The organisers of the Formula Four South East Asia championship have apologised after every driver retired from one of their Malaysian Grand Prix support races.
All nine drivers who took part in race three of the weekend ran out of fuel having completed less than six of the eight laps scheduled. The race was won by Singapore’s Danial Frost.
The F4 SEA series was scheduled to run the first six races of its 2017 season during the grand prix weekend. However the first race was cancelled as a broken drain cover was repaired on the track following F1’s second practice session.
Races one, two and three were run prior to F1’s final practice session. As race three was due to start 20 minutes after race two finished, the organisers put extra fuel in the cars before the start of race two. However it proved insufficient.
“I apologise unreservedly for the results of race three,” said Asian Autosport Action chairman Peter Thompson.
“With races two and three back-to-back and without the possibility to top up, we filled the cars for both races before the start of race two. However we miscalculated the requirements. As we are a one-team championship all the drivers were unfortunately affected.”
The first two F4 SEA races were won by Chinese driver Daniel Cao. The two remaining events will be run prior to tomorrow’s grand prix along with rounds of the Malaysia Championship Series and the Porsche Carrera Cup.
2017 F1 season
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- Sepang pays Haas compensation for Grosjean’s 2017 crash
- Williams revenues rose in 2017 after Bottas deal with Mercedes
- New kerbs at COTA in response to Verstappen’s corner-cutting
- Australian Grand Prix cost government £56 million last year
Picture: Formula Four South East Asia via Twitter
C
30th September 2017, 15:22
Thats funny.
Ninjenius (@ninjenius)
30th September 2017, 15:31
Clearly none of these drivers have played an F1 game before. Everyone knows you stick it into “Lean” revs. Geez…
racerdude7730 (@racerdude7730)
30th September 2017, 21:57
Must have been 2 busy going through the pit menu
Steve K
30th September 2017, 16:39
My experience following IndyCar weekend track schedules finds their format strange. Why not race one longer race instead of b2b mini sprints. As for the fuel issue? Very funny stuff. I would have loved to watch that live.
Jonathan Parkin
30th September 2017, 17:29
I was thinking this might happen in F1 when they limited fuel to 100 litres a race. But that didn’t happen sadly
Baron (@baron)
30th September 2017, 18:28
1985 San Marino Grand Prix Imola. Some blew up but most ran out of fuel, some of them yards before the finish line. I think only 3 actually finished.
anon
30th September 2017, 19:11
@baron, the situation is a little confused, since most of those who did finish had already been lapped – I thought that there were more cars than that running at the end of the race (five rather than three), though Prost, who was one of those cars (only just, as he ran out shortly after crossing the line) was later disqualified after it transpired that his car was underweight.
John
30th September 2017, 21:07
Promote this management team into the FIA