Hockenheim Video

2010-07-14

Season-finale confirmed for 57th Macau Grand Prix.

2010-07-14

Formula BMW Pacific

Season-finale confirmed for 57th Macau Grand Prix.

Kuala Lumpur – Formula BMW Pacific has confirmed its unparalleled line-up of fixtures for the 2010 season with a spectacular season-closer at the 57^th Macau Grand Prix in November.With its best-ever international field of drivers, the Formula BMW Pacific entry is this year the biggest in its history, with guest drivers swelling the ranks even further.

The schedule gives young drivers the optimum platform from which to hone their talents, with a combination of high-profile events - at two rounds of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, one at the FIA World Touring Car Championship, and at November’s Macau Grand Prix - plus substantial track time on Formula 1-standard circuits in Malaysia and South Korea at the Asian Festival of Speed.

The series’ eighth season got underway in April with the opening two races run in support of the 2010 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix.A further four races were held at the Sepang International Circuit in May weekend, providing the record grid of international talent with some valuable track time.

Formula BMW Pacific heads to the brand new Korea International Circuit in August for what will be the track’s first ever international race meeting, the Asian Festival of Speed.Four races will be run on the state-of-the-art facility, which was designed by celebrated circuit architect Hermann Tilke.

Making its second appearance with the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in 2010, this time in Singapore, the drivers will have the opportunity to race on the highly-acclaimed Marina Bay street circuit in September.

In October, the series will run in support of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (FIA WTCC) at the Japanese round in Okayama.Formula BMW Pacific made its debut at the 3.7km track last year, and the circuit was an immediate hit with the drivers.

The 15-round season will conclude in November with the final race run on Macau’s demanding Guia street circuit as part of the 57^th Macau Grand Prix, which also includes the final rounds of the FIA WTCC and the FIA Formula 3 Intercontinental Cup.

The Far East Classic has long been recognized as the launch-pad for many a young driver, with the late Ayrton Senna, multiple Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen and, more recently, Robert Kubica, whose talents were spotted at Macau by BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen, leading to a Formula 1 career.

For the Formula BMW Pacific drivers, not only does the Macau event provide the opportunity to showcase their talents to the world’s top Formula 3 teams, but it also provides experience the demanding and unforgiving Guia street circuit.Experience which could well make all the difference when they return to contest the unofficial world cup of Formula 3.

Date	Country	Circuit	Races
2 – 4 April	Malaysia	Sepang Int. Circuit (F1)	1 & 2
14 – 16 May	Malaysia	Sepang Int. Circuit (AFOS)	3, 4, 5 & 6
27 – 29 July	Korea	Korea Int. Circuit (AFOS)	7, 8, 9 & 10
24 – 26 Sept.	Singapore	Marina Bay Circuit (F1)	11 & 12
29 – 31 Oct.	Japan	Okayama Int. Circuit (WTCC)	13 & 14
18 – 21 Nov.	Macau	Guia Circuit (MGP)	15

Note to editors: Information and copyright free Formula BMW images for press purposes will be available at the BMW Motorsport Press Club at www.press.bmw-motorsport.com (no registration is required).

BMW Motorsports annouces new series!

2010-07-12

Atlantic Racing Team would like to thank BMW Motorsport for their  years of giving us the chance to work with them in Formula BMW USA/Americas for four years and over the last three years in Formula BMW  Asia/Pacific.  It is sad to see FBMW vanishing but corporate decisions have been  made and understood by ART. It certainly is a good sign that AFOS/MAL will take on the continuance of this so exciting and needed series in Asia.

Atlantic Racing  Team, with his major sponsor Branson, will continue to play a  vital role in young driver talent development for the Pacific region  within the new series environment and will maintain their place in Asia.

Two cars have been allotted for this "new" series in 2011 while decisions about participations in Canada/USA  and Europe will come forthwith upon evaluation of the proposed new series in Canada/USA  and in Europe.

ART wish MAL the best for the coming years.


Read the Official  BMW Press Release.

Read the Motorsport  Asia Press Release.

2010 BOSS Ironman Challenge

2010-01-16

Team Visayas conquered the 2010 BOSS Ironman Challenge!

Yes – it’s true! We made it within the prescribed time (maximum 24 hours) and as a matter of fact, with lots of time to spare. The official times and standings have not yet been announced but we know that, after we rolled in,  at least 35 other bikes crossed the finish line at the Hotel in Clark.

