Superleague Formula - Donington

[kerrmanningjarv]

^ Ben Edwards was commentating on BTCC, which takes priority - he also missed an A1GP round last year due to a BTCC clash.

I was there and had great fun - the cars are wonderful and the races weren't half bad.

But PSV Eindhoven's Dominick Muermans... dear oh dear. He held up driver after driver while being lapped, he really should have been black flagged for that (if such a rule exists, if not it should). He was embarassingly slow.

[runshaw]

Originally Posted by kerrmanningjarv

But PSV Eindhoven's Dominick Muermans... dear oh dear. He held up driver after driver while being lapped, he really should have been black flagged for that (if such a rule exists, if not it should). He was embarassingly slow.

Unfortunately he has always been slow in whatever he has raced, which is German F3, Atlantics, Formula Master...

I often wonder how drivers like these explain their slow pace. I mean, he is always seconds off, so when he gets back to the pits do the team say 'so what is the problem?!'

[bella]

Originally Posted by lauren1995

i do agree that there needs to be more spectators. the tickets were cheap. i've looked and the btcc cost £23 but superleague was only about 15 quid & they gave some tickets away for free.

compared to the btcc though the support package was pretty uninteresting to your average btcc type fan. there wasn't much in the line of shiny stuff and big money compared to zolder, although the tgp cars were *heroic*. there were definitely liverpool fans there but nowhere near a decent number. if you go to the btcc you get a lot more shiny stuff rather than a bunch of guys racing for the love of it out of the back of a transit van

[RCMADD]

the best of the support in my view was the mx5 from 4th to 13th were sooooo close for a number of laps.

[grantp]

I guess the relatively late withdrawl of the Euro F3000 left a hole in the program.

Originally Posted by RCMADD

the best of the support in my view was the mx5 from 4th to 13th were sooooo close for a number of laps.

I think they were closer than that.

There were a couple of excellent dices in the Alfa race as well, though a big gap after the first 4. Bit 1 and 2 stayed reasonably close as did 3 and 4. and there were a couple of GTVs a little further back that seemed to be bound together with a bungee rope. They were racing at Brands on Saturday so a good show to do two races in two days.

The first 4 of the Jedi race were rarely far apart until one fell off a lap or so from the end.

The Fiats, though very sparse, also put on a good show with the first 4 stying close until one had engine problems, 5 and 6 having a racelong battle and only the tail ender being left trailing a bit.

And of course the Karts (or rather the karters) are just mental.

Overall a mixed bag but from what I saw there was a lot more action in the support races than is often the case. It's just a pity that one can't be everywhere to watch all the action at the same time.

[kerrmanningjarv]

The Alfa and Mazda races were brilliant, lots of close racing throughout, but unfortunately the FIAT race only had 7 cars - would have benefitted from about 15 more.

Superkarts were scary looking, those drivers must have balls of steel .

Unfortunately he has always been slow in whatever he has raced, which is German F3, Atlantics, Formula Master...

I often wonder how drivers like these explain their slow pace. I mean, he is always seconds off, so when he gets back to the pits do the team say 'so what is the problem?!'

Yep, he has always been slow, and I'm extremely surprised that PSV would be willing to run at the back with him - what's wrong with other Dutch drivers like Yelmer Buurman (now at Anderlecht) or Ho-Pin Tung (part-Chinese, who instead signed with Atletico Madrid)?

If it is true that Muermans brings cash, as I have read, is it worth your club's reputation possibly being dented (admittedly only in the eyes of a select few motorsport fans, it's not like PSV's future rests on it's SF team) for a few extra €€€?

[strider]

Watching on TV, Muermans was diabolical when being lapped, but he was equally unhelpful with everyone, so I suppose it worked out fairly in the end.

As you can tell, I didn't go, although it was possible if not probable that I would until I saw the weather forecast. It's a 400 mile round trip from where I live.

I had printed off one of those e-tickets that Liverpool were offering. Did anyone else do the same and, if so, did they work?

I would have been supporting Esteban Guerrieri. He seemed to have a rubbish first race and then, when he was pressing on for a podium in race 2, had to pull off, presumably with mechanical problems. What was all that about? I noticed several cars pull off in similar fashion. Is reliability a problem?

[grantp]

Originally Posted by strider

Watching on TV, Muermans was diabolical when being lapped, but he was equally unhelpful with everyone, so I suppose it worked out fairly in the end.

Yes he did seem to be especially obstructive. Kept it up for quite a while though so seemed to be fair.

