Why UK single-seaters are in great shape for the future

There's now a fully European motor racing scene in junior single-seaters; it's not just a British scene any more. And, of course, with competition there's lower numbers in each market. But I'm pretty pleased with where things are at the moment in the UK, where we will have full teams this year in BRDC British Formula 3 and British Formula 4.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there were many South American drivers and Europeans who would come and race in the UK. They'd come to the Formula Ford Festival, do FF1600 for a full year, then FF2000 in the British and European championships, and then they would move into one of the F3 championships, the most credible at the time being the British.

But the German motor manufacturers started investing heavily in motorsport through the DTM, which filtered down and gave them a great platform for F3. And the manufacturers started supporting drivers with engine programmes and things like that, better circuits were built, and a load of circuits were built in Spain, so a lot of the Latin American drivers would go to Spain and Italy. Before you knew it, the normal route of going to the UK to race was taken away because there were other options.

Now we're going into the fifth year of the 'new' British F3, which is a pleasure to compete in. MSVR, who run it, are just nice people, well-organised, dead straight and very similar to the Euroformula Open guys, whose series we also compete in.

Giles Butterfield, who runs it, is a racer, and MSV head Jonathan Palmer's a racer. Speed per pound, it's bloody good, fairly quick, not too much downforce so the car does move around a little bit. It's fairly reliable, and they've done some good updates for this year to make it even better in that respect. It's one of the nicest packages we've ever had as a team.

British F4 is a great platform, because you go to a TOCA weekend and pretty much every circuit you go to is full. It's always got a great atmosphere. People want to be racing in front of a crowd. Alan Gow has done a great job of promoting the whole package, and F4 benefits from that. You've got three races and it's great entertainment.

Some might say we suffer in the UK because we're the only F4 series in Europe that uses the Mygale chassis with the Ford EcoBoost engine, while you can run the Tatuus-Abarth in Germany, Italy and Spain. I can see that, but I do think a lot of these things are fashion.

"The good guys do one British F4 season and move on because they've had good competition"

You've got the Premas of this world - they're a great team with a great name, and they put their whole heart and energy behind Italian F4 and German F4, and then other teams jumped on that bandwagon. So you've got a lot of the aspiring kids wanting to go that route, and you've got a 35-car grid in Italy, and about 20 in Germany.

But when you start digging into the reality of the situation, pretty much every German champion and most Italian champions have had to do two seasons of it, and they normally do a ton of testing, so they're spending €700,000 per season to do both series with all the testing, and then the majority of them are doing two years.

There's no way that is sustainable. In the British championship, the good guys there have just done one season of it and moved on, because they've learnt so much and they've had good competition on really difficult tracks. And, because there's not 35 cars, they're not running round constantly behind safety cars, so they actually get to have three races a weekend as opposed to three parades.

I firmly believe that people who do the British championship get far better value for money. It's about £300,000 for the season and loads of testing. And British F3 is just a bit more, at £330-340,000. So, depending on the amount of testing you do, they're almost exactly the same cost, and if you're good you move up to the next level after one year.

There's also been a turnaround in attitudes. A while back with the old British F3, everyone thought the drivers didn't want to race at Oulton, Snetterton, Knockhill, and just wanted to do grand prix tracks in Europe, so that's where we went.

Luckily, some of the driver managers and mentors are now realising that driving on a difficult circuit, where there's risk attached, makes them concentrate more and makes them better drivers.

Look at the Brands Hatch GP circuit - it's super-high speed but a horrifically narrow track, so the drivers learn so much. You've got to have your act together. Once you can drive at Oulton Park and Brands GP, you can drive anywhere.

They're effectively high-speed street circuits because the risk is so similar. You don't get that at, say, Hockenheim, where the driver can't make such a difference.