Quote:
Originally Posted by p-matt
I'm not personally fully convinced on Vandoorne. Because we've seen so many times before - if you win Eurocup and step up to 3.5 you are in a much better position than if you are a pure rookie to the series.
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i know what you mean, but i think frijns and vandoorne are two seperate cases. firstly, you do have to be very quick and consistent to beat 30-odd cars to the title in the eurocup. no question about it. frijns was uberquick, aggressive and has the relevant strong, unapologetic attitude to make it work. vandoorne is on the other end of the scale. he's really quick, like, *really*. he gets it spectacularly right in qualifying too, and is a really good assertive but not aggressive racer. he doesn't have an attitude or an ego, he just gets on with it. it's difficult to get excited about him because he excels at almost everything, and he makes it look so easy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by p-matt
I guess Magnussen is making his way through the ranks in such a paint by numbers kind of way. I haven't seen the sheer speed of a Bianchi or a Grosjean and he hasn't dominated a high level championship as a rookie like Lewis and Hulkenberg did. He's very good, don't get me wrong, but I'm just not excited by the prospect of him as an F1 driver yet. And I'm not convinced that FR 3.5 prepares drivers as well for the modern era of F1 quite as well as GP2. Hence why this year's field has been a massive step up in quality from last year.
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i think magnussen is impressive for me *because* he's doing it paint by numbers. he showed that speed occasionally last year, and this year he improved his own performance and picked the right team to get the most out of the entire situation. that's both excellent management and a smart driver. the only drivers to get near him and vandoorne this year have been one-off strong drives - muller at monaco, sorensen and his austrian heroics, felix da costa and his monza low tyre pressure adventures. and, er, huertas and that weird motorland speedboat race
i don't know what place gp2 has in preparing a driver for f1 any more. for me, it's just a one-make formula that shares similar characteristics to a f1 car that allows rich drivers to play in something that is close enough to what daddy can't *quite* afford. 3.5 is more pure, so it's easier to put in consistent strong performances without the spectre of needing to think too hard about strategy, sacrifice one race for another, or anything like that. gp2 was good in the years that the concept was as simple as 3.5, right at the beginning. now it's too big a gamble to take, and to be honest, it's too late to be picked up by a f1 team unless you've got a big wallet. replicating f1 by having such little track time that the rookies need a season or two to really get going is a bit too much
don't get me wrong, i like watching gp2 races, but in the same way i like watching btcc ones...
essay, sorry, most of which is entirely off topic.