Written by Lorenzo Baer, Edited by Vyas Ponnuri
After a one-year hiatus, the South East Asian region will have its own international F4 championship again.
One of the most interesting championships in the Formula 4 calendar, the F4 Southeast Asia recently announced its return in 2025, after a year off due to mismanagement and financial problems.
The tournament, whose main motive is the integrated promotion of motorsport in the region, was greatly missed in 2024, when drivers from the region were restricted to competing only in national F4 meetings.
The restructuring of F4 SEA for 2025 is part of an expansion plan proposed by the Chinese company Topspeed, which expanded its business in the grassroots Formula management segment recently.
Besides the soon-to-be reborn F4 SEA, the company already boasts a stellar portfolio of junior series, including the F4 UAE, Formula Trophy UAE and the F4 Australian Championship.
The return of the F4 SEA comes as excellent news for Formula 4 drivers in the region, who find themselves with a stage to test their skills against their counterparts from other countries, without having to travel to Europe to participate in Formula 4 series.
In the provisional calendar released by the F4 SEA organisation, five race weekends are scheduled for the 2025 edition of the tournament. The first weekend is scheduled for May 2-4, in Sepang, Malaysia.
The next leg of the tournament will take place in Thailand. The first stop will be Buriram, between 24-25 May. The next stop for the series will be a brand new venue, the Bangsen Street Circuit, for the third round of the series between 5-6 July.
For the remaining two race weekends of the season, the F4 SEA drivers will return to Malaysia, the Sepang circuit once again being the location of choice.
The penultimate event will happen on 6-7 September, while the season finale is expected to take place between 20-21 September.
The heightened expectations arise due to possible additions and changes that may still happen in this semi-official calendar till the start of the season.
Nevertheless, the confirmation of some novelties for the 2025 edition of the tournament has already given the championship some extra spice, even before it has officially started.
Obviously, the eye-catching point is the addition of Bangsen Street Circuit, a venue practically unknown to most drivers who will take part in the tournament.
Since the end of November, rumours were rife over the Bangsen circuit serving as one of the homes of the 2025 F4 SEA.
This was mainly to expand the coverage of the tournament, and avoid limiting the season to only two venues (Buriram and Sepang) for the running of the championship.
There were two strong signs that supported this change. The first provisional calendar for the 2025 F4 SEA in November placed an event with no defined venue in Thailand, at the beginning of July.
Curiously, a stage of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia is to be contested in Bangsen around the same time – therefore, F4 SEA would serve as a worthy support race for the event.
The second sign was the search for a replacement for a street event for the series, held at Macau in 2023. The Portuguese colony will not return to the F4 SEA in 2025, due to a packed sporting schedule.
So, Bangsen emerged as a great alternative, especially since its layout has some similarities with that of the famous Guia circuit.
Despite opening way back in 2007, almost all of the races held at Bangsen were contested by touring cars or GT3s, thus hosting an open-wheel single-seater race for the first time in 2025.
Currently, the Bangsen layout is recognised as a FIA Grade 3 track, which attests the circuit’s adaptability to high-performance racing categories such as single seaters.
Besides the tracks and other novelties to be announced before the series commences in May, one thing we know for sure that will not change from the last edition of the tournament: The cars to be used in the championship.
The Tatuus F4-T421 powered by 1.4-litre Abarth 414TF engines will be back, as the sole accepted vehicles for the contest.
The choice of these vehicles was not due to convenience of being able to ‘recycle’ the chassis used in F4 SEA 2023.
This pick is part of a bigger picture, in line with the process of bringing the equipment to the level of other F4 championships managed by Topspeed, which also use the Italian marque’s chassis.
\It is worth remembering that this is not the first “comeback” of F4 SEA in recent years: after four consecutive seasons between 2016 and 2019, F4 SEA spent three years in limbo due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The return of the category took place in fits and starts in 2023, which led to the 2024 edition being cancelled.
Now, the reborn F4 SEA 2025 is expected to regain the momentum of the first editions. Returning on more solid foundations, it is expected to become one of the most unique championships in the category spread across the world, once again.
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