Earlier this week, FVTV’s Scott Parkin sat down with Phoenix Team Principal Alex Easton to discuss the latest from the world of Formula Virtual. Scott Parkin – FVTV: It’s 11am on Tuesday 2nd April and I’m sat here with Phoenix Motorsport Founder and Team Principal, Alex Easton. Thank you for having me, Alex.
Alex Easton: You’re most welcome, Scott, always great to welcome you to our humble home. SP – FVTV: Well, yes, quite! I’ve never been in this office of yours before, is it new? AE: Is it ‘eck! This room was previously just a stationary cupboard, essentially! Laughs Well, not quite, it’s basically where we kept all our paperwork and the like – along with various random bits and pieces but they’ve all found new homes now. I’ve always done interviews in the canteen area in the past, I think we did one there actually? But really it made sense to finally have my own office area to get stuff done without being amongst all the chaos out there. SP – FVTV: That certainly makes sense. I can’t help but notice, though, that the chairs we’re sat on have the DS Automobiles logo on them? AE: Oh, yeah… those are from 2019, back when we had the partnership with DS. What can I say, they provided us with some fantastic equipment and we can’t afford to shell out for new stuff when they’re still doing the job! It’s not just the chairs either, you’ll probably notice we’ve still got pens, mugs, cushions… in fact up in the main room there’s still a big DS sign on the wall! All relics from a bygone era, I suppose. Those were great times but, of course, we’re incredibly happy with where we are currently; we get impeccable support from Downton, McLaren, Royal Blondes and Wilson Oils. SP – FVTV: It’s intriguing to see, I wonder if Downton still have Pagani branding anywhere up in their factory? AE: I’d hazard a guess that they don’t! I don’t think they need to scrimp quite like we do! SP – FVTV: I’m inclined to agree! Anyway, firstly, how has your winter been? Are you excited for Phoenix’s seventh season in Formula Virtual? AE: My winter has been… well, short! I’ve never felt a winter go by so quickly as this one has. It’s a strange feeling but I love it because I miss FV like crazy when we’re in the off-season! Thankfully, these days, we have the brilliant eVirtual World Championship to satisfy our racing needs – we’ve been treated to a brilliant season there so that’s been great. Outside of that, though, the Christmas period – where we close our doors to employees for two weeks – was great. Plenty of quality time spent with family and friends – I spent quite a bit of time with Christian [Sear] which was nice. We’ve seen a lot less of each other since he started up the OSM operation because, clearly, we’ve both been here there and everywhere with our racing teams. This winter, though, OSM haven’t competed in eVirtual so he’s had the same free time as me. To answer the second part of your question, am I excited about our seventh FV season…? I think nervous would be more accurate! No, I mean, of course I’m excited. I’m always excited for FV as a fan of the series. It’s just, from a Phoenix perspective, it gets tougher every single year. I think this season is going to be a real fight for us to keep our heads above that dreaded Pre-Qualifying zone – but we’ll give it our all as always! SP – FVTV: It’s interesting you say that as Phoenix have just come off the back of third and sixth in the Constructors’ Championship in the last two seasons. Don’t you think you’ll be in the upper midfield again this season? AE: Upper midfield would be an absolute dream. If we find ourselves fighting for points I think the entire team would be in party mode! The world of Formula Virtual is changing all the time. Look at the last few years, we’ve lost teams like North Star and Highwind to financial troubles, the team that was Scuderia Meteor have undergone a huge transformation since Lamborghini bought them and invested hugely, the team that was Westwood now has the full backing of Peugeot, and Porsche and Maserati now have their own factory teams. Looking back to 2018, when we first joined, there were pretty much three or four huge teams then the rest. Now, we’ve got five full manufacturer teams alone, then another three or four teams after that who I’d consider big teams. Small privateer teams are becoming few and far between – and that’s not a bad thing, by the way. It’s an absolute credit to Nic, the FVA, and Formula Virtual as a whole that so many big manufacturers are seeing value in the series and, therefore, joining with full on works teams. However, I’m just explaining why it’s becoming so difficult for teams like ours to compete, especially when new, complex technical regulations come in. I think the new cars are brilliant, this new era of Formula Virtual is going to be absolutely incredible for the fans across the world! I just hope we’ve got our car right. SP – FVTV: That’s a very interesting insight into the mind of a smaller team. Although, just because there are far wealthier teams in Formula Virtual, it doesn’t seem fair to assume they’ll be ahead of you because they have higher spending potential? AE: Oh, absolutely, I’m certainly not suggesting they’re all going to pour their entire resources into their 2024 cars. Why would you spend £100million to win races if you could do it for £50million? That would make no sense. I