[Rules] 2016 FIA Superlicence rules

[ScotsBrutesFan]

I think the can of worms opened up by this, is the opportunity to completely re-appraise the motorsports pyramid not just by driver points but also by category.

My knowledge isn't great on all the individual formulae that are going around, hell it looks like the FIA can't control them either with F3 apparently disintegrating off the National Stage, and from what I can work out different two different categories that are using the name F4.

This is an F1 thread so don't want to side track it too far, but with a proper or recognised pyramid, points would allow stepping up the pyramid reaching the upper levels whether in Prototype/sportscar, Openwheel or GT/tintop

[Hawkwood]

Originally Posted by bella

thinking about it from the other angle... at least it's guranteeing the junior formulae a bit more cash as largely average drivers stretch for those magical 40 points

More journeyman drivers hanging around for years is just what GP2 needs

[pauln]

If there's a reaction needed to Verstappen's landing a drive, surely it's enough to say

- minimum age of 18
- must hold a road licence (allowance for occasional loss of one here, perhaps?)
- x number of years experience in circuit racing (after karts)

On the last we could debate for ages how many years that should be - I'd go for two myself.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Hawkwood

More journeyman drivers hanging around for years is just what GP2 needs

as if there's enough youngsters to pay the extortionate gp2 fees without having the long term competitiors in the series.

you need the third and fourth year well-upholstered gents who have to learn how to be fast to fund the seats for the naturally seriously quick kids who don't need a map to find their bums and their elbows

pauln - no, it's not. the aim as well is to limit the pool of young drivers that f1 can pick from, instead of widening it so they can find someone somewhere that has enough commercial value for them to convince the fia to let them in anyway. limiting it means that perhaps the really decent kids won't get overlooked in favour of some kid whose dad wants to buy him a f1 drive.

[pauln]

Fair point, bella.

But isn't that likely to lead to further funding problems? While I'm all in favour of talent rather than wealth in the cars, there are some teams that have been depending on the "rich kid" money.

[bella]

in f1? of course. the good ones, or the ones who won't make a scene of themselves too much but aren't exactly heroes - palmer, probably - will still get in. some astute tactical selecting of drives will always buy an above average but not heroic driver a high placing in a championship.

for example "should" caterham have taken ericsson (reasonably quick but no consistency) over leimer (gp2 champion, for whatever it's worth) at the start of 2014? these rules might have meant that they had rather less choice in the matter which would have been a good thing, imo.

i'm always cynical of dads who buy their sons f1 drives, through whatever means. it's rare that there isn't something that brings into question whether the son wanted to do it in the first place or whether it's something daddy wished he could have done when he was young. the guys who manage to use their connections (even if they're their dads) and sound management to scrape together the budget, fair play.

[bella]

i just got bored during lunch hour and did a thing. here's the top 10 of gp2 and 3.5 from 2014 and their respective points hauls, and the top 5 from gp3 and f3 and theirs. there's a couple of surprises in there, but i think it's fair to say those who would have a right to a superlicence are worthy of one. it actually excludes some of the rich kids who might have been able to get the dough together to buy a seat.

to me the resulting list of drivers entitled to a licence according to the 2016 rules is actually pretty fair, especially when you consider the opposition in that series and their level of experience.

top 10 gp2 series

	driver	tally	total	f1?
1.	palmer	50 + 6	56	yes
2.	vandoorne	40 + 20 + 5	65	yes
3.	nasr	30 + 20 + 2	52	yes
4.	evans	20 + 30	50	yes
5.	cecotto	10 + 3	13	no
6.	coletti	10 + 8	18	no
7.	pic (arthur)	6 + 2 + 2	10	no
8.	marciello	4 + 40 + 30	74	yes
9.	richelmi	3 + 4	7	no
10.	leal	2	2	no

top 10 formula renault 3.5

	driver	tally	total	f1?
1.	sainz jnr	30 + 8	38	no
2.	gasly	20 + 5	25	no
3.	merhi	15	15	no
4.	rowland	10 + 3 + 1	14	no
5.	sirotkin	7 + 1 + 1	9	no
6.	stevens	5 + 10	15	no
7.	nato	3 + 3	6	no
8.	vaxiviere	2	2	no
9.	stockinger	1	1	no
10.	jaafar	0	0	no

top 5 european f3

	driver	tally	total	f1?
1.	ocon	40 + 1	40	yes
2.	blomqvist	30 + 4 + 4 + 1	39	no
3.	verstappen	20	20	no
4.	auer	10 + 10 + 7	27	no
5.	fuoco	8 + 5	13	no

top 5 gp3 series

	driver	tally	total	f1?
1.	lynn	30 + 20 + 2	52	yes
2.	stoneman	20	20	no
3.	kirchhofer	15 + 10	25	no
4.	eriksson	10 + 10	20	no
5.	bernstoff	7 + 1+ 1	9	no

[climb]

IMHO it's a Todt's manoeuvre against GP2; He and Michel have never been friends, to say the least...

[bella]

i've just spotted a deliberate maths mistake, so bonus points to anyone who can find it

[chillibowl]

Ocon's tally of 40+1 = 41 not 40?

i can understand the desire to streamline the process and reward ability/performance shown over the years but if the goal is too keep people from buying their way into F1 then by formalizing the ladder to F1 dont you risk rich parents just buying their kid's way in at a lower rung on that ladder? and once you begin crowding out the talent at lower levels where do the kids with just ability go?

in sports no one knows where the next great talent will come from so for me the more open the system the more likely we are to see the cream rise imo. close the system and for better or worse you limit yourself to those already swimming in the pool.

no easy answer and wish F1 was cost efficient enough where teams (like in other professional sports leagues) looked for the best talent to represent them and not the richest.

long term are we likely to see drivers from outside Europe have more or less opportunities to make it to F1? are we more or less likely to see a female driver make it to f1?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by bella

i've just spotted a deliberate maths mistake, so bonus points to anyone who can find it

I claim the prize!

