Thread: Formula BMW Europe

For the next season the German Formula BMW series (ADAC) and the UK Formula BMW series are being merged into the European Formula BMW championship.

This championship will be a support series to the European F1 races and will probably because of that attract some of the top junior talent.

BMW has had a shoot-out for 20 young drivers and have now decided on four youngsters that now are included in the exclusive BMW scholarship programme. The "lucky" winners were:

- Michael Christensen (born 1990), Denmark (German karting champion 2006 and 2007, 2nd in the World Championship in KF1 2007, European ICA Junior champion 2005)

- David Mengesdorf (1990), Germany (2nd in the German Junior Kart championship 2005)

- Ollie Millroy (1990), Great Britain (British ICA karting champion 2006)

- Joel Volluz, Switzerland (I have no idea about his previous records)

The Frenchman Adrien Tambay (son of F1 driver Patrick Tambay) is also a part of the scholarship programme on the condition that he signs up for the championship. He got his spot by finishing as top rookie in this years ADAC championship. Also Sweden's Marcus Ericsson would be eligible for this scholarship but he's chosen to skip ahead to Formula 3 instead.

These four (or five if Tambay joins) kids get 75,000 Euros and special coaching and education programme by BMW if they take part in the championship (and why wouldn't they?).

A full season in Formula BMW Europe will cost approx. 250,000-300,000 Euros which seems like a good price when looking at the marketing and hype value of racing with the F1 circus.

Testing has now started for the first Formula BMW Europe series. Adrien Tambay was fastest at Zolder in front of fellow Frenchman Kevin Breysse.

Here are the teams and drivers that was present at the test:

Eifelland Racing
Adrien Tambay, France
Tiago Geronimi, Brazil
Henrique Martins, Brazil

DAMS
Kevin Breysse, France
Jim Pla, France

Josef Kaufmann Racing
Marco Wittman, Germany
Kazeem Manzur, Great Britain

EuroInternational
Daniel Juncadella, Spain
Facundo Regalia, Spain

Double R Racing
Carlos Huertas, Colombia
Michael Christensen, Denmark
Rupert Svendsen-Cook, Great Britain

AM Holzer Rennsport
Jazeman Jaafar, Malaysia
Bastian Graber, Germany

Motaworld Racing
Thomas Hillsdon, Great Britain
Mathijs Harkema, Netherlands
Asad Rahman, United Arab Emirates

Fortec Motorsport
Ramon Pineiro, Spain
William Buller, Great Britain

M?cke Motorsport
David Mengesdorf, Germany
Anthony Comas, France
Juan Cevallos, Ecuador