2016 Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series season

The 2016 Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series season is currently the seventh season of the F1RWRS. This season it will also include the F1RWRS' 100th race at Spa in Belgium.

Teams

 * DGNgineering announced that they would be leaving F1RWRS to form a team in F1.
 * Equipe Gauthier took DGNgineering's place, signing Jesus Plaza and Hansuke Shioya.
 * CR Motorsport reverted back to their orignal name after Tropico ended sponsorship links with the theam. The full team name is People Power presents Holden CR Motorsport.

New drivers

 * Kamaha signed Nathan McKane, who finished 2nd in the 2015 Rejects of LFS season and current F2RWRS champion Tomo Kazama.
 * Because Renaldo Jiménez is participating in the Siemens Ausdauer Reject Series, Dave Anderson will replace the Tropican driver for the Canadian and the American rounds, in which Jiménez cannot participate due to scheduling conflicts.
 * After their take-over by Plus One, Kingfisher brought in former RoLFS driver Brucie Kibbutz to race the second car, despite the fact Barii Mori was in line to drive. Mori later joined the team after a swap deal with CR Motorsport.
 * Autodynamics picked up Monegasque racer Jean-Vincent Albertini to replace Damon Cannon. He will also continue an F2RWRS program with the Gillet team.
 * Having struggled to attract a driver to partner Alexey Buyvolov, Dofasco signed Hiroto Tojo; the Japanese driver was picked up from RoLFS. Tojo later left the team, prompting the Polish team to sign Calvin Brooks.

Retirements

 * Barii Mori, announced his retirement but has been entered as a reserve driver for Kamaha. Mori later made a U-turn on this announcement, and raced for CR, Kingfisher, Revolution, Kamaha and Aeroracing during 2016.
 * Sammy Jones retired after the 2015 Italian GP.
 * Saeed Al Faisal after being the only driver so far to qualify the Simpson car was offered a year contract. However, the Saudi Arabian driver set up his own RRT team for 2016.
 * John Zimmer retired at the end of 2015.
 * David Koczo planned to retire at the end of 2015, but instead decided to stick with Alitalia for 2016. His contract extension was meaningless, as Koczo was sidelined after being caught in an avalanche whilst skiing.

Pre Season
The biggest shock in the pre-season was the departure of the 2013 and the 2014 constructors' champion DGNgineering; the British team left F1RWRS to join the Formula 1 circus. To fill the remaining team slot, the F1RWRS commission accepted the bids from French outfit Equipe Gauthier to join the grid; the team made their debut in Australia. Although this was the only new addition to the grid, Kingfisher Racing had to undergo a forced change of management as their principal Michael Alexander fell ill. Luke Knight's PORE outfit were drafted in to run the team in Alexander's absence, and this later led to a co-ownership management strategy for 2017.

In addition, 2016 saw a number of new rules which would change the way teams bought chassis and engines. Instead of buying from the market list of chassis, teams had the option to build their own. The engine regulations had also changed, where each manufacturer could offer a maximum of three teams engine deals. These contracts also had the option of becoming multi-year deals, and each manufacturer also had a berth to accommodate a works deal for one team; works deals had a reduced cost attached to them, but at a contract length of three or more years. The raft of changes led to many publications dubbing 2016 as a must-watch season, since the championship was bound to be blown open.

The first of the three pre-season tests came at Kyalami, in which qualifying and race simulations were mandated for the first and second day respectively. With their new contract to use Pure-Hart engines, Foxdale showed that they had real one-lap pace with their car as Martin McFry drew first blood in testing, as he topped the timesheet ahead of Tomo Kazama; the reigning F2RWRS champion had impressed in her Kamaha. CR Motorsport was the only team to bypass the Kyalami test, although they would join the rest of the field at Jerez. During the race simulations, Kazama went one further and came out on top of the pack, beating reigning champion Mark Dagnall and new Aeroracing recruit Nicolas Steele.

Everyone attended Jerez, and it was the other Kamaha which made it out on top during the qualifying-style runs; Nathan McKane set the fastest time ahead of Alitalia's reserve driver Nathanael Spencer, who later received an eleventh-hour promotion for the Italian team after David Koczo was hospitalised by an avalanche during a winter ski holiday. Spencer went quickest on day two, where Dagnall was again second. ArrowTech managed to also get a good lap in; Phillippe Nicolas managed a time good enough for 3rd as the Canadian team had begun to get some good results out of their new Gillet powerplant.

Before the season began, the teams had one more chance for organised running at Paul Ricard. Holden Racing Team decided to cut their pre-season short and opted not to fly to France. Due to the obvious advantage of the Pure-Hart in qualifying trim Foxdale managed to win out on day one, as Ben Fleet and McFry sat in the first two positions. MRT managed to follow suit on day two; Dagnall was fastest as Kay Lon joined the Brit at the summit. This concluded the pre-season tests, as the teams packed up for Australia.

The Australian Rounds
Before the season had even begun, there were changes on the driver front. Although Nathanael Spencer had come an Alitalia driver, he and Martin McFry were to swap seats for the first round at Adelaide at the behest of McFry's sponsors. In addition, Prospec driver Mitchell Macklin had returned to F2RWRS to join the new Fusion Motorsports team. Although Prospec eventually signed former Kingfisher driver Ashley Watkinson, there was a massive tussle between teams over the Brit's signature.

