Talent Promotion Belgium - Formula 16 is on track !

During these last five years the Belgian Formula Renault 1.6 championship has given numerous young lions, amongst which Bertrand Baguette, Jérôme D'Ambrosio, Maxime Soulet and Ludovic Sougnez, to name but the most known, a footing in the world of motor sport in general, and more specifically in that of single-seaters. Unfortunately at the end of 2007 the promoter of this competition announced that the adventure was coming to an end. Once again Belgium found itself without a single-seater championship...

However William Watté, dynamic entrepreneur of the Talent Promotion Belgium organisation, had other ideas and was quite determined to ensure a bright future for this type of racing.

"As the company name quite clearly states our objective is to allow young lions to complete their apprenticeship in the motor sport world under ideal conditions, and this through taking over the organisation of a competition which as from now one is to be known as Formula 16 (pronounced "Sixteen"). The basic idea is as follows: ensure the stability of the single-seater race car in Belgium, whilst at the same time reducing the costs and simplifying the regulations..."

This implies that these last few weeks have been pretty frantic for William Watté, who has been busy on several fronts. On the sporting front, Kurt Van Campenhout, "Mr Regulations" at the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium, has reshaped in depth the basic regulations of the Formula Renault 1.6, in such a way as to make the Formula 16 far more accessible. These full texts will be shortly available on the discipline’s official website, namely at www.formula16.be.

With a view to drastically reducing the costs, Formula 16 has decided to privilege the use of Bridgestone tyres. A change which will oblige all the teams to define entirely new overall settings, resulting in no one having an unfair advantage.

Accessible to young licence holders aged 15 years or more, Formula 16 is comprised out of two quite distinct competitions, one Belgian and the other Dutch... "A Belgian Challenge has been set-up. It’s made up of 3 racing weekends, in other words 6 heats in total, William Watté continues.

"On the other hand a Dutch Trophy is made up out of 4 weekends, with 8 races in total. It goes without saying that this double calendar was designed to allow all competitors to compete in both championships, should they so wish. At the end we will therefore have a winner of the Belgian Challenge and a laureate of the Dutch Trophy, but also an Overall Formula 16 champion, who will have collected the highest number of cumulated points in the two competitions..."

Final point; the Formula 16s will appear with the Dutch Formula Gloria competitors, this basically to ensure a well-filled grid. Rankings, as with the starting grids will nonetheless be quite separate.

Interested? Rush off right now to www.formula16.be for further details, or alternatively via the address info@formula16.be .

29-30 March Francorchamps

17-18 May Zolder

5-6 July Colmarberg (Luxembourg)

14-15 June Zandvoort

2-3 August Zandvoort

12-13 September Oschersleben (Germany)

18-19 October Zandvoort

- Vincent Franssen -