Ferrari open wheel training in Florida?
Clever actually, warm climate in the winter months and conveniently located for both North and South American prospects, the Florida Winter Series was designed as a "boot camp" for young racers making their way to Europe for racing series starting in the spring and summer.
The series will give drivers moving from karts to open wheel an chance to experience race weekends, with practice, qualifying and races. Perhaps more crucially it will expose them to full technical debriefings with top engineers. The aim is to get them ready to hit the ground running without wasting precious time and resources when they land in Europe later in 2014.
The Ferrari Driver Academy is a program designed to discover and develop talent for Formula One. While Ferrari came to the game later than its main rivals, the Academy is producing results: Sergio Perez and Jules Bianchi are already in F1, the latter named 2013 rookie of the year by Autosport.
More talent is in the pipeline, 17 year old Antonio Fuoco, won the 2013 Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS series and the 2013 Euro F3 champion Raffaele Marciello has real buzz about him as a name we'll likely hear in F1 soon.
We spoke with Luca Baldisserri, ex Scuderia Team Manager now head of the Ferrari Academy, about the series, which will be run over four intensive days from the end of January to mid February at Sebring, Homestead and Palm Beach Raceway.
Axis of Oversteer: What is the aim of the series and who is it marketed to?
Luca Baldisserri: We have some specific targets. The first is to offer a competitive training series to drivers who are serious about preparing themselves for their respective championships that start in the spring of 2014. In Europe we have terrible weather conditions in January and February that don’t allow drivers to prepare themselves in track conditions that they will find when they start racing. Furthermore when they test they normally drive around tracks aimlessly and in our vast experience waste their time and parents/ sponsors money.
Our championship takes place in relevant weather and track conditions, has completely equal equipment, will follow the racing regulations of the top championships, will force drivers to do 12 races and the corresponding practice and qualifying sessions in a totally controlled environment.
Another major area interest is the new FIA F4 racing series that will be launched in 2014 around the world. This formula is open to 15 year olds that are just graduating from karting and the FWS is a perfect introduction to these drivers to the world of racing. They will learn about the cars, the racing, regulations and everything else deemed necessary by the FDA engineers under my direct guidance.
