Litespeed F3 was a

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, UK based F3 team from 2008 to 2012 founded by Steve Kenchington and Navdip "Nino" Singh Judge

The car

Litespeed were developing an F3 car originally manufactured, in 2005, by the ATR Group in Italy as the SLC R1. In 2006, the SLC R1 underwent a full aero upgrade, which produced good results particularly on high-speed tracks such as

Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, where it attained pole position. By having autonomy on suspension geometry and layout, the Litespeed R1 also claims a slow-speed cornering advantage due to its set-up capabilities. In 2007, the car did not race and the car and design/copyright was acquired by Litespeed F3 owners Nino Singh Judge and Steve Kenchington. The car was converted from an Opel to Honda engine over the winter and early part of 2008. It made its race debut at

Snetterton Snetterton is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. The village is about east-northeast of Thetford and southwest of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of . The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census recorded a parish population o ...

in Norfolk in June 2008 and despite no testing was pretty much on the pace driven by

Callum MacLeod Callum MacLeod (born 20 January 1988) is a professional British race car driver who drives in the British G.T. Championship. He also won the 2007 British Formula Ford Championship and the 2009 European F3 Open Championship. He was born in North ...

but suffered expected teething problems. On only its second outing at

Brands Hatch Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

the car finished 2nd driven by Jonathan Legris. This was the breakthrough the Litespeed F3 team were looking for and now hope for a win by the end of 2008 and for a Championship victory in 2009.

F1 entry

Litespeed announced its intention to enter Formula One under the season's budget cap regulations. The team employed MGI Ltd., a company owned by former F1 designer

Mike Gascoyne Michael Robert Gascoyne (born 2 April 1963) is a British Formula One designer and engineer. Gascoyne has worked for numerous Grand Prix teams including McLaren, Sauber, Tyrrell, Jordan (later known as Midland F1, Spyker, Force India, Racing P ...

, in order to achieve this goal. When the budget cap was abolished the Malaysian backed team Lotus Racing negotiated with Litespeed to obtain their entry and enter under the Lotus Racing team name, who confirmed the continuing involvement of Mike Gascoyne.

References

External links

*{{cite web , url=http://www.litespeedf3.com , title=Litespeed F3 , access-date=16 March 2020 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523090020/http://www.litespeedf3.com/ , archive-date=23 May 2018 , url-status=dead British auto racing teams British Formula Three teams Auto racing teams established in 2005 Auto racing teams disestablished in 2012