Just six weeks before the scheduled start to its season, the Formula European Masters organizers announced that they have canceled the series for the 2019 season. The Masters series was intended to replace the European F3 Championship — which has replaced GP3 as a Formula 1 support series this year under the name of FIA F3 — but with only a handful of drivers and teams having signed up, the organizers concluded that their series was unviable.

The Formula European Masters were supposed to benefit from racing in support of DTM touring weekends, offering more days of testing than in the past as well as the opportunity to score Super License points. In addition, the top three drivers in the Masters would have been invited to the DTM ‘Young Driver Tests’. Furthermore, the champion also would have been rewarded with a test in Japanese Super Formula.

“This is a really sad day for the European young-driver sport,” said Walter Mertes, managing director of Formel 3 Vermarktungs GmbH. “In the difficult European competition environment there just aren’t enough drivers for the numerous different series. It takes enormous financial expenditure to compensate for this situation and we could not and did not want to expect this from our teams.”

Among drivers sidelined for the moment by the decision is German teenager Sophia Floersch, who was expected to return to racing this year in Formula European Masters after recovering from injuries sustained in her crash at the Macau GP.