106 replies to this topic

[TyreSmokeDownshift]

Silly season has come to an end and the season commences today at Motorland in Aragon.

 

We kick off proceedings with the news that Arden's Egor Orudzhev takes pole position ahead of Fortec driver and Renault junior Louis Deletraz. 

[Kev00]

Bit of a shame that the FIA can just run this championship down with their SL points. The cars are great but surely there is no saving this now.

[Prost1997T]

Deletraz wins race 1 from Vaxiviere and Dillmann. Full results: https://twitter.com/...324357415530497

[Imperial]

Very naughty chop from Vaxiviere, in my opinion.

Quite a good race, although I think the 2.0 race was better.

[Prost1997T]

Dillmann P1 in second qualifying. Panis starts alongside him, Deletraz is third. http://livetiming.al....com/motorland/

[messy]

It's a shame what happened to this series as I preferred it to GP2 in recent years. It's nosedived very quickly.

[Prost1997T]

Orudzhev collides with Vaxiviere at turn 1. Binder takes third as a result, behind Dillmann and Panis.

 

Edit: or was it Deletraz? Looks like all three collided on lap 1. Vaxiviere retires with terminal damage.

Edited by Prost1997T, 17 April 2016 - 12:04.

[Prost1997T]

Some early stops here, rear tyres only for most of them.

[Prost1997T]

Not much racing up front, that was decided on the first lap. Surprisingly, Cecotto was the cleanest driver in the midfield battles.

[statman]

The excitement only picked up in the latter part of the race. Some terrible moves by some drivers though..

 

It's good to see these cars again. They look great (color schemes remind me of early 90s F1), and obviously sound great

[MAJP]

No Renault Support, only 15 cars. No Eurosport transmission. Big problem for the series.

[Prost1997T]

No Renault Support, only 15 cars. No Eurosport transmission. Big problem for the series.

 

14 really, unless you count a 50 year old gentleman driver that is 5 seconds off the pace. Cecotto isn't signed for the full season and neither is Isaakyan.

[messy]

Bloody hell, I had no idea Cipriani was a 50 year old.

[Prost1997T]

Bloody hell, I had no idea Cipriani was a 50 year old.

 

Never checked out AutoGP?

[Araqiel]

Dillmann on pole for Hungaroring race one - the resurfacing appears to have brought a lot more grip, with Dillmann's 1:26.729 more than two seconds faster than last year's pole lap, and 1.5 seconds faster than the GP2 pole-sitter last year. Should be fun when the F1 circus rolls into town...

[Marklar]

WTCC and F3 was also way faster, will be very interesting.

[Prost1997T]

Race is about to start.

 

Good start for Deletraz, into 2nd.

Edited by Prost1997T, 23 April 2016 - 11:49.

[Prost1997T]

Doesn't last long as Cecotto takes that 2nd place from him. Looks like Isaakyan is retiring from the race.

[Kev00]

Ridiculous from Celis

[Jellyfishcake]

Silly to squeeze to that extent, only going to end one way.

[Prost1997T]

At this rate Cipriani will get points for tooling around 6s off the pace.

[Prost1997T]

Dillmann throws it off track and loses the lead. Nice choke.

[Araqiel]

Deletraz's task in wrestling the runner-up spot was made decidedly more difficult by a fuel leak that was discovered on the out lap to the grid.

"I told the guys that I could smell fuel, and it felt like something was burning," said Deletraz. "I got out of the car and we discovered that the cockpit was full of fuel.

"I was worried that it might be dangerous to attempt to race, but we said that we would try. It was really painful. All I could do was try to forget about it. I think in the circumstances this podium is a good result."

O_O

Edited by Araqiel, 23 April 2016 - 13:46.

[plumtree]

Deletraz: ... I was worried that it might be dangerous to attempt to race,

What the...   Who can blame him. Scary to think what could have happened, had he been involved in a crash and his car caught fire. 

[Araqiel]

Ageeed, that strikes me as wilfully dangerous and I'm amazed that they chose - never mind were allowed - to race the car in that condition.

Edited by Araqiel, 23 April 2016 - 17:25.

[anneomoly]

Ageeed, that strikes me as wilfully dangerous and I'm amazed that they chose - never mind were allowed - to race the car in that condition.

 

I'm not surprised they chose to race, I'm very surprised they chose to disclose it though....

