Frits van Amersfoort and his team would originally have been in the final stages of preparation for the ADAC Formula 4 season opener at Oschersleben, which was due to take place next weekend. Because of the corona pandemic, however, the ADAC High-Speed Academy is looking at a delayed return to the track. But as Frits van Amersfoort reveals in PS on Air (The Ravenol ADAC GT Masters Talk Show), Van Amersfoort Racing have not been kicking their heels.

He describes the current phase as a sort of "very long winter break". And in a winter break as long as this one, you do things that you wouldn't normally have time for during the season. The mechanics and engineers continue to work on the cars and to prepare them even more thoroughly, so that they are ready to go as soon as the season begins. "We’re looking to get started as quickly as possible," says the team owner and principal.

After all, the season, whose races are shown on TV by SPORT1, promises to be highly exciting, not least because of the driver line-up on the starting grid: "We've got some talent in the team, but our competitors have some good youngsters as well. I'm hoping that the season will start very soon, because it’s going to be an exciting one."

Van Amersfoort knows what he's talking about. Since the team was founded in 1975, many well-known names have sat in the cockpit of a VAR racing car. They include Jos and Max Verstappen as well as Mick Schumacher, who won his first ever Formula racing victory at Oschersleben in 2015; that was in ADAC Formula 4 and as a member of the Van Amersfoort squad.

But van Amersfoort does not see himself as some sort of talent conjuror. According to the Dutchman, success in motorsport is first and foremost a matter of natural talent: "And that's something you’re born with. All we can do is try to bring out the talent that is already there. You both have to work hard, talk a lot and extract the maximum."

Identifying the young and fast talents as early as the karting stage and then persuading them that the next logical career move is into single-seater racing is an important aspect of youth development work: "You can already spot the talented ones on the karting circuits. If they're fast and good there, you've got to try to get them into a real car as quickly as possible. It's a business that starts at the beginning of the winter break and goes on until now."

Van Amersfoort Racing currently have three drivers under contract: Francesco Pizzi (Italy), Jonny Edgar (Great Britain) and Jak Crawford (USA), with a fourth driver to follow. "We'll see what this ultimately adds up to on the track," says van Amersfoort. "But we've already managed to put a strong squad together."