Formula Three Australia insists that it is ‘business as usual' for the nation's most prominent open-wheel category, irrespective of the issues surrounding Opes Prime, one of its keenest supporters.
The Kumho Tyres Australian F3 Championship for the CAMS Gold Star attracted the backing of Anthony Blumberg's company after it dipped its toe in the water with Briton James Winslow last season, but recent revelations concerning the health of Opes Prime has cast a shadow over not only the championship, but also those drivers backed by the financial giant.
According to
The Australian newspaper, 'the collapse of Opes Prime has widened into a full-scale investigation of false accounting and manipulation of six key accounts worth $200m to help clients to avoid margin calls'. However, the report also claims that, under the company's business model, 'the shares many thought they owned were pledged to the firm's lenders as collateral for loans to the broker', and have subsequently been sold in an effort to recover loans made to Opes.
Despite the fall-out, however, the F3 series insists that it is in a sound financial position, with the executive committee having secured the championship prize fund for the 2008 season and lodged them in an account controlled by F3A.
As the teams involved in the series are all independently owned and operated, any follow-on from the Opes Prime situation is seen as minimal and, accordingly, the teams and the category as a whole will continue to build, as they have done over the last three years.
The championship has also confirmed that the balance of the 2008 season will be conducted at Shannons Nationals events, with the season now concluding at Symmons Plains Raceway in September with the second running of the Australian Formula 3 SuperPrix. The championship will also make a welcome return to the streets of the Gold Coast with a non-championship event at the 2008 Gold Coast Indy 300 carnival.
The balance of the Kumho Tyres Australian F3 Championship calendar for 2008 now looks as follows:
April 26-27 Oran Park
May 17-18 Mallala
June 14-15 Phillip Island
July 12-13 Eastern Creek
August 9-10 Phillip Island
September 20-21 Symmons Plains
October 23-26 Gold Coast Indy 300*
* denotes non-championship event
