Dofasco Racing

Dofasco Racing, commonly shortened to Dofasco is a Polish racing team, currently competing in the F1RWRS as Dofasco Lukoil Racing. The team was formed at the close of the 2013 season, having bought the assets and entry of former team Shock Of The Lightning Motorsport and subsequently announced it's intentions to compete in 2014. Prior to the start of the 2014 season, Dofasco signed a multi-year title sponsorship arrangement with Lukoil, hence it's inclusion in the team's entry name. The team is managed and run by Grzegosz Sobczyk, and for the 2015 season, its drivers are Tomislaw Tajner and former RoLFS driver, Dutchman Markus Van de Schoot.

In addition to their F1RWRS team, Dofasco have also established junior teams in the F2RWRS and F3RWRS. In 2014, Dofasco Junior Racing was set up to compete in the 2014 F3RWRS season, whilst in 2015, Dofasco expanded their operation to compete in the F2RWRS as well, with Lukoil supporting the venture in a similar deal to the F1RWRS team.

F1RWRS History
Since entering the F1RWRS, Dofasco have struggled for competitiveness, with the team racking up a string of DNPQs as the cars failed to even pass pre-qualifying on most weekends. For 2014, after only three races, Chinese driver Yu Hiang-Hao who had previously driven for Flying Fish, was sacked for poor performances, and replaced with Sebastian Groves. This immediately proved to be a good decision, with Groves giving the team their first race start, at the Mexican Grand Prix, and ultimately bringing the car home in 13th position. From there, Dofasco only cleared pre-qualifying once more all season, at the British Grand Prix, where both Groves and Tajner made the grid, and whilst Sebastian retired, Tajner was able to give the team their best ever finish, with an 11th place. With no further appearances for the rest of 2014, Dofasco could only look to improvement in 2015.

Continuing on into the 2015 F1RWRS season, Dofasco maintained its sponsorship deal with Lukoil, but entered the season with low expectations. The DR 02 car was little more than piecemeal improvements to the previous DR 01, though a switch from Ford to Judd engines was hoped to give the team more power. Tajner was retained for a second season but Groves was sacked in favor of Dutch driver Markus Van de Schoot who had finished 9th overall in the 2014 Rejects of LFS season.

Junior Teams
Dofasco Junior Racing was established by Sobczyk in early 2014 for the newly formed F3RWRS as a way in which to develop future drivers for the main F1RWRS team. It was mainly focused on supporting the careers of drivers from Eastern Europe, and primarily Poland, with an initial line-up of Polish Wojciech Cieslar, Romanian Iulian Pitea and German Jan Mayländer in a three car team. Pitea and Mayländer both scored points on one occasion each, though Cieslar was poor and was replaced after the fifth round in Belgium with Slovakian Tomas Ondrejka for the Chinese round, with German Carsten Jancker then replacing Ondrejka as a wildcard in the Surfers SuperPrix, the final race of the year. Overall Dofasco had a poor season, hampered by the inexperience both in the team's operation and in the drivers themselves.

Despite this, for 2015, Sobczyk expanded the Dofasco team to encompass the F2RWRS as well with the financial backing from Lukoil mirroring its F1RWRS involvement. As part of the contract they requested that a Polish driver be placed in the team, and so Cieslar found himself promoted into an F2RWRS seat despite having had a poor 2014 in the F3RWRS. Alongside him was Russian Alexey Buyvolov who had enjoyed a successful year with Ural Racing in the RoLFS in 2014, finishing fifth overall. Dofasco would however be facing pre-qualifying with a host of other new teams in the F2RWRS, and with only two teams progressing at each event, their chances of featuring in the races looked slim.

In the F3RWRS, Dofasco continued into 2015, reducing to a two-car operation in line with the series rules, with both Mayländer and Pitea staying on with the team for another season. Having run customer Dallara chassis the previous year, for 2015 the team introduced their own GS001 design, powered by a supply of Mini JCW engines, replacing the previous Ford Zetec units. With a year's experience under their belts, it was expected that Dofasco's two drivers would show some improvement in their second season.

Complete F3RWRS Results

 * * indicates a season currently in progress.
 * † indicates a driver did not complete the full race distance, but was still classified.