van Hool plans Renault V6 exit?

Team Astromega boss Mikke Van Hool is thought to be considering quitting the FIA F3000 Championship after claiming that rival competitions offer better value for money than the official grand prix support series.

Speaking to Belgian motorsport site autosport.be, the former driver said that he could not find the budget to compete in F3000 this season, and was being tempted by the new Formula Renault V6 series, which kicks off later this year.

"In these difficult times, we cannot find two drivers who can put E1million apiece on the table," he explained, "It is no longer realistic to ask for that sort of money. And then there is the situation concerning the organisation and cost of new parts. It will take a small wonder if Astromega is still in F3000 in 2003.

"I went to last weekend's [Renault V6] test in Valencia and I must say I was surprised by the new class. The budget turned out to be better than expected, and is similar to that being asked for the F3 Euroseries and the TWS [Telefonica World Series] - about E450,000."

Should van Hool take the plunge and quit F3000, he will not be short of drivers looking to take part, although expected second-year Astromega man Rob Nguyen is not likely to be one of them, having hit budgetary problems.

"[Astromega driver] Tony Schmidt is prepared to step [over to the Renault series], but I must still find a second driver," van Hool revealed, "Youngsters such as Mike den Tandt and Val Hillebrand have already spoken to me, however. There are currently 18 cars in production [for the Renault series] and, if you ask me, two of them are intended for Astromega."

Further evidence of van Hool's determination to quit F3000 came when he confirmed that his team would not be heading for the first FIA test of the season.

"We do not intend to go along to the test at Imola in fourteen days," he stated, "It appears that there will be nine teams at the test - but there are still only nine drivers nominated [for the series]. Coloni has Zsolt Baumgartner and Patrick Friesacher and, through the backing of Red Bull, has bought up the Minardi team where it has placed [Vitantonio] Liuzzi. Arden has signed [Bjorn] Wirdheim and [Townsend] Bell and, at PSM, there is [Jaroslav] Janis and [Yannick] Schroeder. After that, BCN (which will use Repsol money to run two Spanish drivers), Brand Motorsport (which has scaled back ambitions to run four cars in favour of two) and Durango still have huge question marks [over their drivers]. The Super Nova Jordan Junior team of David Sears may have signed [Giorgio] Pantano and [Nicolas] Kiesa, but the Briton has moves his Den Bla Avis [formerly Petrobras Jr] team to the new Renault V6 Championship!"