Originally Posted by strider

I had printed off one of those e-tickets that Liverpool were offering. Did anyone else do the same and, if so, did they work?

Wish I has know about that, though to be fair £15 for Sunday was good value anyway, compared to a regular club meeting at £12.

Originally Posted by strider

I would have been supporting Esteban Guerrieri. He seemed to have a rubbish first race and then, when he was pressing on for a podium in race 2, had to pull off, presumably with mechanical problems. What was all that about? I noticed several cars pull off in similar fashion. Is reliability a problem?

You know someone told me what the problem was but I can't be sure I mentally filled accurately what he said. Something trivial like flat battery iirc. I could be wrong on that.

The tactic of the day seemed to belong to John Martin.

Get into the Super Final in race one. Take out a major player (Pantano) on lap 2 of the second race without too much damage to self. Ensure you can get back to the pits (unlike Pantano). Get the car fixed during the race ready for the Super Final shootout. having saved your own car, to some extent, take advantage of the most successful driver of the weekend (Wissel) having a little problem or two and take the big money prize win.

A neat way to play the reverse grid game.

Maybe.

I was standing at Fogarty's when Martin and Panntano had their contretemps but was playing with shooting some video to capture the sounds for a pal who could not make the event. The engines are so loud that I did not here any other noises to indicate any interesting action until I spotted Martin's car creeping past my video eyepiece absent a front wing. The most photographically interesting action of the day and I missed it despite being in exactly the right place at the time.

Still, as Pantano said laterwhen interviewed, you don't really expect people in the mid field to be trying to win the race on lap 2, or even before the pit stops.

[lauren1995]

the really weird thing with muermans is that the commentators said he refused to take the blame for those incidents because he was on the power boost?!?!?! well that cuts out if you lift off.

[bella]

Originally Posted by strider

I had printed off one of those e-tickets that Liverpool were offering. Did anyone else do the same and, if so, did they work?

yeah, though i had a wristband so they weren't particularly interested in it! i didn't try and use it on saturday though. there did seem to be quite a few in liverpool shirts around on sunday, so i guess they will have used the ticket too.

[Peat]

Originally Posted by strider

I had printed off one of those e-tickets that Liverpool were offering. Did anyone else do the same and, if so, did they work?

i had barely got mine out of my pocket and was asked 'printout?', i said yeah, and was waved straight through. Would have taken a few mates had i known!!!

[strider]

Originally Posted by Peat

i had barely got mine out of my pocket and was asked 'printout?', i said yeah, and was waved straight through. Would have taken a few mates had i known!!!

Thanks, Peat, that's excellent!

[JurekB]

I also used the e-ticket and was waved through with no questions asked so I was pretty chuffed with that. I'm not sure about the attendance but there seemed to be less than last year but maybe thats because I was viewing from a different location this time around.

It certainly was a great day of racing and really deserves to be better supported.

I've got a few photos available here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwbphot...033163/detail/

[strider]

Originally Posted by grantp

The tactic of the day seemed to belong to John Martin.

Get into the Super Final in race one. Take out a major player (Pantano) on lap 2 of the second race without too much damage to self. Ensure you can get back to the pits (unlike Pantano). Get the car fixed during the race ready for the Super Final shootout. having saved your own car, to some extent, take advantage of the most successful driver of the weekend (Wissel) having a little problem or two and take the big money prize win.

A neat way to play the reverse grid game.

Glad you mentioned that.

As TV didn't cover races 2 and the grand shoot-out. I did wonder how John Martin had found his way into the race, never mind won it. Still, I guess it's playing by the rules, even if the rules are a bit bizarre!

[grantp]

Originally Posted by strider

Glad you mentioned that.

As TV didn't cover races 2 and the grand shoot-out. I did wonder how John Martin had found his way into the race, never mind won it. Still, I guess it's playing by the rules, even if the rules are a bit bizarre!

Hehe.

Not that I know much about fusbal but the rules seems to have more in common with Cup than League. Hence why Craig Dolby got into the Superfinal which nominally takes the top 3 from each of the first two races. He was 4th (or was it 5th?) in one of the other races with Wissel in the first 3 in both, so Wissel could only take one spot and the next in line with a working car from whichever race Wissel's result was deemed unnecessary for him to join in the superfinal, got in. Turned out to be dolby who then had a reasonable 5 lap sprint to come second after Wissel's problem and the Gommendy/Petiz incident. A nice way to earn 70k euro (iirc).

It's a funny old game.

[strider]

Originally Posted by lauren1995

the really weird thing with muermans is that the commentators said he refused to take the blame for those incidents because he was on the power boost?!?!?! well that cuts out if you lift off.

