The series, run by single-seater racer and team boss Tim Macrow, was set to debut this year as the first official Formula Regional competition in Australia.

However those plans have now been shelved until next year, despite a fleet of 12 Toyota-powered Tatuus chassis, used for the successful Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship, having already arrived from New Zealand.

AU3 hit its first stumbling block last month when the late arrival of the NZ cars forced the pre-season test and opening round at Phillip Island to be cancelled.

Since then it’s been a “perfect storm” of circumstances against AU3 including a lack of competitor interest and events such as the One Raceway TCR round and Race Winton – which were both on the calendar – being cancelled.

As such, Macrow has elected to push it back to next year.

“A perfect storm of circumstances, including some early logistical hiccups, ongoing uncertainty, as well as recent cancellations surrounding other categories and events in a period of economic uncertainty, has led to confirmation of the postponement of what was to be the inaugural 2025 AU3 (F3 Formula Regional) series until next year,” read a statement from Macrow.

“AU3 was conceived as a step forward from the pioneering Formula Open single-seater series of the past two years (an economic ‘development’ arena using older F3 and F4 cars); a pathway for young drivers locally, upgrading into a more current car and series, in particular using the F3 Formula Regional cars that contest the long-standing and successful January/February Regional series in New Zealand, run by Toyota NZ.

“Their support and assistance in making the cars available, getting them here from NZ, and assisting with the logistics involved has been superb.

“However, shipping and import delays out of anyone’s control made for a problematic start, with the cancellation of a pre-series test day and the scheduled opening round.

“From there, and despite a successful rescheduled test day recently, confirmed competitor numbers have not yet met numbers required for a successful series.

“We had been working on incentives to boost numbers and planned to kick off with our scheduled event at the Sandown round of the SRO series in July but, after two false starts already, and now confirmation that the August Race Winton event isn’t going ahead, even with Toyota NZ and Motorsport Australia’s help at this late stage, it just doesn’t stack up to start the 2025 championship.

“So we are postponing to 2026.

“We’re doing our best to provide a single-seater pathway for young drivers locally, so there’s no-one more disappointed than me – my team has put a lot of effort into this, to continue where we left off with AFO.

“It’s leaving a pretty big hole in Australian motorsport again, but hopefully we can fill it in the future.”