The curious case of an undervalued F1 feeder series

The FIA's Formula 1 superlicence points system was thrown into the spotlight again last week by the W Series' announcement that, having been selected by the sport's governing body as worthy of qualifying for inclusion in the superlicence structure for its second season in 2020, its champion would be awarded 15 points of the 40 required to compete in F1.

A flurry of stories immediately appeared in media outlets everywhere, all of whom have been impressed by the women-only series since it made its remarkably successful debut in 2019.

But the funny thing is the 15 points had already been referenced in stories, which is no surprise because the FIA published its full 2020 table of qualifying series way back on December 10. Everyone had lapped up a story that was, effectively, old news.

And while it's difficult to understand why W Series chose just such a time to dust this off and give it a fanfare, it says a lot for the championship's fantastic PR team that it was able to feed a story to media who'd overlooked what had been under their noses for several weeks.

And it jolted me back into a little spell of indignation that I'd initially felt in December, but soon passed amid the wave of pre-Christmas deadlines and workload anyone in the media has to bear. And perhaps therein lies the reasoning behind W Series' scheduling of its announcement: everyone is too busy in mid-December, but by late January everyone is desperate for news...

My problem is not that W Series is eligible, but that the Formula Renault Eurocup has been downgraded from awarding 18 points towards an F1 superlicence in 2019 to just 15 - the same level as W Series - for 2020.

No disrespect intended towards W Series, but this is just not acceptable treatment for the Eurocup, which has a continuous history since the early 1990s, and has long been accepted as the best source of young talent below FIA Formula 3 level.

The Eurocup's headline race is in support to the Monaco Grand Prix, in which, for this year, 14 of the 20 drivers will be Eurocup graduates

At the same time, the FIA-approved, new-for-2019 Formula Regional European Championship - which uses exactly the same Tatuus chassis as Formula Renault and W Series - has kept its status of offering 25 points for the champion.

To put it in mathematical terms, Formula Regional - into which Ferrari places young drivers - is regarded as 67% more important than Formula Renault in terms of superlicence points, despite an average grid of 13 cars in 2019, compared to 20 for Renault.

Furthermore, you can run in the Asian F3 championship - again using the same Tatuus chassis and Alfa engine as Formula Regional - over the winter and score 18 points for winning the title.

Then go and do Regional, add the 25 points for winning that, and you have 43 points to immediately earn yourself a place on the F1 grid - even if you've never even competed at FIA F3 Championship level.

It's all a bit odd, especially when Red Bull Junior Juri Vips - one of the most explosive talents below F1 - reckons he's only halfway to the points required after competing for two years at F3 level, and never in a top team.

Amid all this, Renault's downgrading by the FIA is a puzzle. We tried to get hold of the FIA for a comment on this, without success at the time of going to press, but Renault Sport commercial chief Benoit Nogier was able to talk.

Firstly, he reckons 14 drivers are already signed up for 2020, and also his series will benefit from the addition of F2/F3 titan ART Grand Prix. But how many superlicence points can they fight for?

"We asked straight after the announcement directly to the FIA for an explanation," Nogier told Autosport. "We did a good first year [since the revamp with the new Tatuus Regional F3 car], we had 20 cars, we always wanted to respect FIA regulations.

"We received a request from the FIA [in reply] for many details - number of cars, which events you go to, do the cars respect FIA regulations, do we respect the latest safety regulations of circuits, what is the history of the Eurocup, has it showed in the past it can produce drivers for the higher levels of the pyramid?"

Some of those questions are not too difficult to answer. The Eurocup's headline race is in support to the Monaco Grand Prix, in which, for this year, 14 of the 20 drivers will be Eurocup graduates.

Between them, they have taken 36 race wins in the Eurocup, among a total of 128 race victories taken across Eurocup, plus Renault's previous regional and national championships at this level.

"I'm not the guy who decides, but I know the value of the championship" Benoit Nogier

If that isn't sufficient, FIA president Jean Todt could ask his son Nicolas, who manages Renault F1 protege Caio Collet, the Brazilian who won the 2019 Eurocup rookie title and is competing in the series again to bid for the overall crown in 2020.

Nogier, unsurprisingly, is hopeful of what he describes as a 're-evaluation'.

"That's my hope," he affirms. "We ask only to get to the same level as we had in 2019. We want to understand how it works, to improve ourselves.

"I respect all the FIA sporting and technical regulations, I go only on F1 circuits of the highest levels of safety. For example, F1 is back at Zandvoort this year, and we will be back at Zandvoort with Eurocup.

"I'm not the guy who decides, but I know the value of the championship."

Unfortunately, that knowledge isn't shared by everyone.