WITHAM GROUP NEWS

NEW BRITISH F4 CARS POWERED BY MOTUL

2022 ROKiT F4 British Championship certified by FIA. Media Day, 5th April 2022. Silverstone Circuit.

F4 EVOLVES FOR 2022 AND MOTUL IS ONCE AGAIN SERIES OFFICIAL LUBRICANT PARTNER  

The 2022 season is one of huge significance for the ROKiT F4 British Championship certified by FIA. With an all-new car and engine combination, this important first rung on the ladder of single seater racing for many aspiring F1 drivers will be faster and even more exciting than before. One of the constants from 2021 to 2022, however, is Motul, who are again supplying the critical engine lubrication for the whole series.

This new era in the championship’s history has new organisers in Motorsport UK and a new title sponsor in ROKiT, together with a brand-new chassis and a brand-new engine.

The latest generation F4 car has features a Tatuus T-421 chassis, complete with state-of-the-art safety features such as a Halo-style cockpit protection device, reinforced side anti-intrusion panels and on-board safety signalling systems. The new engine comes courtesy of Abarth, the brand that has long been responsible for fast FIAT-derived motor cars.

INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO LUBRICATING NEW UK F4 ENGINE

The 1.4 litre turbocharged, Abarth 414-F4 dry sump four-cylinder engine produces around 160BHP and will be lubricated by Motul 8100 X-Power 10w/60, which has been introduced as the controlled engine oil within the regulations, and which will be used consistently with all of the cars in the championship throughout the 2022 season.

Like most of Motul’s lubricant range, 8100 X-Power owes much to Motul’s motorsport heritage and its using the heat of motorsport competition to help develop and test its new product, however, unlike Motul’s legendary 300V – the world’s first fully synthetic car engine oil – the 8100 range is designed for everyday motoring.

The introduction of Europe’s most successful chassis-engine combination in recent times to Britain’s version of FIA Formula 4 presents a fresh challenge for the championship’s technical department, who have worked in partnership with renowned engine supplier and tuner Neil Brown Engineering since 2018.

“We are delighted to be the mandated motor oil for the ROKiT British F4 Championship certified by FIA and are excited to be bringing Motul 8100 X-Power to the series,” explained Richard Scarbrough, Sales Director of Witham Motorsport, distributors of Motul products into the UK Motorsport sector.

“It is of course, a slightly unusual move to have a passenger car oil in a race series, but we hope it will show everyone that if 8100 X-Power is capable of lubricating these fantastic race cars, with all the extreme demands that a race series brings with it, then it is more than capable of handling anything during everyday road use. We are also very pleased to be working once again with Neil Brown Engineering, with whom we have established a close rapport in recent years.”

F4 TECHNICAL PARTNERSHIPS TO HELP SHOWCASE DRIVER ABILITY

As well as providing support at each of the 10 high-profile British Touring Car Championship events to teams and drivers, Neil Brown Engineering (NBE) are also responsible for engine equalisation at two key points in the year for F4, as well as monitoring performance in-season to help deliver a level playing field for all competitors. The well-established relationship between Motul and Neil Brown also has a positive impact on the work that NBE conduct alongside the championship’s technical and scrutineering teams, in order to ensure parity of performance between all cars – meaning that driver ability is the prime determining factor in achieving success in the series.

“The window we operate in for parity of performance on the engines in ROKiT British F4 is exceptionally tight – on a performance graph, no two individual competitors are discernible from one another,” explains NBE Workshop Manager Wayne Mathurin, “Obviously a new car and a new engine throw up new challenges, but Motul’s products provide exactly the performance required to maintain parity to such strict limits. “Away from British F4, we use their products extensively in our workshop, so we’re confident they will give us everything we need to maintain the same industry-leading engine equalisation programmes.”

“We are pleased to welcome Motul on board as the Official Lubricants Partner to ROKiT British F4,”  said Hugh Chambers, Motorsport UK’s Chief Executive Officer. “Our vision is to build Britain’s FIA Formula 4 series into a global leader at this level of the sport, and at the bedrock of that ambition is a strong technical infrastructure, both in terms of scrutineering and the quality of the components and products that we use.”

MOTUL EXPANDS ITS SUPPORT PACKAGE WITH JHR

Motul is also pleased to have extended its support for the 2021 F4 championship-winning team, JHR DevelopmentsLast season, the Derbyshire-based team, founded and run by Steven Hunter, became the first to take all three F4 titles in the series – Drivers and Rookies championships with Matthew Rees, as well as the Teams’ title.

This year, the team cars will feature more prominent Motul branding, and the JHR stable is running three drivers: former Australian karter, Noah Lisle, as well as F4 returnees, Georgi Dimitrov and Joseph Loake –  both of whom were race winners in 2021 and are expected to feature prominently this year.

The JHR F4 Team Georgi Dimitrov, Noah Lisle, and Joseph Loake

The 2022 ROKiT F4 British Championship certified by FIA kicks off at Donington Park this weekend, as part of the British Touring Car Championship programme and runs through to Brands Hatch over the weekend of October 7-9. Action from the series will broadcast live and free-to-air on ITV4 throughout the season.

To read more about Witham Motorsport and our involvement with Motul, visit our website here.

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