It's probably written in the Regulations that backmarkers shall do their best at all times to disrupt the racing! Failing that, well, there's always one, isn't there?

[jondownunder]

Further to the earlier answers, the e-ticket worked no problem on Sunday, but not on Saturday (though others may have been more persuasive than me?). So £10 for two days was still great value, and really enjoyed it despite the farcical waiting game of Saturday afternoon.

I guess a fair proportion of the small turnout were Liverpool fans who'd seen the free ticket offer... there was certainly a lot of interest behind Valles' pit garage, also quite a few Tottenham guests it seems. Was great to meet so many drivers, Pantano, Pizzonia, Bernoldi, Guerrieri, Valles etc. Will be back next year!

[Rob29]

Originally Posted by Rob29

Watched heat one on Eurosport yesterday-no clue as to when they might be showing heat2..
Racing looked good,but hardly a single spectator present-lot more at Snetterton for touring cars.The media seems to have no interest in Superleague-barely any mention bar the small print in Autosport.

Suerleague formula scheduled for coverage Tues 11 Aug. 5.30pm on BritishEurosport2-maybe we will finaly get to see the final race?

[lauren1995]

Originally Posted by Peat

i had barely got mine out of my pocket and was asked 'printout?', i said yeah, and was waved straight through. Would have taken a few mates had i known!!!

hehehe i did wonder whether it'd be possible to get away with that as the tickets didn't have different numbers on them or anything. i also thought it might be possible to get in for free on sat, but from what jondownunder said they weren't having any of that.

Originally Posted by strider

It's probably written in the Regulations that backmarkers shall do their best at all times to disrupt the racing! Failing that, well, there's always one, isn't there?

yeah and the good thing is there's only one. the quality of the drivers is very high and even the ones at the back then look very good in the reverse grid race. muermans is the odd one out.

Originally Posted by jondownunder

I guess a fair proportion of the small turnout were Liverpool fans who'd seen the free ticket offer... there was certainly a lot of interest behind Valles' pit garage

there's a totally ace video on the official slf channel showing some of the promotion the liverpool tv station did for the race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MYmjKPwv1w

how great was that?? eurosport need to put the same effort in!

in other news, maria de villotta will replace ho-pin tung at atletico madrid in estoril. she finished 2nd in the 2001 spanish formula toyota championship & was then a midfield f3 driver. so probably about the same level as tung.

there's also a rumour that tung will be back with beijing guoan. hopefully this will mean we get an extra car.

[bella]

Originally Posted by lauren1995

there's also a rumour that tung will be back with beijing guoan. hopefully this will mean we get an extra car.

there is supposed to be another one on its way before the next round - that would all make sense. i get the feeling it's all fairly random though

[Last2LiftOff]

Carry on.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by lauren1995

in other news, maria de villotta will replace ho-pin tung at atletico madrid in estoril. she finished 2nd in the 2001 spanish formula toyota championship & was then a midfield f3 driver. so probably about the same level as tung.

there's also a rumour that tung will be back with beijing guoan. hopefully this will mean we get an extra car.

Tung with Guoan makes sense, even though he's Dutch. But I think he's much, much better than de Villota, personally. Not that I rate him, but he's OK and have plenty of experience in these types of cars. Maria does not.

[duke_toaster]

Ho-Pin Tung is for all intents and purposes Dutch, but he races with a Chinese licence.

[sauber11]

http://www.motorsport-total.com/form..._09080502.html
Its likely that Villeneuve will drive for AS Roma next race at Portugal.

[kerrmanningjarv]

Much as I have enjoyed SF this year, I am saddened by the fact that talented and impressive young drivers are possibly being replaced by drivers with more money or more media attention.

Ho-Pin Tung has been excellent for Atletico yet they look to be replacing him with a female driver who is likely in there for the media aspect - she won't do better than Tung in my opinion, I rate him as a pretty good driver at this level.

And Jonathan Kennard has been thoroughly impressive for Roma after spending a year not racing, yet he may be replaced with Jacques Villeneuve, who has been out of a single seater for even longer, or someone else "famous" if rumours are to be believed.

Finally Galatsasary replaced the talented Duncan Tappy (who seems to do only 1-2 races in each series these days) with Scott Mansell who was almost Muermans-slow on Sunday.

It's a shame that a championship that could be bringing on young drivers is all too eager to replace them with more high profile choices who may not necessarily do a better job. I know it happens in many championships, but it doesn't make it alright.