Josh Carlisle

Josh Carlisle (born 6th April, 1997 in Cheltenham, England) is an English racing driver who currently competes for The Crusaders in the 2016 IFRC season. Carlisle has also previously driven for Jones Racing and Falik Arrows across F2RWRS, F3RWRS and RoLFS.

Early Career
Carlisle had a fairly strong motorsport career in his early years, having worked his way through karting championships in his native Britain, he went out on a limb to race for two years in German Formula Ford in 2012 and 2013, with some success, including a handful of podium finishes and one race win at Oschersleben, which gave him 5th overall in the championship in 2013. From there, Carlisle began the search for a new drive further up the ladder, and having been unsuccessful in securing a drive in any of the European F3 series, he finally got his chance in the reformed Rejects of LFS series. Carlisle was handed a lifeline by Sammy Jones and his outfit who had chosen to rejoin with the revived category, now acting as a feeder series on the pathway to the Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series.

2014 - RoLFS and move into the F3RWRS
Josh was partnered with Tristan Jung at Jones' RoLFS team, and was optimistic for the season ahead. The reality however turned out to be much worse. The team went the wrong way with car development, and as a result performances were largely very poor indeed. Josh's best position was a fifth place in the Blackwood sprint race, before Jones had had enough with the poor results. Using Carlisle as a scapegoat he fired the young Brit from the team and replaced him with the team's test driver Danny van Rijkens. Van Rijkens went on to take a podium in only his second race for Jones.

Fortunately however, the dismissal allowed Carlisle to make his debut in the Formula 3 Rejects World Race Series for Falik Arrows Juniors. He filled in for the promoted Yuka Katayama who had moved up to the F2RWRS and was contracted to drive for the final two rounds of the 2014 season. The young Brit made a solid start, and finished all the races he entered, with a best result of two tenth places.

The good performances in a better car were enough for Jones to re-approach Carlisle with a view to signing him to replace the outgoing Terry Hawkin in his F3RWRS team for 2015. Keen to join what was considered one of the strongest teams in the paddock though, upon signing the contract Carlisle broke a clause in his previous one for Falik Arrows, who stated they had an option to sign him before anyone else. The matter was seemingly resolved when Jones and Prince Falik came to an agreement that resulted in Falik having the first option on whether to promote Carlisle to the F2RWRS for 2016, and in addition to this Jones tested the Zytek engines that Falik would use in the F3RWRS for 2015 in the back of his own JR-301 car. Ultimately though Jones turned down the offer for the engines.

As the off-season dragged on though, Jones began to have second thoughts about having Josh in the car. There were a number of more experienced drivers who had still to be signed for 2015, and in addition, he was eyeing up Roberto Dinella who had done well in his two outings at the end of the 2014 RoLFS season, and brought with him generous backing from Lampre. Ultimately Jones took the money and the gamble, hired Dinella, and allowed Falik Arrows to sign Carlisle for the 2015 F3RWRS season.

2015 - Promotion into F2RWRS
The closure and sale of the Falik Arrows Junior team gave Josh the chance to step up to F2RWRS with the Falik Arrows team.

F3RWRS Results

 * An * denotes the current season.