[Prost1997T]

Dillmann on point again for race 2, with a surprise 2nd place qualifying for Roy Nissany.

[Prost1997T]

Raining steadily, should be an interesting race. Well, if it weren't for those get-out-of-jail-free cards aka paved runoffs.

 

Safety car start. Visser car's is dead in the water and she's out.

Edited by Prost1997T, 24 April 2016 - 13:31.

[OvDrone]

Hope the rain moves 300 kms east, I am in no mood for sunshine here in lovely Transylvania.

 

Go Vaxi!

[Prost1997T]

Finally green after several laps behind the SC. Nissany drops back at the start, Vaxiviere into second.

Edited by Prost1997T, 24 April 2016 - 13:44.

[Prost1997T]

Cipriani somehow 8th. I guess the others are sliding off the track

 

Early pitstops, Vaxiviere stays out along with Cecotto and Orudzhev.

Edited by Prost1997T, 24 April 2016 - 13:45.

[Prost1997T]

Back under full course yellow. Baptista out of the race.

Edited by Prost1997T, 24 April 2016 - 13:49.

[OvDrone]

It's proper wet right now. Dark as hell.

[Prost1997T]

22 minutes and we've had maybe 4 laps of green flag racing

[Prost1997T]

Isaakyan flies off on the restart lap.

[Prost1997T]

Dillmann back into the lead after the pitstops. Nissany recovers to second.

 

Looks like everyone left will score points as Cipriani crashes.

[Prost1997T]

Nissany is closing in but he's running out of time.

 

Dillmann holds him off and wins.

Edited by Prost1997T, 24 April 2016 - 14:13.

[OvDrone]

I'm still not sold on this year's grid.

[TyreSmokeDownshift]

Pole for Panis but victory for Orudzhev at Spa.

[charly0418]

Celis might be the worst driver to ride an F1 car in the last 10 years at least

[TyreSmokeDownshift]

Vaxiviere claims victory for SMP making it six different winners in a row while Vitor Baptista ends Louis Deletraz's rookie win streak.

Edited by TyreSmokeDownshift, 22 May 2016 - 15:42.

[Prost1997T]

Thanks to the attrition, Cipriani scored 6 points and is ahead of Isaakyan in the standings.

Edited by Prost1997T, 23 May 2016 - 10:33.

[statman]

The wet race was of course mayhem, but the dry one had some great battles right up until the last corner for the lead. Top 6 or 7 within 2 seconds or so

[A.Fant]

Speaking of the FR3.5 era. I get the impression that success was more related to talent than team/experience in FR3.5 compared to GP2. Is this somewhat correct and if so; how come?

[noikeee]

Speaking of the FR3.5 era. I get the impression that success was more related to talent than team/experience in FR3.5 compared to GP2. Is this somewhat correct and if so; how come?

 

Because in later years GP2 switched to Pirelli high-degradation tyres to emulate F1, and this needed a different type of driving compared to the other categories. Also drivers simply tended to hopefully hang on to GP2 for far more years than FR3.5, because it's the final step and winning it could've been the golden ticket that got you straight into F1. So essentially a rookie in GP2 would be fighting against more experienced drivers, than a rookie in FR3.5.

[balage06]

Speaking of the FR3.5 era. I get the impression that success was more related to talent than team/experience in FR3.5 compared to GP2. Is this somewhat correct and if so; how come?

 

I think this is only true from 2011. Before that, GP2 was about raw speed and pure talent too, but with the introduction of these cr*ppy Pirellis it's all about gaining experience and managing the tyres correctly, basically almost everyone can be the champion with the best base setup. Try to find Stefan Johansson's recent articles about this topic, he said that behind the curtains drivers are really unsatisfied with the current situation and more and more managers are giving up on reaching GP2 and F1 with their protege's, because the quality of racing is much better in other categories.

 

http://www.motorspor...formula-704601/

Edited by balage06, 25 May 2016 - 11:08.

[Prost1997T]

Artur Janosz replaces Cecotto Jr for Paul Ricard: http://www.paddocksc...8-line-up/34869

[Prost1997T]

Vaxiviere takes point for race 1.

[TyreSmokeDownshift]

Orudzhev wins race 1.

[Prost1997T]

Nissany holds the lead in race 2 after starting up front. Celis is somehow 2nd...

 

Edit: Never mind, they hadn't pitted yet. Deletraz takes point.

Edited by Prost1997T, 26 June 2016 - 13:48.