Fortec Motorsport has withdrawn from this weekend’s FIA European Formula 3 Championship round at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli after their driver, Petru Florescu, got behind in his payments.
The Romanian has been the sole representative for the team in 2018 since joining the grid in the Hungaroring round in the first weekend of June but has not brought the promised funds to Fortec ahead of this weekend’s round in Italy, and as a result the team opted to pull their Misano entry.
“We flew there, and our truck had already arrived at the circuit,” said team boss Mick Kouros to Motorsport.com. “We were halfway from the airport to the track when the call came that the money hadn’t come through, so we turned around and went home.
“You can’t run them on thin air – that’s the problem.”
The team have given Florescu until next weekend to secure the funding needed to continue in the championship before they look into selecting another driver for the rest of the season, starting with the round at the Nurburgring, while the plans to race a second car in the season finale at the Hockenheimring and at the Macau Grand Prix go on.
“It’s not over and out for us,” insists Kouros. “I’ve got a proper FIA F3 monocoque for a second car, and we’ll be using the components from a EuroFormula Open car to build it.
“I’m looking forward to running two in Macau, and hopefully we’ll have two for the final European round at Hockenheim.”
