US F4 vs Road-To-Indy

Dear AutoRacing1.com, Over 30 entries and climbing in 2017 F4 Championship while the impressively conceived Mazda Road to Indy seems to struggle over 16 entries per series apart from USF2000. I'm am finding it surprising. F4 is about to enter only its second year yet would all the 30 plus F4 entries have arrived in the MRTI Championships if the series had not been conceived ? Somehow I think not so where would they have been racing. Does the FIA and F4 being an International formula have that much more pulling power over MRTI. Maybe the impressive F4 entry is completely budget related but I would be interested in your opinions. Oliver Wells

Dear Oliver, It would be nice if the Road to Indy followed the same formula of cars as the road to F1 elsewhere. However, IndyCar still races on ovals and that requires stronger race cars to protect the driver – hence their own formula for Indy Lights and IndyCars. The large numbers of cars in F4 and USF2000 prove there are plenty of young drivers with enough money to make the first step up from go-karts. But after that it gets fairly expensive fairly fast and it's only the drivers with rich daddy's who go any further. Hence the number of cars on the grid tends to drop as you go up the cost ladder, be that in the USA or Europe. Mark C.