do expect certain teams to spend at least three times the amount on their car that we can, but that’s nothing new. Also, I have to add, we’re in a very fortunate stable place currently with the key sponsorship from Royal Blondes and Wilson Oils – without them… well, it doesn’t bare thinking about actually! SP – FVTV: Well, here’s a question for you then. If – for 2025 let’s say – you found yourselves in a position where those main two sponsors were not around anymore, where would that leave Phoenix? AE: Oh god, that’s a proper question isn’t it! If I answer from my heart, I’d say we’d find some way of plodding on albeit probably failing to qualify most of the time. If I answer from my head, ah, I think we’d realistically have to totally reassess our participation in the top level of Virtual Motorsport. We learnt from our mistakes of the past when we slightly overspent the amount that was coming in and we’ll never do that again. It’s not that we spent much, we just had virtually nothing coming in! But anyway, hopefully the oil fields don’t dry up and hopefully people keep buying Royal Blondes’ products… SP – FVTV: Certainly! Moving on, anyway; assuming you don’t see Phoenix fighting for wins this season, who do you expect to be up there and who do you think might struggle? AE: Honestly, you might as well pull names from a hat, I haven’t got a clue mate! Okay, well, you’d expect Downton to be up there given their phenomenal record since 2018 but don’t underestimate these huge regulation changes, Bradley and co could be in for a properly tough battle this year. I’d expect FIRST to be up there – they’ve got some of the most brilliant technical talents in Virtual Motorsport so I’d expect them to nail these regs, the support from Ford helps too. I think Ingram should be in a strong position, too. They’ve got factory support from Jaguar and did seem to tail off last season, it’s all speculation but I think they probably started work on their 2024 car pretty early. AMR, Peugeot and Porsche should all still be quite strong too. From the rest, you’d probably expect Maserati to make quite considerable gains, then the rest of the midfield will probably all be extremely competitive. At the back, well I think we might be down that way as I’ve already said, then I’m not sure who else. The only one I’d put money on initially struggling is Cyber Automata, purely because they’re a totally new team and the only one on the grid for 2024 – but they do have some of the best leadership around in Jamie [Franklin], that’s worth a huge amount. SP – FVTV: Of course! Regarding Formula Virtual in general, how do you feel about where the series is at in 2024? AE: I think the series is in a fantastic place. Interest in Formula Virtual has never been higher, with fans from all over the world, it really is great to see! I suppose it’s helped by us heading to new places like Argentina last season, then Singapore and Kuwait this year – I’m really looking forward to those two. The more that Formula Virtual continues to innovate with the incredible new cars and head to these new places, I think it’ll continue to go from strength to strength. Additionally, I think it was great for the sport that we had a new Drivers’ champion for the first time since Adrien Simon in 2016. Klaas has really transformed himself since Nathaniel left Downton at the end of 2021, he’s become a real team leader and – in my opinion – is now the best all round driver in Formula Virtual. This season is certainly going to be incredibly interesting to see how that teammate battle at Downton goes; Klaas has improved a huge amount since they were last teammates and you could argue that Nathaniel isn’t quite the driver he was when he was relentlessly winning title after title – never write him off though! SP – FVTV: That’s an interesting take, we’ll see how they get on against each other very soon. Sticking with the theme of the 2024 season, you mentioned Cyber Automata Motorsport before, do you think any other teams deserved a spot on the grid? AE: Well, I’m not entirely sure who applied. Out of the prominent non-FV teams who made it fairly common knowledge that they were interested, I suppose Gray and K8ley stand out to me. Both of those teams have been around for a good few years now and seem to be very competent outfits in other Virtual Motorsport series, like eVirtual. I think Formula Virtual is clearly in a very strong place when there are so many interested parties constantly wanting to join the series. Also, looking back, I think Nic and the FVA have made great decisions with new teams over the last few years. Okay, 2019 must’ve been a bit of a cursed year as all four ‘new’ teams – Highwind, Andromeda, Lucas & Excelsior – have all left now, but other than that I think we’ve had some excellent new entries recently. SP – FVTV: I’d have to agree there, the new teams we welcomed into the sport last season have all been excellent. Okay well we’ll round things off there I think, I quite fancy getting some food from your canteen. Thank you for your time today Alex and we’ll see you on Friday for pre-season testing! AE: You will indeed, see you there mate. Pre-season testing - held at the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit - will begin on Friday 5th April and will run for three days.
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