of which the Iron Dames are the female talent development project.

“In fact, it will be a bit like back in the days, two/three years ago, when MP Motorsport had two teams with MP Motorsport, of course, and FA Racing.” Wolff says this is a positive for Pin and García though, as they will “have a good opportunity to fight for top positions” by being able to work in “good conditions” and having some of the best engineers on the grid.

The action kicks off at Hockenheim before travelling to the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit two weeks later. An unchanged selection of tracks from the 2023 season will see the season finale held at Monza in late October, and it is a calendar that should certainly excite fans.

“It’s pure pleasure,” says Wolff. “It’s ten classic tracks that have all welcomed F1 at one moment or another.”

Unfortunately, the FRECA championship will not support any rounds of the Formula One World Championship this year, instead seeing nine of their ten race weekends run alongside either the International GT Open or the Italian GT Championship. However, this does not worry the series’ commentator, Chris McCarthy.

“The fact there is not a round on an F1 race, I don’t think it is too concerning. I think it was great, as Percy said, to have Monaco in particular was great, but obviously Formula 3 is now there so it is quite a busy weekend for them [the Monaco circuit].”

Supporting F1 gave FRECA drivers the chance to essentially put themselves in the shop window and show off what they could do while the F1 team bosses were present, hoping to earn themselves an academy place at one of the big teams.

However, Chris explains that due to the vast majority of rounds not clashing with the F1 season, it still means that teams should be watching. He also points out that with the arrival of the Iron Dames team, there will already be a big audience watching on with intrigue this season.

“I don’t think it is a huge concern [not supporting the F1]. I think the teams and the supporting networks are definitely watching FRECA, they’re keeping a close eye on it. They’ve seen this is where [Andrea] Kimi Antonelli came from, and that’s going to put a lot more eyes on it. We’ve got the F1 Academy champion coming into FRECA for a reason, and we’ve got the Iron Dames coming into the championship for a reason as well.”

While the Iron Dames could have chosen to compete in other series, Chris believes that by choosing FRECA “there is going to be a lot of eyes on the championship from the F1 paddocks to see how they [Iron Dames] get on, how she [Marta García] gets on, and how everyone else gets on as well.”

Wolff reiterates this, pointing out that both of Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s closest challengers to the 2023 FRECA title, Martinius Stenshorne and Tim Tramnitz, are now competing in Formula 3 and already putting in strong performances this season. The 2024 FRECA campaign shall see six drivers competing who are already signed to F1 academies.

“We see some juniors from Mercedes with Doriane Pin,” says Wolff, “some juniors from Ferrari with Tuukka Taponen, Rafael Câmara; from Red Bull with Enzo Deligny; from McLaren, we’ve Ugo Ugochukwu. So, there are so many people that will be watching who will be the next FRECA challenge and who will be the one who will follow in the footsteps of Andrea Kimi Antonelli.”

The grid also features seven champions from various series: Spanish F4 champion, Théophile Naël; French F4 champion, Evan Giltaire; 2023 F4 UAE champion, James Wharton; Formula Regional Oceania champion, Roman Bilinski; Formula Regional Middle East champion, Tuukka Taponen; 2023 Euro-4 champion, Ugo Ugochukwu; and, of course, the reigning F1 Academy champion, Marta García. The runner-up to García last season, Léna Bühler, also features on the grid, being the third female driver.

A grid so stacked with talent had both our guests on this week’s Feeder Series Podcast very excited by what is to come this season. The man who shall oversee commentary of all the action, Chris McCarthy, says that with a “very competitive grid” the expectations are going to be high for all drivers.

“We’ve seen already the Formula Regional Middle East Championship, that was a very competitive series. Some drivers used it to get ready for Formula 3 [due to how competitive the field was], quite a lot used it to get ready for this championship.”

“Rookies, as such, no longer are rookies essentially. They’ve already done five rounds over in the Middle East or five rounds down in Australia– err, New Zealand, rather. And for that, they are not coming in as rookies anymore so we shall expect them to go and fight for the title straightaway like the likes of [Andrea] Kimi Antonelli came in as the Middle East champion last year, and then won the title.”

In terms of early favourites, Tuukka Taponen and Rafael Câmara seem to be the top choices for both of our experts. Taponen, the reigning Formula Regional Middle East champion, will make his FRECA debut, while his fellow Ferrari academy driver Câmara enters his second FRECA campaign after a fifth-place finish in last season’s championship.

Câmara was outperformed by Taponen in the Middle East over the winter, finishing third overall but some 127 points behind the Finnish driver and with only two wins compared to Taponen’s five. Wolff described Câmara’s preseason as “a little underwhelming”, and with Ferrari keeping him in FRECA to give him the chance of winning his first single-seater title, he will need to produce the goods this season.

You can listen to the rest of our FRECA preview in the latest episode of the Feeder Series Podcast, hosted by Jim Kimberley, where we were also joined by former FRECA driver, William Alatalo – who described the step-up from FRECA to Formula 3 and talked up the title chances of his fellow Finn: Tuukka Taponen.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency