Only a few days after the announcement of an American series, the Benelux countries have announced the formation of a new Formula 4 series. It will be run by the Dutch Motorsport federation KNAF in collaboration with Belgium’s RACB.
The announcement comes around the same time as the formation of a Benelux TCR Touring Car Series which will be run by the same two governing bodies.
The series has been set up as a way to get young kart drivers from Belgium and the Netherlands into Motorsport at a relatively cheap cost. The cost of the series on the organisers should be around £100,000, while its German counterpart is over double that.
The series plans to visit a number of circuits with Assen, Zolder, Spa and two rounds at Zandvoort already planned. The series will also attempt to set up a German round. That, and the Spa weekend will be in conjunction with the German-based ADAC Formula 4 series, with a plan to share the grid at Spa.
To keep formality amongst many of the series. The Benelux F4 championship is planned to use the same Tatuus cars and Abarth engines used in the German, Italian and NEZ series.
One of the initial supporters of the Benelux F4 series, KNAF’s Hans Hugenholtz, a former GT racer, hopes the series will prove to be as successful as its national counterparts.
“The last real single-seater formula we had was Formula Ford, but that was only 10 or 12 cars and it was getting a bit outdated,” said Hugenholtz,
“As a federation we decided we needed to give young karters a chance to move up in this system. We don’t want drivers’ fathers flashing their money around. I don’t know if it will work, but we will work damn hard to make it work.”
However; he did stipulate that the series would only get the support if they could promise a grid of 15 drivers every race, which may prove to be tricky alongside the competitive ADAC F4 series.
