127 replies to this topic

[balage06]

Unfortunately, the Toyota Racing Series will only consist of a single round this year and will be run without international drivers due to COVID restrictions, but the field for FRAC looks quite interesting this year.

 

FDA driver and double F4 champion Oliver Bearman will take part with Mumbai Falcons, Sebastian Montoya, Arthur Leclerc and Dino Beganovic will be his teammates and Gabriele Mini has also been announced at Hitech.

 

The calendar itself looks a bit repetitive though, with the opening and final round held at Yas Marina and three other rounds at the Dubai Autodrome in between.

[ANF]

And all (?) three Al Qubaisis will team up at Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema!

[balage06]

Detailed preview for the FRAC season at Formula Scout:

https://formulascout...n-preview/88715

[ezequiel]

28 cars for round 1, looks good

[balage06]

FRAC Qualy results: https://formulascout...round-one/88853

 

Race 1 stream starts at 9:00 CET tomorrow:

[balage06]

Dang it, the race has already started. The stream was set to the wrong time, sorry.

[ANF]

No problem, I blame the organisers who can't set the right times or even publish a weekend schedule on either the website or the Facebook page. The good thing about not watching live is that you can fast-forward through the SC...

By the way, that loose wheel that came off in Turn 9 and bounced across the track was a good reminder of why the halo is on the cars.

[ANF]

Here's tomorrow's race start times (start of formation lap) according to the 24H Series weekend schedule:
10:50 local time (06:50 UTC/GMT)
14:35 local time (10:35 UTC/GMT)

[ANF]

Oh and it's amazing that we've got yet another English speaking commentator who can't stress the right syllable in Ma-rin-AN-ge-li!

[balage06]

I miss the overenthusiastic commentator pair from last year. This dude doesn't even notice 99% of the track action and can't tell the drivers apart.

 

Today's races btw:

 

Race 2 (already finished):

 

Race 3 (in about 2 hours):

Edited by balage06, 23 January 2022 - 08:31.

[ANF]

Race 3 will start in a few minutes. The cars are on their way to the grid according to the driver tracker: https://livetiming.g...#screen-tracker

 

Edit: But now it shows 14 cars parked between T4 and T5...?

Edit 2: But the cars are on the grid.

Edited by ANF, 23 January 2022 - 10:48.

[ANF]

Here we go

[ANF]

Bloody hell. Big hit at the back as somebody stalled.

Open live timing if you want to know which drivers are involved. It's probably not Yoluç. He has walked away.

Edited by ANF, 23 January 2022 - 10:59.

[Jellyfishcake]

What other racing is going on at this track today?

As the session is continuing to count down with the red flag. (Edit looks like they are going back to 27mins of the race remaining)

 

Hopefully all is okay with the crash.

Edited by Jellyfishcake, 23 January 2022 - 11:08.

[ANF]

Looks like it was Amna Al Qubaisi who cut across the track and crashed into Bölukbaşi who had stalled. His car was then flipped into the path of Yoluç an hit again.

[ANF]

What other racing is going on at this track today?
As the session is continuing to count down with the red flag. (Edit looks like they are going back to 27mins of the race remaining)
 
Hopefully all is okay with the crash.

Nothing, this is the final session of the weekend.

[ANF]

Oh look, a debris sweeper!

[ANF]

Race clock has been reset. 27 minutes to go once the SC restart happens.

[ANF]

Restart in 3 minutes?

[ANF]

Here we go again. Is the commentary in sync this time?

[ANF]

Bölükbaşı says he's OK on Twitter. Nothing to worry about.

[ANF]

Race 1 in Dubai is 45 minutes away:

 

 

Cem Bölükbaşı is not racing this weekend. He said on Twitter "the car was totalled and couldn’t get ready for this weekend’s race".

Edited by ANF, 29 January 2022 - 11:04.

[ANF]

Lights are about to go out.

Just like last weekend it's impossible to identify the cars.

Edited by ANF, 29 January 2022 - 11:48.

[ANF]

This weekend's schedule at Dubai:

Qualifying: Saturday 13:10 local/09:10 UTC
Race 1: Saturday 16:50 local/12:50 UTC
Race 2: Sunday 10:35 local/06:35 UTC
Race 3: Sunday 15:25 local/11:25 UTC





 

[ANF]

They've got a new commentator. Jack Sanson? Sounds very promising.

[balage06]

Race 2 was quite fun. Nice stuff from the Mumbai Falcons, although I'm fairly sure Leclerc and Montoya made contact on lap 1, that's why the latter has fallen back in the field.

[William Hunt]

It's a very fun championship to follow with entertaining races. Much much more overtaking and action as we saw in the F. Regional Europe by Alpine Series last year. Strange because they run the same cars.

[tyker]

It's a very fun championship to follow with entertaining races. Much much more overtaking and action as we saw in the F. Regional Europe by Alpine Series last year. Strange because they run the same cars.

I guess in part that's because of the reverse grid race.

[balage06]

Last year, pretty much all races were incredibly boring in this championship as well, so I don't know what happened exactly, but I found myself enjoying most of them this season.

[ANF]

The tyre allocation has been restricted to three sets per weekend. Maybe that has played a part? Some battles seemed to happen because the tyres were going off for the guy in front.

