Performance Racing ends F3 operations

The team that gave Felix Rosenqvist and Tom Blomqvist their first steps in Formula 3 has quit the category.

The Anglo-Swedish Performance Racing has called time on an involvement in F3 that stretches back 15 years. Silverstone-based Performance ran in the British F3 B-class from 2001-07, before switching to German F3 from 2008-'14. With the demise of both those series, the team ran Malaysian Akash Nandy in a combined program of tests, Austrian F3 Cup and MSV F3 Cup races in 2015 with a view to moving up together to the F3 European Championship next year.

"We started this project with Akash as a two-year deal, because we knew we would be off the radar during the first, but come August they stopped," team boss Bobby Issazadhe said. "We looked around to see what options do we have. We could have got a current-spec F3 car but there are just two years left [before the new-generation cars]. We said, 'Forget it – it doesn't make financial sense.'

"We quit without owing anybody any money, and now we are looking at other projects. Anything is possible. I love motorsport so it would be nice to carry on, but for now we're just concentrating on getting rid of the F3 kit."

Issazadhe, whose team started in Opel Lotus and has also competed in A1GP and Formula Acceleration 1, said he had no regrets about leaving F3.

"I'm not sad," he said. "We've had a hell of a good time in one of F3's best periods, but the way things have changed it's not really enjoyable anymore. If you're an independent team these days, you're up against billionaire dads and their sons' playgrounds."

Issazadhe, a former motorcycle racer, stepped into the cockpit himself for a British F3 round at Knockhill, in 2001, where the Scholarship class ran in a separate race to the main class, and Issazadhe drove one of his own cars as a favor to series coordinator Jeremy Lord to fill the grid.

Originally on Autosport.com