Written by Lorenzo Baer
After spending almost a year in limbo, it finally seems the Moroccan-French-based iM4 Cup will get off the ground. Here is some of the newest info and insights about this brand-new AGS-sanctioned F4 tournament set to take place in Morocco.
What do we know so far about the iM4 cup in Morocco?
After reaffirming their commitments and dispositions, both the Moroccan Automobile Federation (FRMSA), accountable for sanctioning the event, and the French AGS team, responsible for the technical part of the competition, defined the last week of March as ground zero for the first African F4 championship.
The championship will finally kick off between the 26th and 30th of March, when the iM4 grid will have its first race at the Circuit Sidi Daoui Oued Zem.
But that wasn't the only big news from the tournament so far. After almost a year of silence from the organisers, January has been essential in promoting other more concrete information, which finally gives the first tones of the newest tournament in the category around the world.
In addition to the debut race in Morocco, three other rounds of the competition have already been confirmed.
Two of these will take place in Spain, at the Circuit Almeria (8-13 April) and the Monteblanco Circuit (16-18 May), while the final stage of the competition will be contested at the traditional French Circuit de Charade (30th May - 1 June).
Each of the four race weekends will consist of three heats, totaling 12 races at the end of the season. In addition to these official events, a warm-up for the tournament is scheduled to take place between the 4-8 March, at the Circuit du Var, France.
This race will not count towards the tournament classification, and its main objective will be to adapt the drivers to the cars and track conditions. Besides the confirmation of the dates and venues, other more technical aspects also finally made it clear why the championship has taken a more serious contours in recent weeks.
For example, the competition was rebranded as iM4 Cup – giving up the provisional title of FM4 Maroc used since the tournament's inception in 2023 – which demonstrates greater concern for the current and future image of the project.
Another new feature announced for the tournament is the vehicle model that will equip drivers during the upcoming season. Originally planned to be run with the old Mygale GEN1 chassis, this decision was revoked in the “refurbished” iM4.
To align with the best practices of most F4 championships around the world, both AGS and FRMSA then decided to promote the contest based on the current FIA GEN2 regulations.
To keep the partnership with the french company Mygale, both the FRMSA and AGS selected the GEN2 Mygale M21-F4 as the standard equipment for pilots. All the machines will be equipped with 1.3-litre Alpine engines, tuned by Oreca.
It is worth noting that there will be only one classification in dispute in the debut year of iIM4: the one aimed at drivers. There will be no team’s’ standings, with all cars, roughly 15, being centered-run by the FRMSA Academy.
Although the focus of the tournament is the development of talents from the Maghreb region, FRMSA highlights that its objective is also to attract pilots from other areas of the world, seeking to find the perfect balance between local and foreign prospects, in a symbiotic development system.
The history of the FM4/iM4
Launched at the end of 2023 as a Moroccan Automobile Federation private enterprise, Formula 4 Maroc – or simply FM4 – caused some initial sensation in the category's circles, for bringing back to African soil combustion-powered open-wheelers.
Since the beginning of the F4 expansion project in 2015, the possibility of organizing a tournament in Africa for the category has been under consideration, thus promoting an opportunity for a continent that has been largely ignored in recent years in grassroots motorsport.
The FRMSA's original planning, backed by its technical partner, the ex-F1 team AGS, envisaged that all four rounds of the tournament would be held in Morocco, as the country currently contains two FIA Grade 2 circuits, which are acceptable to F4 regulations.
Other points related to the regulations, which provided for the use of ex-FFSA Academy Mygale M14-F4 chassis, were also disclosed in the 2023 announcement. Everything seemed well defined, with the first prognoses placing the winter of 2024/25 as the start date for the tournament.
Despite these initial rumors, little concrete information about the championship was released afterwards; that is, until at the end of 2024, when AGS reapproached FRMSA and Mygale with the intention of relaunching the championship for the 2025 season.
It should be remembered that Morocco has one of the deep-rooted open-wheeler single seater traditions in Africa, having even hosted Formula 1 events in the 1950s.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the country also had its own national version of F4, known as “Racer/Formule Nationale”, at a time when the category was not recognized by the FIA
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50 years later, it is the country's turn to make history again, rescuing part of this lost automotive legacy for a new generation of Moroccan drivers.
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