The members of Team Visayas – not our registered name for the endurance challenge as we entered individually under our own names – Ritchie Tinsay, Ponce Rivero and Ingo Strackerjan – endured the grueling 22 hours on their motorcycles.

First – thank you all, Joey the Organizer who made it possible for us to enter; Josef, always being there to interview and answer the obvious questions; the BOSS executives with their un-relentless help; Burger King for their foods and spaces, Flying V for the generous fuel allowance and the “top up” after the Challenge; Autohaus BMW and specially Nestor and his crew to do last minute maintenance for us; And not to forget all the participants we met during the Challenge for their friendship, smiles, waving and fairness on the road!

The Plan: before -

This was our first year as a “group” to see and possibly prepare ourselves for the 2011 Challenge. We agreed not to go for the win; just learn and see if we all liked it; have a nice run on our bikes – 2007 KTM 640, 2005 BMW R1200GS, 2000 BMW R1150GS – and rest whenever we were tired.

The Plan: modified -

As neither Ritchie nor Ingo had previously done the Ironman and Ponce, the one with the most experience (two-time Ironman participant and finisher), had to retire just after the start, the challenge now became a real challenge

The Plan: happy ending -

Not only had we never been in this part of the Philippines, Northern Luzon, but our GPS was also not functioning well enough to count on the reliability of information feedback. This was similar to the information given to Ritchie by roadside onlookers when he asked for directions to the various checkpoints - some pointed west, east, south and north at the same time – always smiling and most accommodating! The drive itself was challenging, with road conditions changing rapidly - real nice “Autobahn” to rough road with potholes; constructions, mud and broken off pavements right in the corners where you really did not need the added challenge. The weather - from warm to cool to wet and downpours and then in the mountains less than 10 degrees Celsius, which meant the stress level increased especially when exhaustion came into play after the 15^th hour.

It became clear that at the 14^th hour, Ritchie and Ingo would continue and try to reach the finish line in Clark within the allotted time of 24 hours. Unfortunately…..the team had already spent lots of driving time in restaurants for breakfast, some lunch, 30 minutes of snoozing and in general….much (too much?) socializing at the Checkpoints. This would later on be of vital consequence to the outcome of the last hours of driving and subsequent, but unimportant, placing!

As darkness fell, the team reached one of the most treacherous parts of this Ironman – the City of Baguio, via the Naguilian Roadway – twists, turns, mountains (again), up and down, cold but dry.

The average speed sunk to 47 km/h from the previous 76 km/h and dropped steadily due to the team’s tiredness.  Serious consideration was given to retiring, and finding a nice hotel, sauna and massage. The “inner pig” begged them to do this but the willpower of these two hard core drivers finally won and they “dragged” themselves over the finish line after having been overtaken by 12 drivers in the last 5 minutes of driving.

Quote of Ritchie;”Did I sleep for 30 minutes? Can’t remember the drive!” (after the 20^th hour of driving)

Quote of Ponce; “well Boys – here you go – have fun!” (at the STA. Rita Toll Plaza)

Quote of Ingo (continuously); “Where in the hell are we? Are we lost?” (before finding the 2^nd Checkpoint)

Quote of all Flying V gas attendants; “How much goes in THAT tank? Really?” (at all Flying V Stations)

So, in short, will 2011 a winning year for the team?

One thing is sure – count on us to be there! Thank You All!

Santa Claus comes early - first Driver line-up 2010

2009-12-20

Today, just before Christmas, Jesse Dixon presented himself and Atlantic Racing Team (ART) with the greatest present he could find – joining Atlantic Racing Team and their brand new team sponsor for the 2010 Formula BMW Pacific Series!

“This is a day to be jubilant to say the least. Jesse has been over the past years an up and coming race car driver with impeccable reputation, hard working, focusing on his dream to be a world class driver and has full support of his family, friends and previous sponsors,” explained Ingo Strackerjan, Team Principal of Atlantic Racing Team;

“When we met Jesse the first time at Sepang for the FBMW Junior shoot-out, we felt that he would really fit into our team. As usual, other teams were busy trying to convince him to sign with them for 2010 while we do what we do best – wait; let the records and team spirits talk for them selves.

We never go ”after” a driver; a driver has to make his own decision without any gimmick or sales pitch as it is his future and not only a drive! Now that Jesse made his decision, it is up to us to show that indeed we are not consisting of hollow promises and words but that we know what we do- and I can tell you – our team knows a lot about racing!

