Auto GP 2010 (was Euroseries 3000)

[ivanalesi]

Arabadzhiev won the sprint race Happy for him, hopefully he'll continue to race various championships alongside GP2 to get experience.
Strangely when he was in Euroseries 3000 in 2007, he had a number of similar chances to get a win against a very small field, but never got a podium. But now he's got more than double the race & test mileage

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1. Vladimir Arabadzhiev DAMS 22m58.445s
2. Adrian Zaugg Trident + 0.486
3. Edoardo Piscopo DAMS + 2.304
4. Julian Leal Trident + 4.365
5. Walter Grubmuller Charouz-Gravity + 5.859
6. Jan Charouz Charouz-Gravity + 8.101
7. Jonny Reid Super Nova + 9.025
8. Carlos Iaconelli Durango + 12.227
9. Giorgio Pantano Super Nova + 15.689
10. Celso Miguez RP + 20.204
11. Duncan Tappy DAMS + 22.869
12. Stefano Bizzarri RP + 26.179
13. Luca Filippi Euronova + 1m02.946
14. Adrien Tambay Charouz-Gravity + 2 laps

Retirements:

Fabio Onidi Lazarus 7 laps

Tomas Kostka Charouz-Gravity 0 laps

[p-matt]

I actually can't believe they didn't pick up on the commentary that Filippi's stop for tyres on the penultimate lap was to nab the fastest lap point. It worked for him too. By dint of that extra point he leads the championship from Piscopo.

[bella]

who's actually running the charouz/gravity team, is it a new setup or is it an existing team wearing a different set of kit?

[jondownunder]

I presume it's still the same Charouz personnel from A1GP & LMS in recent years, but with Gravity providing backing and drivers? With DAMS in Auto GP I'm surprised that Gravity/Renault didn't link up with them instead, as in GP2.

[Mekola]

This weekend AutoGP will be at Magny-Cours. Romain Grosjean will be the local star, but the news is that Esteban Guerrieri will be at one of Charouz cars. Guerrieri did the 7th best time on his first stint in the Lola B05/52-Zytek at free practice.

[NaBUru38]

1. Romain Grosjean 1m45.722s
2. Esteban Guerrieri + 0.196s
3. Adrien Tambay + 0.352s
4. Duncan Tappy + 0.647s
5. Jake Rosenzweig + 1.077s
6. Fabio Onidi + 1.783s
7. Stefano Bizzarri + 2.318s
8. Celso Miguez + 2.363s
9. Jan Charouz + 2.399s
10. Julian Leal + 2.561s
11. Giorgio Pantano + 2.654s
12. Carlos Iaconelli + 2.700s
13. Edoardo Piscopo + 2.832s
14. Jonny Reid + 4.988s

That's a thin grid!

[tux]

Good series but after todays commentary efforts i refuse to watch, Mark Cole has no idea and his commentary is about 5-10 secs behind the video.

[jondownunder]

He even still calls Pantano "Pantani" sometimes.

[Vintage Aston]

Originally Posted by sauber11

When i first read about this my thought was "wow , so cheap. Prize money? The decent driver can driver a season for almost free." But then i understand\have read something more about it

1) Organization - u have to sign contract with Auto gp to prove you stay here till end of the season. They choose which team you drive. I think it will be hard to prove your sponsors to choose this way ( you cant go away if something goes wrong).

2) 380.000 euro for 6 meeting? Thats not cheap at all. WSR costs 700.000 euro for 9 meetings, thats mean about 467.000 euro for 6 ones. And this is original price, lets say KTR offered drive for 600.000 dollars !! before start of 2009 season , and i believe this wasnt only team that cutted the costs in crisis.

So my overall thought is F3000 will stay the same like this or last season with 8-14 drivers on the grid. The rich guys like Gonzales will move away to WSR, and only poor ones will stay.
Like for example Bamber or Hanley will say to their sponsors :"pay me a drive and i will won most of your money back".

WSR is good value for money, for what it is. 380000 euro for 6 meetings is very expensive and considering there's no platform for the winners to be promoted to. my question is how do they select what team a driver races for??

[NaBUru38]

Aston, the weekend winner gets € 80k, second 50k, third 30k.

[gomick]

Grosjean should blitz this series - pity he aint driving this years Renault F1 car, would be a different story... The boy can drive!

STANDINGS (after 8 of 12)

Edoardo Piscopo - 32
Romain Grosjean - 30
Jan Charouz - 24
Carlos Iaconelli - 24
Duncan Tappy - 24
Luca Filippi - 23
Fabio Onidi - 18
Adrien Tambay - 17

[jondownunder]

A real shame if F1 has written him off. Evidence before and since suggests he's obviously pretty talented.

[p-matt]

Auto GP is racing at Navarra this weekend but Motors TV have quietly dropped all coverage and replays, yet it looks like they are showing the Monza races live next weekend.

Anyone know why?

[jondownunder]

I read somewhere else it's because the TV production crew present for the Navarra meeting isn't set up for live TV.. so it sounds like there will be a delayed highlights package instead.

[gomick]

Grosjean wins race 2 & takes the championship lead...

STANDINGS (after 10 of 12)

Romain Grosjean - 42
Edoardo Piscopo - 41
Duncan Tappy - 32
Jan Charouz - 28
Luca Filippi - 25
Carlos Iaconelli - 24

[Mach3]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

A real shame if F1 has written him off. Evidence before and since suggests he's obviously pretty talented.

I've never know what to make of Grosjean - the boy is damn quick, but there are suggestions (even in GP2, not just F1) that he can struggle mentally. If anything, shows that too much is being expected at too young an age for many drivers - being written off at 24 seems a little harsh...

[Rf1 Fan]

Grosjean won the championship.

[diddy100]

Just called into Snetterton today to see what was testing and HiTech were there with three AutoGP ( ex A1 GP ) cars - Hitech transporter but several P1 Motorsport people attending cars as well

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by diddy100

Just called into Snetterton today to see what was testing and HiTech were there with three AutoGP ( ex A1 GP ) cars - Hitech transporter but several P1 Motorsport people attending cars as well

Very interesting, thanks for that snippet diddy.

Wonder if we can find out who was driving them?