Intense racing action awaits

The coun­try’s For­mula V1 is again pumped up for another excit­ing sea­son this year. Since its incep­tion in 2018, racing enthu­si­asts have been feed­ing off the exhil­ar­at­ing leveled-up racing action it provides.

It was to be remembered that racing event organ­izer, Tuason Racing’s pres­id­ent and founder, JP Tuason was reel­ing with excitement when they first brought it in our own turf sev­eral years ago.

“In our long years in the motor­s­ports busi­ness, we always believed that Filipi­nos are made for racing. Given the right oppor­tun­it­ies and train­ing, we can be a major player in any grid around the world,” he stated, describ­ing, that time, their move in tak­ing the next step in rebuild­ing the local motor­s­ports lad­der.

Fast-for­ward to 2023, the same level of energy, pas­sion and enthu­si­asm from JP and his group is evid­ent in all his racing endeavors.

For more than two dec­ades, they have been one of the prime pur­vey­ors of local motor­s­ports, ever-believ­ing and pro­mot­ing the grass-roots level.

In 2014, the group, together with Toyota Motor Phil­ip­pines staged one of the biggest start­ing grids, not just loc­ally, but in Asia when it gathered 70 cars, com­pos­ing of drivers from seasoned karters, vet­eran car racers to celebrit­ies.

Now with FV1, the same ideo­lo­gies still stand.

Ana­tomy of the FV1

The For­mula V1 is a single-seater kit car built by West Racing Cars Co. Ltd. in Japan. The parts are shipped here and are assembled by Tuason Racing.

Basic­ally, the V1 specs con­sist of a tubu­lar steel chassis with a mid-moun­ted 1NZ 1.5L four-cyl­in­der engine (sim­ilar to the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion Toyota Vios), five-speed short shift tranny and drive­shafts, Will­wood brakes, bespoke Tein coilovers and ROTA wheels.

It weighs about 530kg and can sprint from 0 to 100kph in 4.5 seconds, while top­ping at 200kph. At the Clark Inter­na­tional Speed­way in Pam­panga, it can com­plete the 4.1-km track in a tad over two minutes.

For­mula V1 feel

Recently, in one rare occa­sion, this writer was able to per­son­ally exper­i­ence what it feels to be behind the wheel of a real For­mula V1 when they invited a few selec­ted motor­ing journ­al­ists to par­ti­cip­ate. I was excited, of course, hav­ing only used to be able to drive the Toyota Vios or any other sub­com­pact sedans in CIS dur­ing media drives.

This time, with the seat just a few inches above the ground, it was a dif­fer­ent kind of feel. It was like driv­ing a kart—only now, with heav­ier parts to carry while tack­ling the high-speed turns and straights of CIS.

With a power-to-weight ratio far from what I used to, together with hav­ing no driver aids to assist, I com­mit­ted some mis­takes in my apex and exit turns, res­ult­ing in a few spin outs dur­ing the first few laps. Even­tu­ally, as I pro­gressed through the laps, I imme­di­ately recovered and learned how to handle the vehicle. I adjus­ted and was able to com­plete a few full laps without mis­takes.

Although my lead car was con­trolling the pace and speed of the whole drive, I still enjoyed this once-in-a-life­time exper­i­ence of being behind the wheel of an actual For­mula V1. We all know how costly racing can be. After it, at least, I have an idea where skills, tal­ent, grit and a load of moo­lah can take you.

In joining the Formula V1 Series

Speak­ing of driv­ing the actual For­mula V1, those who can or are able to get a spon­sor for them to race, it is avail­able for P2.1 mil­lion. The pack­age includes one set of ROTA wheels, one set of tires, an OMP race suit, entry fee and a few days of train­ing for both team and driver.

2023 sea­son

For this 12-driver sea­son, with Motul as its offi­cial lub­ric­ant part­ner, the race series sched­ule has already been set all in CIS: Round 1: June 9 to 10 (Sprint Race); Round 2: July 21 to 22 (Sprint Race); Round 3: Novem­ber 24 to 25 (TBA).

Again, we can’t wait for another excit­ing For­mula V1 series to unfold.