With our still somewhat secret team sponsor, to be publicized very soon, we have now the strength not only reducing costs for the drivers but also giving rewards. Our drivers will now, when they perform the way they promised us, benefit also financially from their performances, like the real world treats most of us. The stakes are raised and we will hopefully expand on this system even more in the next years. Our dream is to reach a way whereby we, the team, will choose drivers regardless of their financial situation. When looking around in the junior racing world we found so many talented but terribly underfunded drivers – with our sponsor, his desires and marketing strategies, we are coming close to the “free ride”.

To learn more about Atlantic Racing, Formula BMW and the 2010 venues, please look in www.atlanticracingteam.com, www.AFOS.com, http://bmw-motorsport.com

New Cars; New Racing Series Participation; New Location – in short - the future is here!

2009-11-16

Ingo Strackerjan, team co-owner and FBMW Pacific team manager of Atlantic Racing Team (ART) proudly announced today radical changes in location, operation and a new 2010 racing mandate; “We contemplated this year all kinds of options in terms of what we were doing, where do we want to be and what kind of racing we really want to do. There were issues of personnel, team location, 2010 racing series participation and new car orders on the menu, so to speak. Our first mandate – serving our drivers with the best tools available – dictated that we should order new Formula BMW FB2 cars from Mygale – so we will start another Formula BMW Pacific 2010 season with new cars. Some of our present cars will be sold and some be used in the LISTA series. I believe we are the only team so far having ordered new FB2 cars. This shows our believe in the series itself and BMW Motorsport’s commitment towards this FMW Pacific junior series and assurances that it will continue over the years to come.”

“The next step was to find a real “home away from our Halifax home” and the decision was made to locate our Asian projects within the largest future racing market – China! With that also comes the search for new personnel. The ideal place for us will be the Zhuhai International Circuit in Zhuhai, China, a 30 minute ride from Macau or at the newly created Guangzhou track. As racing these days is an unpredictable business – even more than it was in the past, with all the economical uncertainties – we decided to take the “Bulls by the horns” and also enter in 2010 the Swiss based LO LISTA series as well as the newly, to be officially announced, GT4 ASIA series. We participated in the LO LISTA series for the past 2 years in a joined effort with a Swiss team and found that this series is a perfect stepping stone towards the FBMW series."

The GT4 ASIA Series, based on the European FIA GT4 series model, will give ART an opportunity to provide to their drivers another series other than an open wheel one. ART already selected the type, model engine and chassis tuners of their two cars but await confirmation from the tuner and organizer in regards to homogolisaton prior to announcing the make and type of cars. The GT4 Asia series will bring a fresh wind into the Asian Sedan class series without the steep costs usually associated with it. For ART it will bring a different class/age group of potential drivers. It will be a very “economical” series especially as it will be run as an endurance series with multiply drivers sharing one car and costs. The announcement of the lead team driver and engineering staff will follow shortly and it will be a real surprise!For driver inquiry and employment opportunities please visit www.atlanticracingteam.com

For information on the series please contact
http://formellistajunior.smk-net.de/ for the LISTA Series, or
www.gt4cup.com and www.afos.com for the GT Series.

End of Formula BMW Season in Macau – A Spectacular Non Plus Ultra

2008-11-15

Atlantic Racing Team had a grand ol’ time at the 55th Macau Grand Prix in China. The team arrived on the Monday before the race weekend and was greeted with unusually warm weather that lasted until the weekend was over. The team went right away to work on the rented car (as one of their team cars was still in transfer from the Sao Paulo GP) for their second driver, Hong Wei Cao, the 15 year young Chinese National, who was racing in addition to their regular driver Gabby Chaves.

“The idea of having two 15-yr old drivers was absolutely appealing for the team, especially as it was the first ever Macau GP event with Formula BMW. We did our outmost to get the rental car to our high mechanical standards; the crew, with Mark Elliott as their leader, worked relentlessly on it and finally after 2 days of hard work it seemed that all equipment on the car was ready to be going onto this demanding road course,” says Ingo Strackerjan, Team Manager. “But as it would show later on all efforts were failing and we basically looked like as we did not know anything about the FBMW’s. A real sad affair and a great disappointment to the team and Hongwei. A very expensive lesson to say the least!”

