Time for the season summary... Went over my notes on both expenses and testdays to get an understanding on what our team has done this year and what the cost of all this has been.
Bear in mind, this was our first season, so there was inevitably a lot of setup costs - acquiring tools, spare parts, equipment and such. I will try to account for that separately. Also, a key thing to remember here is that our team had a very good kit of spare parts and tools, and thus that caused extra costs. It paid off during the season, since we in practice had very few technical issues (only one very annoying one at Ahvenisto, but that was really more due to the team's inexperience than lack of parts or preparation). Over the season most team's stopped by our tent for parts or tools (even the pro teams!) so I think this illustrates that we indeed were quite well prepared and had invested heavily into that. However, I also want to thank Arvo Knuutinen and his team, as well as Team Söderman and LMS Racing, who quite often lended us a helping hand! No team is an island...;-)So let's start with the "driving" numbers first. Again, the figures here are for a driver + mechanic privateer team, starting on their first season and completing the whole Rata-SM (Finnish Championship) series, one pre-season race (Jurva open at Botniaring), the NEZ Finals in Denmark (Dansk Metal Formel Ford Festival in Padborg), and the BRSCC Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. During the season we had 33 days on track, and drove a total of 1285 laps (this averages to about 39 laps per day, although the number of course is pulled down by race days when the laps driven are less). This seems to be a fairly good result in terms of driving intensity, and apparently corresponds quite well to what pro teams do. I have summarized the tracks and laps in the table below.
| Track | Laps driven | Days at track | Average laps per day |
| Alastaro | 265 | 7 | 38 |
| Ahvenisto | 341 | 11 | 31 |
| Botniaring | 195 | 6 | 33 |
| Brands Hatch | 211 | 4 | 53 |
| Padborg | 98 | 1 | 98 |
| Pärnu | 175 | 4 | 44 |
As you can see, the Festivals were a good place to get a lot of laps per day. The most impressive was of course Padborg Dansk Metal Formel Ford Festival, where we did 98 laps in one day! This included testing, qualifying, initial heat, semifinal and final. In the Rata-SM, we typically spent four days at the track per race - two days testing (Thu, Fri), and then two days racing. Next season Rata-SM format is supposed to change so that the racing is on two days (Fri testing and qualifying, Sat racing), which will change things a bit. From this table one also can see that the races themselves provide ample driving opportunities. In addition to the testing done in conjunction with the races, we really did not have that many separate test days (Alastaro 3 days, Ahvenisto 3 days, Botniaring 1 day, the days were in conjunction with races). Of course, this approach meant that we had to be on track on Thursdays for race weekends and thus we spent quite a lot of time away from work and other activities... However, our experience also was that it is by now pretty much useless to go to "open test days" on tracks like Alastaro, since those days are pretty much a circus (Alastaro is among the worst in this regard) with motorcycles, street cars, endurance cars, trucks and what have you. Ahvenisto is a bit better, as is Botniaring, since they make sure formula cars drive separately (which is both sensible and also crucial for safety!). At the same time, AKK and Rata-SM are thinking more along the lines of unified test days which is great. Our team had very good experiences from the Formula test days at Botniaring in July (Formula Renaults, F3s and FFs attending), and we hope this approach will continue. Booking a track for a full day for Formula cars for testing is definitely a smart thing, or similarly organizing the test session under the Rata-SM umbrella, and it is also value for money.
On the topic of money, our team's season budget was about 25k€. One-time investments in car, tools, spare parts stock, and equipment totaled approximately 22k€. If I look at the 24k€, in my budget the category "race costs" was approximately 11k€ which included fees, travel, fuel and such for the race events themselves (also including the testing done there). Tires I calculated separately, and for our team that was about 3.5k€ (about six new sets, which is very little compared to some other teams!). The rest of the costs were spare parts (about 5k€, although some of course went into stock and thus this will be less next year), miscellaneous supplies (2.4k€) and test days costs (travel, track fees, fuel for about 2k€). There were also some external costs (servicing) for about 0.5k€, and a small items on various liquids (oil, coolant, brake fluid) of about 0.4k€.
Over the season the budget was supported by various sponsors such as Exide, Autotek and St1, which partially provided funding for the activities but also partially reduced costs (by services or parts rendered, or just discounts on fuel as in the case of St1). In the above we have not deducted financial support, but in cases where services or parts have been given free of charge they have had the effect of lowering expenses.
As a summary, and planning for next season, it seems a reasonable budget with quite a lot of racing and testing included is around 20-25k€. Of course one can spend a lot more too... For our team, I expect parts costs will go down next year, but the tire costs are likely to be higher (due to larger number of new tires purchased), so it pretty much evens itself out. The cost of racing Formula Fords quasi-internationally is thus quite reasonable compared to any other formula class, but of course it is a significant drain of both money and time. Thus careful preparation for the season is needed.
Should you have comments or questions about the above, please do not hesitate to contact me! Happy to discuss further and to help new teams get started. You find my contact information on the Contact us page.
