FR3.5 2013 Silly Season

[bella]

i think both nato and paul-loup chatin are pretty good. for some reason they've not managed to bring it properly in the eurocup, which is odd considering they've been up against kvyat in alps and kept him honest until the final round. neither of them look at first glance like f1 potential drivers but at this point neither did charles pic really! i was hoping both nato and chatin would be able to build on good first years last season, but neither of them really brought the consistency.

the problem is that vandoorne's been such a class act in the eurocup that everyone else with the exception of kvyat has looked a bit average. i can't quite work out what kvyat was trying to do in the final race though, he seemed to completely lack the judgement and great mentality that vandoorne has. to me, he's better than frijns as an all-round driver.

[Go_For_Pole]

Well, if anyone really knows about the last bit are Josef and Lars Kaufmann. Got to give them credit, lots tested for them last winter yet they picked the right guy... again

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by bella

the problem is that vandoorne's been such a class act in the eurocup that everyone else with the exception of kvyat has looked a bit average. i can't quite work out what kvyat was trying to do in the final race though, he seemed to completely lack the judgement and great mentality that vandoorne has. to me, he's better than frijns as an all-round driver.

Wow, then Vandoorne is going to be an absoluter megastar, Frijns is clearly already devastatingyl quick as it is?!

[bella]

damnit, wrote a long rant and the internet fell over. ffs!

i don't really know how fast vandoorne is ultimately - big cars are different to little ones so it could all change come fr3.5. and kvyat probably had the edge in outright speed on a sunny, clear, warm, dry day. but vandoorne handled the changeable weather situations a lot better, him and his team made better decisions about tyres, and when he made mistakes he did a good job of making up for them that a glance at the results wouldn't suggest he made one in the first place. he had some pretty epic wins as well, so it wasn't just that he was better at racking up points outside of the podium. as for the comment about being better than frijns as an all-round driver - vandoorne is far happier discussing his errors and willing to admit he made a mistake of judgement or what have you. there's something a lot more grounded about his confidence, it couldn't ever be mistaken for arrogance. that for me makes up for the fact that frijns is probably quicker - it certainly will help further along the line. i can't see him ever getting into a situation like the sulk-off between frijns and bianchi.

some might think that vandoorne was lucky to win the title after he went off but for me that race showed why kvyat wasn't quite up to scratch. hopefully red bull will keep hold of him and he'll mature and learn to handle wet conditions in f3. he's obviously a really quick driver but he seems to have quite a few shortcomings at the moment. as you'd expect of an 18 year old, to be fair!

all imo, of course

[Go_For_Pole]

Well, can't say much about Vandoorne since I haven't seen him live but I will say this: Kvyat will have a better career than Sainz, his progression in the ladder is much more sensible.

[bella]

it's only sensible if he learns something. i'm not totally sure his conduct on track says that he has.

[Go_For_Pole]

Remember how we was on his BMW rookie year? Almost crashed on a spinned Lewis in Zandvoort with double yellows

[bella]

who, kvyat? i don't remember back that far, so respect for that alone! to be honest i think i'm trolling really. he's getting there and definitely deserved to win the alps title. but i don't know if it's worth red bull investing in sending him to f3. the other guys they've backed haven't exactly been brilliant (even considering they're in their first year), so maybe they're going to have to!

[Go_For_Pole]

Good point about the other juniors, let's see if they keep them. Very dissapointed with Albon to be honest, not a flash of speed all season or am i missing anything? Ok it's a tough championship for rookies but still..

[bella]

i don't think you've missed anything with albon. de vries did the best job of them all, but i guess it's a bit early to be declaring next big things. at least until they can vote

[bella]

i'm far too lazy to make an extra thread for this, but autosport published their season review and top 10 in today's magazine. it goes thus:

1. frijns
2. da costa
3. bianchi
4. bird
5. sorensen
6. magnussen
7. yelloly
8. rossi
9. muller
10. pic

anyone disagree with that? i'd probably put muller ahead of rossi, and sorensen ahead of bird too. i feel like bianchi warrants more than 3rd too but da costa was epic.