Ocon should be 41 points.

[bella]

chilli wins the points by a mere minute i'm afraid

because i literally need to get out more, i put together a top 15 from all series as well. it's obviously weighted towards the f3 drivers, which is what "they" want now obviously. gp2 features pretty highly, but quite rightly given it's a place for drivers who are far advanced in their single seater careers. but it doesn't really do the top driving talent much of a disservice does it? i think 3.5 should probably score the same points as f3, which even then would be overrating f3 a bit in terms of big noisy car ranking but even so, it wouldn't really make much of a difference.

1. raffaele marciello - 74
2. stoffel vandoorne - 65
3. jolyon palmer - 56
4. alex lynn - 52
5. felipe nasr - 52
6. mitch evans - 50
7. esteban ocon - 41
8. tom blomqvist - 39
9. carlos sainz - 38
10. lucas auer - 25
11. pierre gasly - 25
12. marvin kirchhoefer - 25
13. dean stoneman - 20
14. max verstappen - 20
15. jimmy ericsson - 20

eta: i see marcus simmons did a stat exercise similar to mine today as well, though to be fair i cut a few corners and didn't count everyone : http://plus.autosport.com/premium/fe...248.1378288007

[pauln]

Bother work getting in the way!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by bella

chilli wins the points by a mere minute i'm afraid

probably closer to ten tenths!

[MGDavid]

I hear on FB that Renault are all upset and have called for urgent discussion with FIA...

[ger80]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

I hear on FB that Renault are all upset and have called for urgent discussion with FIA...

Obvious, isnt it? They do so much in the lower leagues and the rating is really a joke

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

If it weren't for Renault who in F1 would we have? Or rather, who in F1 right now has driven in a Renault junior series? Verstappen is the only one off the top of my head who hasn't raced in FR of some sort. But if it wasn't for his eye catching Eurocup test, would he have been given a chance in an F3 car that led to his remarkable season?

[wnut]

F1 Teams Favour Money Over Talent

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns29740.html

Learn something new all the time!

[wnut]

Originally Posted by bella

in f1? of course. the good ones, or the ones who won't make a scene of themselves too much but aren't exactly heroes - palmer, probably - will still get in. some astute tactical selecting of drives will always buy an above average but not heroic driver a high placing in a championship.

for example "should" caterham have taken ericsson (reasonably quick but no consistency) over leimer (gp2 champion, for whatever it's worth) at the start of 2014? these rules might have meant that they had rather less choice in the matter which would have been a good thing, imo.

i'm always cynical of dads who buy their sons f1 drives, through whatever means. it's rare that there isn't something that brings into question whether the son wanted to do it in the first place or whether it's something daddy wished he could have done when he was young. the guys who manage to use their connections (even if they're their dads) and sound management to scrape together the budget, fair play.

The one good thing about the super licence points scheme is that hopefully the concentration of money and talent in the favoured categories will put an end to the endless multiplication of one make formulae!

[bella]

i'm in 2 minds to be honest.

i think two series at a level keeps both honest - without 3.5 as competition for the same pool of drivers, would gp2 have come back to reality, cut the silly long haul races out and made some cost improvements? without gp3 taking a decent percentage of the potential f3 market would there have been much progress in that formula?

or is it all destructive - the frenault 2000 chassis wiped out fford, even though fford was a better concept for teaching a driver how to *be* a driver. when gp3 first turned up it was massively inferior to f3, but the whole f1 race weekend thing made it better value for money in ego terms. thus, it flourished, regardless of technical merit.

it's a weird conflict that the 2 non-f1 single seater series at f1 meetings are not of the fia's creation, given that servicing f1 is the reason they exist. if the new f2 comes along and doesn't adopt one of the existing series as a base then you'd have to think 3.5 would be pushed out of the market. perhaps they'd be wise to work hardcore on making 3.5 as cost-effective and reliable as possible - it's due a rebrand (it's not a 3.5 engine any more!) and you'd think that a "fia formula 2 by renault" tag wouldn't be too far unacceptable...

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by bella

it's a weird conflict that the 2 non-f1 single seater series at f1 meetings are not of the fia's creation, given that servicing f1 is the reason they exist.

FIA killed F3000 for Bernie's GP2. It's their fault.

Originally Posted by bella

you'd think that a "fia formula 2 by renault" tag wouldn't be too far unacceptable...

I would like that, it would be the most sensible thing to do.

But it should be held on FIA WTCC or WEC rounds, not as the World Series by Renault.

[bella]

sorry, but f3000 was pretty much gone anyway - the car was a complete pain in the backside and relevant to nothing. it was the porsche carrera cup of the single seater racing world. the only merit was that it wasn't a spec series, even if that was how it ended up in its final years. as many faults as gp2 has now, it was a pretty excellent formula in its early days.

[Tucky]

One thing I just thought of is where does this leave driver's such as susie wolff? I don't mean just in terms of potential female drivers, but also people who are full time test drivers instead of competing in other series alongside testing duties?

[NaBUru38]

Balloons, balloons everywhere.

[Mekola]

I think the superlicense matter would be broken somehow with a gentleman driver with loads of cash. The financial needs woulnd't keep this system for much time, considering the financial crissis Formula One has.