The practice went as follows: HongWei left the pits and creeped to the next run-off with mechanical problems, but not giving up he re-started and went 3 more corners at low speed – then ended his practice with half a lap done. It went much better for Gabby Chaves – he left the pits and learned the track ASAP – putting some impressive lap times together.

After virtually replacing all electrical wiring, computers and whatever might have caused the unknown problems, the team and the extremely helpful FBMW technical staff were satisfied that the car would now perform like a regular FB2 car. But….

Here comes Saturday – qualifying; Oh yes, HongWei went out of the pits and again the gremlins (to be polite to the people renting the team this “race car”) hacked into something which made the engine sputter, backfire and not run at all. This total failure of the car meant disaster for HongWei as he missed the practice and now the so-important qualifying session. The FIA Stewards, within their rights and regulations, determined that he had missed the 110% lap time mark (by 2 seconds – on a 2:40 track) and he was disqualified from the race. A great disappointment for the family, crew, driver and the Chinese Press.

“We, as a team, felt really bad having let him down in his quest to be one of the youngest drivers in Macau,” continued Ingo. “Naturally we were to blame and we took it not lightly for sure as it was our responsibility.”

Again – Gabby rescued the team’s spirit. He performed in his usual stellar driving style until some minutes before the end of the qualifying, then in P4. One corner came into his way and he crashed quite heavily. The Atlantic Team’s paddock was an attraction to onlookers – one car quite demolished, the other not running. Emotions went quite high!

When the dust settled the crew went to work on repairing Gabby’s #53 FBMW – an all-nighter until the early Sunday morning solved all issues and Gabby’s car looked like it should look, with a nice shiny gearbox and four wheels properly attached again!

The race: anybody knows Macau? Two words – spectacularly lunatic! Gabby’s start was one of the best he ever had, minimum of wheelspin and right away going to work, catching up from P7 to P4 just before the Lisboe Turn One. What a sight! Others scrambled, he’s trying to catch the three foreign guest drivers, not running for points. Fighting at times the P5 driver, who seemed to have lost interest in this after the third lap, Gabby just walked away and put on times under the ‘30’s marks. The end of the race, which was marked by a red flag situation, after some blue, yellow, double yellow and safety car, saw Gabby finish a solid 4th place overall and 1st among the FBMW Pacific Championship drivers. This was the highlight of our season with Gabby – the only real crash and the placing he so deserves. Congratulations to Gabby Chaves!

“As a team owner/manager I would also like to congratulate all of the Organizers, FBMW Staff and Officials for having ran this FBMW Pacific Series in a true Motorsport style, in fairness, openness and with tremendous dedication. There is always room to make things better but when one has been in Macau – what else can be procured as a climax and end of a terrific race season. Macau, with it’s tourist sites, good food and fantastic race weekend is a place not to be missed. We will be back next year, for sure!”

Formula BMW Pacific - Atlantic Racing Team - Aditya Patel

2009-11-14

NEXT RACE: Formula BMW Pacific – Macau (November 19-22, 2009)

Opportunity usually knocks only once...

Yes, this holds true for most of the Junior Cadre of Formula racers and such came along for Aditya Patel, Atlantic Racing Team's (ART) Formula BMW Pacific driver in the form of being offered a seat in the prestigious German PoloVolkswagen Touring Car Championship.

When we first were appraised of the possibility that he would leave, we went through a long consulting process with his manager, father and our race engineer, basically all agreed that he should take this offer. As hard as it is to see Aditya leaving the team, it only makes sense for him to take this opportunity, especially as it factory sponsored", says the ART's manager Ingo Strackerjan. "He left our team without any ill feelings and we are certainly wish him all the best in his new touring car adventure. It was real pleasure having such nice, polite and dedicated person, including his so tremendously hard working and motorsport fanatic father with us, even though for a short period only. But we all knew each other from the 2008 season, having build an ongoing friendship, on and off trackside. We are sure Aditya will do very well in touring cars and as the sole Indian driver in that series marketing possibilities are near endless for him and his talent". ART, the sole Canadian team in the FBMW Pacific series has now again driver seats available, starting for the next event in Sepang, Malaysia on May 27th. ART will contest the complete series, including Sentul, Indonesia, Singapore F1 event, Japan and Macau - all together 13 races with plenty of test days in between.

For further information please consult; www.atlanticracingteam.com; www.AFOS.com or www.bmw-motorsport.com about the series, teams and drivers.