[p-matt]

Personally I'd put da Costa first. What he did was nothing short of extraordinary. He joined a new team that was struggling. He didn't know the car at all. He destroyed Alex Rossi in the same team, and by the end was by far the quickest driver out there in all conditions.

The rest of my top 10 wouldn't be very different to Autosport's.

[bella]

i think the only foot da costa put wrong (bar the epic nurburgring race where he bottled it and came in for wets, but so did almost all the rookies) was being slightly slow to get a handle on qualifying, but that'll come. everything else he did was faultless.

[Go_For_Pole]

My first thought was how come Rossi deserves a place in the top 10?! I guess it's down to the fact that he under-delivered less than Korjus. Still I would rather have Stevens there or even Aleshin for his patience with RFR.

[p-matt]

Rossi did have a lot of bad luck. But it's equally true that he didn't really deliver in quali the same way da Costa did when he got going. Rossi had some great drives this year - podium in Monaco and charges through the field in the pitstop races in Silverstone and Catalunya (I think) spring to mind.

Korjus' shocking season is very hard to explain really. We said at the start of the year that the Bianchi - Korjus lineup at Tech 1 is probably the best out there below F1, but he really didn't deliver, did he?

[bella]

i do wonder exactly how much of a fair go he had at it at tech1, bearing in mind he was the messiah's teammate. he did pick up the pace a bit once he moved to lotus, and he was looking to be on it at barcelona but they couldn't make the cars work in qualifying and in the race. shame.

sticking with lotus, i still think the best lineup for this season was the mighty sorensen/stanaway one - totally different approaches to being fast that largely ended up at the same pace. i really hope they keep the same engineers and the same drivers next season, sorensen deserves a proper crack at the title.

[Stefvh]

From Facebook :

Stoffel Vandoorne
Going to Le Mans tomorrow to prepare the next FR3.5 test later this week :-)

[RF_Racer]

Looking at lap times at the recent Barcelona test, there is nothing much separating the WSR and GP2 cars...In fact the WRS was slightly quicker.

[bella]

lineup for the newbie test at motorland (i think on the 21st?), from italiaracing:

2012 Placing	Driver	Team
1st Eurocup F.Renault	Stoffel Vandoorne	Dams
2nd Eurocup F.Renault	Daniil Kvyat	Arden Caterham
3rd Eurocup F.Renault	Oliver Rowland	P1 Motorsports
2nd F.Renault ALPS	Norman Nato	Tech 1
3rd F.Renault ALPS	Paul Loup Chatin	Comtec
1st F.Renault NEC	Jake Dennis	Lotus
2nd F.Renault NEC	Jordan King	BVM Target
3rd F.3 Euro Series	Raffaele Marciello	Fortec
1st F.3 inglese	Jack Harvey	Carlin
1st F.3 italiana	Riccardo Agostini	Draco
1st F.3 tedesca	Jimmy Eriksson	ISR
1st F.3 Open	Niccolò Schirò	AV Formula
1st F.2	Luciano Bacheta	Pons

as the same site points out, both gp2 and fr3.5 have tests in spain on the 22nd and 23rd november with 3.5 testing on the 21st too which is massively daft.

[Alex K]

Read that article on Italiaracing.net, sorry @bella common GP2 and FR3.5S test wouldn't work, not with 50 drivers on track. Recon to many red flags and not enough track time.

[bella]

i don't think anyone's suggesting that, even if it would be really interesting to see in theory but they shouldn't be testing at the same time, drivers should be able to do both if that's what they want and can afford because both have relatively limited test time. it's counter productive for both. that's the point the italians are making and for once i wholly agree with them.

[chunterer]

Agreed, that's just unbelievably stupid planning in the current climate!!

[W.A Trichlorostyrene]

Full Aragon test line-up: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A8NgWf-CMAAo8Uk.jpg:large

Esteban Guerrieri coming straight from the US to test for 2 full days with ISR. Not sure what to make of this.

[bella]

seems very straightforward to me - they're trying to sort the car out... or prove a point.

[W.A Trichlorostyrene]

Originally Posted by bella

seems very straightforward to me - they're trying to sort the car out... or prove a point.

Yea. Probably.

This is what Esteban's press release appears to say, too(last paragraph): http://www.estebanguerrieri.com/noti...6#.UKzSoobcgnw