[William Hunt]

There was talk about introducing a push-to-pass button like in IndyCar and Super Formula for this class this year but that clearly wasn't implemented (yet). If the tyre choices is what made the difference then they should apply those rules for the European season as well.

[ANF]

This weekend's first race is coming up soon.

[William Hunt]

That was the most boring F. Regional Asia we've had so far this year, seemed almost like a processional F. Regional Europe race from '21. Hopefully tomorrow will be more entertaining, championship is still open but Leclerc in the lead.

[ANF]

Races 2 and 3:

 

[ANF]

The stewards have to start penalising drivers for forcing cars off the track. The great battles we saw today could have been even better if drivers weren't shoved off the road. Braschi was probably the most blatant offender against Crawford in race 2 but there have been others throughout the championship. The stewards seem to be as clueless as the TV director.

[Mak]

Unfortunately push to pass is coming for FREC 2022 season.
5 times in race for 15 seconds each

It's a shame

they have ruined one of the best open-wheel series
DRS and p2p are the death of motorsport

Edited by Mak, 16 February 2022 - 20:32.

[Jellyfishcake]

Unfortunately push to pass is coming for FREC 2022 season.
5 times in race for 15 seconds each

It's a shame

they have ruined one of the best open-wheel series
DRS and p2p are the death of motorsport

 

Whilst in general i'm not a fan at all of DRS, I'm all for p2p in FREC this season until they eventually bring out a new car.

Last season the only race where the pole man didn't cross the finish line first was the final race of the season when he got taken out.

 

This years Asian series though has been pleasantly surprising on the action front.

[Mak]

The problem is that once introduced, they won't remove it anymore. Like drs in F1

As we are seeing in frac, we don't need artificial aids
I simply think that Giti tyres, with less grip than Pirelli, are better for racing

Edited by Mak, 16 February 2022 - 22:02.

[William Hunt]

Unfortunately push to pass is coming for FREC 2022 season.
5 times in race for 15 seconds each

It's a shame

they have ruined one of the best open-wheel series
DRS and p2p are the death of motorsport

 

No it isn't because last year it was virtually impossible to pass in this series, before that it was a similar problem in F. Renault Eurocup 2.0. I've seen no other series where this problem occurs and it has to do with the ratio power/downforce.

And no it's not the 'death of motorsport'. They have push to pass in both IndyCar and Super Formula and those are 2 formula's with some of the best racing. 

Edited by William Hunt, 16 February 2022 - 22:36.

[ANF]

I hate the current Indycar push-to-pass, or as it should be called, push-to-defend.
The FREC P2P with a limited number of activations is probably better. With 5 activations you can't activate it every time you make a mistake or an opponent's got a run on you.

[Mak]

And no it's not the 'death of motorsport'. They have push to pass in both IndyCar and Super Formula and those are 2 formula's with some of the best racing.

Points of view
For me these tricks are the death of motorsport
I prefer a season like frec 2021, frec 2020, eurocup 2020, eurocup 2019, f3 european, ect.... over all other drugged series

For me pure motorsport on open wheels is dead with this sad news

Edited by Mak, 17 February 2022 - 10:21.

[Jellyfishcake]

The problem is the fact 'pure motorsport' doesn't work when the outcome is a procession, something had to change.

Whether it was tyres/ P2P or whatever until a new car/spec comes out they weren't able to race properly with something being introduced.

[William Hunt]

Exactly: a procession can never be considered 'pure motorsport'.

[ANF]

Race 2 will be run in three and a half hours:

 

 

 

 

 

Race 1 wasn't very exciting...

 

[ANF]

Formation lap under way

[ANF]

The final race of the championship is coming up now:

 

[William Hunt]

Points of view
For me these tricks are the death of motorsport
I prefer a season like frec 2021, frec 2020, eurocup 2020, eurocup 2019, f3 european, ect.... over all other drugged series

For me pure motorsport on open wheels is dead with this sad news

 

Define "pure motorsport"

Is drivers driving a whole race without overtaking because they lose downforce behind another car pure racing for you?
Please give us the de definition of "pure motorsport" then because I don't see why a push to get extra boost button is not considered real racing.

[Mak]

All artificial aids or rules are the death of motorsport
Very simple

For lose downforce problem the solution is new car/spec project. Not drs, p2p, shortcrust pastry tyres, reverse grid, ect...

f1, f2, f3, have already been ruined by this crap

F3 european championship was pure motorsport
One of the best racing series of the last 20 years


Do you remember 60's-70's motorsport?

Edited by Mak, 20 February 2022 - 19:14.

[William Hunt]

Do you remember 60's-70's motorsport?

 

Off course it was more about mechanical grip as about downforce then. F1 was epic in the '70s with so many different winners.

Edited by William Hunt, 20 February 2022 - 20:00.

[balage06]

F3 european championship was pure motorsport
One of the best racing series of the last 20 years

 

I have to agree with you on that, I was a huge fan of that formula, even though the races could often be quite processional, the cars itself were such fun to watch and according to the drivers, it was equally fun to drive them, it's a shame they abandoned it. The current F3 car is more like a miniature version of an F2 car rather than a true smaller single seater, while I find these regional F3 cars way too dull compared to the classic regulations.