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I'm surprised how many of you guys on here are giving SRO a bashing when they are clearly listening to the teams and trying to balance this with the financial implications of having an, in effect, 'euro series'.
That report on Motors TV was unofficial, and will be by no means the final calendar for the year ahead. Discussions are ongoing with all circuits, including MSV and the calendar isn't yet finalised - they've said that themselves.
As someone pointed out earlier, Mr Palmer is very shrewd and offers an 'all or nothing' approach to his circuits. Its a hard balance to strike for the organisers as a number of the British GT teams like going to Snet, Oulton and Brands, especially Snet as it will soon get a significant upgrade from council /external funding.
Unfortunately, Snet doesn't really offer much for F3 cars (on the form of the last few years), so if the F3 teams don't want to go there, that's sort of understandable - but because of the way the circuits are sold, you can't pick and mix your packages and circuits (damn!!). So, this little conundrum means that without GT and F3 (and VW, FormulaFord etc) working together, the series would possibly flounder. If they all work together, there could be a lot to be gained for the teams of all championships concerned.
Re: Racing at Oulton Park, on Easter weekend this can cost teams a fortune because its such a drawn out race meeting and they need to cater/provide rooms for all their staff (See Trevor Carlin's comment in Autosport last week). For the same price they could go to Hockenheim. Bit of a no-brainer, no? Investigate testing costs from MSV too. I think some of you might be pointing the finger at the wrong person here.
Alan Gow has shown the importance of building strong packages (TOCA) and his approach while not textbook, does shed light on how to gain public interest and build championships. Oh and for the record, I can't see F3 being a regular bedfellow of LMS, although the odd round might be do-able.
Going back to the original point, and to clarify, F3 teams really only want to race on 'prestige' international circuits such as those raced on by F1 etc. This is understandable for marketing and sponsorship reasons. However, these circuits are wise to this and thus charge accordingly.
Going back to circuits such as Mondello, Pembrey, Anglesey are all options, but the consensus in the paddock is that F3 has outgrown some of these tracks and it needs to aim higher. Knockhill probably won't be on the calendar because its too far away, and the circuit by its nature is a bit of a car wrecker - but I could be wrong.
If you read between the lines, SRO is trying to evolve F3 into something that rightly reflects its position as the top national single seater championship in the UK, and a key stepping stone in any future F1 drivers career. Just give them some time to finalise plans... This weekend's races were superb and JEV is a worthy champion for the series.
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