Wednesday, November 21 2012

MotorSport Vision (MSV), organisers of the BRDC F4 Championship, have confirmed that its new MSV F4-013 chassis has successfully passed the FIA's strength and impact test programme at the first attempt.

Conducted at the Cranfield Impact Centre, one of the leading independent F1 test facilities, the F4 chassis met all the safety criteria outlined by FIA Article 277, the latest set of safety regulations for single seater racing cars. The programme of tests included those for lateral and longitudinal strength, roll hoop integrity and a dynamic front impact test.

The F4 cars are being built to a single specification by the RFR company headed by Ralph Firman, who founded the legendary racing car constructor Van Diemen. The chassis has been designed to provide optimum safety and features an advanced spaceframe construction. Further FIA approved safety features include carbon fibre front and rear impact structures, Diolen anti-intrusion side panels, cockpit head surround protection and wheel tethers.

Ralph Firman said: "The MSV F4-013 chassis has been many months in the planning so we were always completely confident that it would pass the FIA chassis tests at its very first attempt. Production of the 24 sold cars is already well underway and we're currently right on schedule, meaning we'll be delivering the first car orders to teams early next year as expected, together with a plentiful supply of spare parts."

Giles Butterfield, Group Operations and Engineering Manager for championship organisers MSV added: "With the experience of Ralph Firman steering the design and build of the new F4 car, we always knew there would be no issues satisfying the FIA's test programme. We're now looking forward to the official unveiling of the F4 car which will be on the MSV stand at the Autosport International Show in January."

For more information on the BRDC Formula 4 Championship visit www.formula4.com, where images and a video of the F4 impact test will shortly be available.