The season began in late March at Adelaide; the street circuit was a favourite of many of the drivers and teams and it was a welcome venue to begin proceedings. There was a slight downpour in time for pre-qualifying, which always creates a bit of a lottery. Despite this, Scuderia Alitalia claimed the top two places; Alessandro Linari's team were one of the favourites to get out at the first round having signed a works Renault deal over the winter, and with the qualifying prowess of McFry and Mignolet were able to put the other teams to the sword. Autodynamics, Dofasco and Simpson also got through.

In qualifying, McFry continued from where he left off in pre-qualifying by snatching the first pole of the season, going half a second faster than Nathan McKane. McKane's team-mate Tomo Kazama had a nightmare first session; the Japanese driver failed to get a time on the board and was unceremoniously dumped out of proceedings with compatriot Hiroto Tojo. Despite McFry's efforts over the weekend, the race victory eluded him after a transmission failure late on. Alitalia did manage claim their first win though; Ron Mignolet drove superbly to win for the Italian team ahead of Aeroracing's Pippa Mann. There was another first time scorer too; Jean-Luc Schiller won "Driver of the Race" after claiming a wonderful 3rd place for Autodynamics.

Even though the season had just had its first race, the contractually volatile nature of the F1RWRS saw more changes ahead; Kay Lon was sacked by MRT after a mistake in the race at Adelaide, and ended up moving to Aeroracing in place of Nicolas Steele. Daniel Melrose took over the MRT seat for Bathurst, as McFry and Spencer returned to their regular teams.

After Kazama's no-show in Adelaide qualifying, Kamaha were put in pre-qualifying at the Mount Panorama circuit but managed to ease themselves out with a good lap from McKane in the rain. With said downpour being a problem for some teams again, CR and Holden worked well to get into full qualifying. The surprise package was Prospec, as Fredo Mestolio and Ashley Watkinson set similar times to haul themselves into qualifying proper. Unfortunately, that's as far as the British team got as their underpowered "homebrew" engines were restrictive around the Bathurst circuit. Mark Dagnall took pole, yet the unreliability of the MRT M7 put a stop to any hopes of a win as his wheel detached itself from the hub, taking the reigning champion into the gravel. Melrose didn't fare any better in the other car; the Australian started well, but produced a mid-race period fraught with errors. He eventually retired with an oil leak, leaving former MRT driver Phillippe Nicolas to grab a good win for ArrowTech. Thomas De Bock and Kay Lon joined the Frenchman on the podium; the latter enjoying life at his new team.

Europe: Part One
As the field geared up for the first European leg of the 2016 season, more driving changes were abound ready for the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. Melrose stood down from the MRT driving lineup as Schiller moved over from Autodynamics; Nicolas Steele took the Swiss driver's place having missed the race at Bathurst. In pre-qualifying, Holden got out with relative ease as Douglas Mann and Frank Zimmer both set competitive times. Gauthier made it out for the first time as well, as Simpson and Autodynamics followed suit. All of them made it to the race grid, as Nathan McKane and Kingfisher's Brucie Kibbutz failed to set times good enough for the final cut. Martin McFry grabbed pole for Foxdale ahead of Nathanael Spencer. For Spencer, this was as good as it got, as he ended up being stretchered away from the circuit after a strange incident with Phillippe Nicolas. Fighting for the podium, Nicolas' Gillet engine gave way and the Frenchman crawled along the racing line to park his car by the pitwall, prompting Spencer to drive into the back of the stricken ArrowTech. Nicolas was handed with a suspended race ban for his part in the incident. Kay Lon won the race ahead of Nicolas' team-mate Mirko Bosevic, as Rhys Davies claimed Jones' first podium of the season.

With Spencer sidelined for Monza, Daniel Moreno made a return to F1RWRS for Alitalia; the Canadian had been racing as "The Stig" prior to his unmasking at the end of 2015. After being dumped back into the reaches of pre-qualifying, Kamaha strode out as Kazama and McKane had an aggregate time delta of just under half a second. Revolution also made a token appearance in full qualifying for the first time in 2016, and Shinobu Katayama managed to drag her car to the grid, albeit 26th and last. Ben Fleet underlined Foxdale's Saturday pace further as the long straights of Monza proved the Pure-Hart qualifying units effective. Kamaha had their cars 2nd and 3rd, which would cause all sorts of bother as the race began. At the first chicane whilst trying to beat Fleet to the lead, McKane managed to collide with Kazama and put himself out of the race; Kazama eventually finished down in 7th, but all of her hopes of points were nixed on the first lap. McKane earned himself a clear-cut race ban, although this was extended as Kamaha made an ill-advised appeal. The championship had gained a new leader after the Italian Grand Prix, as Phillippe Nicolas redeemed himself after his Brands Hatch incident with a fine win ahead of Rhys Davies; the Australian had become a model of consistency as his Jones car had some great reliability. Autodynamics also got a double points finish; Nicolas Steele earned his first points for the team with fourth as Jean-Vincent Albertini grabbed his first point.

Races
The provisonal calendar was annouced on the 15 September 2015 with the current version being announced on the 22 January 2016. This year will see the 100th race in the history of the Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series which is to be held at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps