History
The "British Formula Renault Championship", was founded by the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) in 1989. Renault Sport UK took over the organization of the championship from the following year. This championship was recognized as "British Formula Renault", although the official name of the championship was changed to the "Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship" in 2005. The BARC organized a second championship in 1995. From then, until 2011, two championships existed in the United Kingdom. However, the BARC championship differed from the UK championship in that it is a mainly amateur series. The BARC championship's Club Class uses old chassis previously used in the UK series. Renault Sport UK also supports the BARC series. In 2000, Tatuus replaced the chassis and it pioneered the modern one make racing series that is common today in GP2 Series, GP3 Series and Formula Renault 3.5 Series.
Several notable Formula One Drivers have raced in the series including Lewis Hamilton, Paul di Resta and Heikki Kovalainen but probably the biggest star from Formula Renault UK was Kimi Räikkönen, the champion in 2000, who made a successful debut in Formula One the next year. This brought keen attention to the different Formula Renault 2.0 Championships and became a chance to found new championships in Italy, Brazil and Asia. Both Räikkönen and then Hamilton went on to become Formula One World Champions in 2007 an 2008 respectively. It then became the reference championship for any aspiring single seater driver to compete in, especially in Western Europe.
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