Marlon Stöckinger and Nikolay Martsenko solidified their places in the Formula Renault 3.5 field this week, bringing the driver count to fourteen
Managed by Gravity Sport, Stöckinger will spend his second FR3.5 season with the Lotus junior squad.
The Filipino racer fared reasonably in his début year in the category last year, having moved over from the GP3 Series.
At Lotus, Stöckinger ended the year 18th in the standings with 23 points having scored on six occasions, but will be keen to move up the order. The 22-year-old is to be partnered at the Lotus squad by reigning French F4 champion Matthieu Vaxivière.
This season may prove somewhat more urgent for Russian racer Nikolay Martsenko. Approaching his third season in the category, the 20-year-old driver from Krasnoyarsk has struggled to score points on a regular basis.
Having graduated to FR3.5 from German F3 with BVM Target in 2012 {note 1} and moving to Pons last year, Martsenko has scored on only six occasions and finished 20th in the standings on both occasions.
For the coming year, Martsenko moves to Comtec Racing – a team who will be hoping for much more from this season, having finished last in the Teams’ Championship in 2013 with the persistent Daniil Move and Lucas Foresti.
{note 1}
Martsenko ran with Max Travin Racing during his years in Finnish and German Formula 3; however Travin’s attempt to join the FR3.5 category as a team in 2012 was blackballed by series organisers. In light of the blocked entry, Travin teamed up with BVM Target to bring Martsenko to the category.
For 2013, BVM were dropped from the category and the company split into two management groups – Zeta Management and MT (Max Travin) Motorsport – with the former progressing to the series under the banner “Zeta Corse”.
