Traditional season opener at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben

• Formel ADAC ‘talent factory’ goes into fifth season
• Home race for the six drivers of Oschersleben-based Lotus team
• International line-up of drivers from nine nations – Kuba Dalewski first Polish driver to contest Formel ADAC
• Beitske Visser (NL) the only woman in current field of starters

Oschersleben – The Motorsport Arena Oschersleben is traditionally the venue for the start of the Formel ADAC. The ADAC Formel ‘academy’ returns to Oschersleben (Magdeburg) from Friday 30th to Sunday 1st April for the first ADAC Masters weekend of the 2012 season. With 17 races in four years, the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben holds the record for being the most active circuit in the series – no other venue has hosted the Formel ADAC on so many occasions.

For the Oschersleben-based Lotus team, the season opener is a home fixture. The outfit, who won the team title in 2011 under the guise of Motopark, will be contesting this year’s championship under the prestigious Lotus brand name, and one of its cars will be driven by the only woman on the grid – Beitske Visser from Holland. The Lotus line-up also includes Kuba Dalewski (Poland), Marvin Kirchhöfer, Indy Dontje and Jeffrey Schmidt. A total of 21 drivers from nine nations will be competing for honours at Oschersleben. Last year’s championship runner-up Emil Bernstorff (Motopark) won no fewer than two races in this home fixture for his team.

Proven technology and new points system

A new scoring system comes into force this season for the third race of each event, with 15 points being awarded to the winner and one point to the tenth-placed driver. In the first two races, the points are allocated to the Top Ten in line with the familiar Formula 1 system, i.e. 25 for the winner and one for the driver who finishes tenth.

Each race weekend includes a 25-minute qualifying session. The starting grid for the first championship race is decided on the basis of the fastest laps posted during this timed practice. The starting order for the second race is based on the second-fastest lap times. The grid for the third race is determined by the official result of the second race, with the Top 8 starting in reverse order.

In the 2012 season, the Formel ADAC will once again be contested by Dallara single-seaters of the type ‘Formel ADAC powered by Volkswagen’. The homologated drive unit is a 145hp 1.6-litre direct injection petrol engine supplied by Volkswagen.

Formel ADAC nurturing young talent

Youth development has a long tradition in ADAC Formel racing. The series has seen numerous promising drivers go on to become household names in higher echelons of the sport: Formula 1 stars Sebastian Vettel, Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg plus DTM regulars such as Martin Tomczyk and Ralf Schumacher all started out on their successful careers in various ADAC junior formula series.

Reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein has been promoted to the Formula 3 Euro Series by his Mücke Motorsport team. He will continue to receive support from the ADAC Sport Foundation this season, as will Florian Herzog, Luca Caspari, Jason Kremer, Hendrik Grapp and Marvin Kirchhöfer in the Formel ADAC. In this series, young drivers get their first experience behind the wheel of a single-seater racing car, learning all about vehicle setup, evaluating technical data and working productively with other members of their team.