When a national racing stalwart bowed out with barely a whimper

Ayrton Senna. Mika Hakkinen. Daniel Ricciardo. The list of notable names from the very top of motorsport to have won the British Formula 3 championship over the years goes on and on. And, on the surface, it seemed to feature a satisfyingly close title scrap between two team-mates in its final season just over a decade ago. However, the reality was very different.

Yes, Martin Cao did beat his rhyming Fortec Motorsport stablemate Matt Rao to the title by a mere two points – the narrowest conquering margin for a champion since Tommy Byrne enjoyed a similar gap over Enrique Mansilla in 1982 – but Cao did not take a victory until the Thruxton event, round five of seven.

And that was not because he faced a phalanx of talented rivals who were sharing the wins between them. Instead, just four drivers contested the whole of that final 2014 campaign. Put simply, for a category with such illustrious history, its demise was anything but a fitting farewell.

PLUS: The full story of British F3

It all came to a depressing end at Donington Park in September. On the same weekend as Formula E launched in Beijing to much fanfare – where British F3 old boy Lucas di Grassi triumphed – there was no final flourish for the stalwart of the UK’s single-seater scene. Just five cars took part, the joint lowest number of a season that featured plenty of new lows.

The old saying goes that it only takes two cars to make a motor race, but the three Leicestershire contests were not exactly thrillers for this writer to cover for Autosport. Cao won the opener – Rao having stalled – before finishing second to Rao in race two to put him on the brink of sealing the most meaningless of championships.

Fans, who were fortunately treated to more twists and turns in the British GT finale later that day, did not even get to see the sight of five bewinged Dallaras hurtle into Redgate off the line one final time. Cao opted to be captain cautious and start from the pitlane.

Although claiming to be uncomfortable in the car, it meant he avoided the incredibly slim chance of one of his four rivals clattering into him at the first corner. While he pounded around in fifth to seal his success (he would later also enjoy TCR China title glory), it was Rao who had the honour of being the final ever true (more on that later) British F3 winner.

Trevor Carlin, boss of his eponymous Carlin squad that was one of three teams that stuck with the series to the bitter end having fielded a single car for Peter Li, describes the nature of British F3’s final season as “tragic”. “Someone should’ve put it down already,” he muses.

However, at the time of that Donington event, it had not yet been confirmed that it was indeed the category’s final bow. Having seen the ‘atmosphere’ – or rather, the lack of it – in the paddock first-hand that weekend, it did not take a supercomputer to predict what would happen next. But it was not until talks to merge the series with the German championship – which was also struggling for entries – finally broke down around a month later that it could be said with certainty.

It was a fairly swift fall from grace for a category that just a few years earlier was boasting several future F1 prospects and was a destination for some of Red Bull’s most highly-rated juniors. But Carlin feels things all went wrong before then with a decision taken years previously.

It was always a challenge to dissuade drivers from going down the F3 Euro Series and, later, FIA European F3 paths

“To be brutally honest, I think the biggest mistake we collectively, as F3 team bosses and organisers, made was not joining the TOCA package with Alan Gow,” he says of the discussions that took place for 2009. “I think that took away some support and a bit of credibility.”

Instead, the championship continued alongside British GT and did enjoy some successful seasons.

“I managed to get Red Bull involved, which was critical,” continues Carlin. “Helmut Marko wasn’t interested in British at all and then, all of a sudden, he phoned me up and asked how much it was and gave me two drivers and the rest is history. I begged him to give me Brendon [Hartley] and he gave me Jaime [Alguersuari, who went on to win the 2008 title] as well! The Euro wasn’t expensive for them to come to the UK.”

Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne subsequently brought more success for the Red Bull-liveried Carlin machines, but it was always a challenge to dissuade drivers from going down the F3 Euro Series and, later, FIA European F3 paths. The British series introduced more races on the continent to try to remain relevant but was ultimately fighting a losing battle.

British F3 declined markedly after some strong years in the late noughties featuring Red Bull-backed charges, including Brendon Hartley and Jaime Alguersuari in 2008

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“Motorsport is such a fashionable thing and all the drivers and the dads and the managers thought that Europe was fashionable and British was not and that’s where they went,” suggests Carlin. “Everybody for some reason kept saying the European championship was better than the British.

“It coincided with Prema getting stronger and stronger and people wanted to go that route. Even if they couldn’t race with Prema, they decided to go and do that championship. We had already gone that route – we had shifted the attention of our main team to Europe, I couldn’t get enough customers to do British.”

That trend towards favouring Europe was then enshrined during the course of 2014 when a certain Max Verstappen challenged for the European crown as a 16-year-old, among a field numbering as many as 28, before graduating instantly to F1, with others then wanting to follow in his footsteps. British F3 simply could not compete with that and so it disappeared.

But that was not the end of the British F3 tag. Jonathan Palmer and his MotorSport Vision concern acquired the rights to the name and his BRDC F4 series was rebadged on the eve of the 2016 campaign. This may have ensured the iconic moniker remained a part of the UK motorsport scene but, with the series essentially featuring F4 cars on steroids, it did not exactly encapsulate its new name and it was certainly very different to the original British F3.

The name continued to be used under special dispensation from the FIA until partway through the 2021 season, when the sport’s governing body could no longer stomach a series not falling within its single-seater pyramid using the F3 badge and so it was renamed GB3. British F3 disappeared once more.

Carlin certainly has fond memories of the original series, his drivers having won nine titles in a 13-year period, but says nothing lasts forever.

“Things move on and change,” he concludes. “It was great fun, there were good drivers, good teams and nice people. It’s not something to mourn, it’s something to celebrate.” Although it is perhaps best if those five-car grids for the finale are forgotten.

A pitiful sight to end the British F3 era as Rao leads into the first corner with title rival Cao starting from the pits

Photo by: Ebrey / Motorsport Images