heh, stalking you across tenths tonight.
i don't 100% agree with you about f3 teaching tyre management. when we talk about that nowadays i suppose we're talking about the specific driver behaviours that the pirelli f1 tyres require to make them last. you can say that formula renault teaches a driver tyre management - the tyres do run out of grip towards the end of races if they're driven carelessly, and a driver has to learn to time his attacks and defences according to that. i'd argue they learn the "you can't cane it to save it" discipline there too, to a smaller degree, mostly because the cars haven't really got much power at all to save them *with*
the specific behaviour the f1 pirelli tyres need is really only a gp3 and gp2 lesson, more the latter than the former. but then i suppose you can argue that having learnt the basics in the lower series, they then have to learn how to implement it in gp2.
i mean, if you look at f3 testing, they're limited to a couple of hundred km a day, and even then use between 2 and 3 new sets of tyres per car. during the macau tests they were using less for obvious reasons. in all honesty it's no different to formula renault, especially if the driver is learning qualifying strategy.
the f3 grid is usually a pretty talent rich place, but there's so much talent that can't afford f3 budgets. even those offered a cheap budget on a rich drivers coat tails struggle to find that, it's still more than they paid for formula renault in most cases, and definitely more if they were on a cheap deal in that. the talented drivers were up against it this season, and ultimately the fears about not standing a chance if you weren't in a prema car were correct. it's never been a place for running a team on a tight budget, and if they want to keep it relatively honest to the concept then it's never going to be either. for example, where is the next mazepin and laliberte? without that kind of bankrolling at more than one team there's not going to be much of an opposition.