GP2 races @ Austria 2014

[skells22]

sorry for the late thread, it time for GP2 to hit a bit of an unknown for the teams as this will be the 1st time the cars have raced around the Red Bull Ring (used to be A1-Ring).

we have Cecotto on pole for todays race with Palmer beside him.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Nasr currently in a completely different league to the others, making an amazing start to lead every moment of the race so far other than 100m or so off the line.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Nasr dominates to take the win. Vandoorne holds off Marciello for 2nd, great drives from them.

[p-matt]

Nasr really has exorcised the demons of Singapore last year. I think this could be the start of a run to the title. He needs to pull out that bit extra to qualifying to grab pole positions though.

[Armco Bender]

Williams must be smiling if they've got Nasr on a contract.

[Armco Bender]

That was another great race,hard to believe how much Ceccotto has changed in a year.

[p-matt]

Yes, another great race today. Good stuff from the Racing Engineerings too. Might suggest that tyre deg will be more of an issue than we thought in the F1 race today

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Cecotto and Nasr are certainly title challengers, but they're going to have to really push (or maybe be conservative, with tyre wear and all that) to catch Palmer.

More good stuff from Marciello and Vandoorne, and I hope that they can continue this sort of form for the rest of the season, because they are certainly 2 of the best in the field.

[Razzzor]

Don't agree on Cecotto. Short of a few races where he ran out of tyres, Mitch Evans basically dominated Cecotto last year in his rookie season. Not by much, so I suppose it wasn't domination, but he was always just ahead, always slightly faster.

What a difference a year makes though - Cecotto now winning multiple races, he wasn't close to winning anything last year in the Arden. I think the difference is he's in a much better car than the Arden. Evans meanwhile could have won a few races last year, really getting the most out of it speed-wise (but failing to get the results still) but this year has really struggled with RT/iSport. Arden meanwhile this year have turned into backmarkers.

[p-matt]

But Cecotto is in a Trident. This is a team that have only finished as high as 7th in the championship before, and back in 2006. I can't see that the team has suddenly made a stride forward, so Cecotto must be making a difference with his experience

[Mekola]

Sad for Regalia... Sad for several reasons... You know folks...

[kotkot]

Experienced drivers make all the difference in GP2. They don't need to spend the pre-season testing and all the practices with learning the car or the track, they already know the setup they want, so they can either make it perfect or they can test the car. That's why I think DAMS would've picked Palmer and Richelmi over Vandoorne, even without any ART-Mclaren connections. An experienced driver is simply worth more than a talent. Cecotto>Evans, even if we all know that would not be true in any other racing series.

The perfect proof is Austria, new track for most of the drivers and teams, they all had to start from zero. Suddenly, Palmer couldn't go better than fifth, the likes of Richelmi/Leal were nowhere but Marciello and Rossi scored their first points, Vandoorne was also there. Experience still mattered, but not as much as it usually does. I expect this to go back to "normal" from Silverstone but we might have a good weekend at Sochi in terms of results.

I'm also starting to suspect new teams are massively helped by the series. Rapax won the series in their first season they have been backmarkers ever since. Trident was sixth in their first season, backmarkers ever since. It looks like the same thing goes for Russian Time and Hilmer even if they have Evans and Abt. I was massively happy for Evans getting a chance in the champion team and Abt in a race-winner team, but probably they would only be able to be regular frontrunners if their teammate is in his 3rd-5th season. Not with Markelov and Regalia. And this makes Evans look like he is not one of the biggest talents of his generation. This is sad.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by kotkot

The perfect proof is Austria, new track for most of the drivers and teams, they all had to start from zero. Suddenly, Palmer couldn't go better than fifth, the likes of Richelmi/Leal were nowhere but Marciello and Rossi scored their first points, Vandoorne was also there. Experience still mattered, but not as much as it usually does. I expect this to go back to "normal" from Silverstone but we might have a good weekend at Sochi in terms of results.

Whilst Felipe Nasr dominated the first race. I still think he deserves a shot in F1, especially when Maldonado, Sutil, Gutierrez and Chilton all have seats.

[p-matt]

I don't think that Palmer *only* being 5th is any sign that he doesn't have the flair of someone arguably more naturally talented. Remember that Vandoorne and Marciello both raced at the Red Bull Ring last year, so that certainly helped.

Why does there continue to be such snobbery over Palmer? Hasn't he more than proved in the last year and a half that he has serious pace, good race craft and an ability to overtake and manage tyres? Aside going back in time and achieving this form sooner, what else does this guy have to do to prove his talent? I'd much rather see him in F1 than some drivers there at the moment.

[cds_uk]

I agree about Palmer, i think he is easily as good as anyone else in GP2 this year, i think last weekend was as much DAMS not getting a handle on the setup as anything else, Palmer 5th or 6th, Richelmi the low end of the top ten, both lower than usual.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by cds_uk

I agree about Palmer, i think he is easily as good as anyone else in GP2 this year

Considering his position in the standings, I'd say he's been the best this season

[ivanalesi]

No question about it, he has been the best and most importantly he has improved a lot. The same can be said about Ceccotto and Leal and even Nasr.
But in F1, you don't have the same car for a number of seasons. In GP2 you have this complicated car and tire combination with the purpose to keep the drivers as long as possible in order to have a big grid, in effect GP2 retains customers for longer which makes it more stable and profitable financially, but this doesn't replicate the situation in F1 or sportscar racing.
You need drivers who adapt fast and so far looking at the classification Vandoorne is the most impressive driver.
Palmer wins the championship, do we expect him to graduate in F1 with i.e. Force India or Williams? Pirelli will help him to be 3rd driver at Lotus or smth and he'll get lost in GT racing or if he's lucky like Leimer end up in LMP1.

[p-matt]

I don't see the F1 cars changing much over the next few years to be honest. The point is that Palmer's competitive in the closest thing possible to F1 performance. And he's done that without the support of an F1 team, unlike Vandoorne, Marciello and Nasr.

Essentially, just because Palmer's taken a bit of time to warm up doesn't mean to say he won't be on it immediately in F1. I could see him slot in at Marussia or Sauber perhaps.

[chunterer]

Yeah he might do better than Chilton, Sutil or Gutierrez in those cars but that's not saying an awful lot about those drivers. I think Chilton's done a fine job and I've never remotely rated him. I suspect he and Palmer would be quite evenly matched.

Back to the weekend and it was a bit of a free for all whilst tyres lasted. Great stuff.

On Sunday Nasr got taken out so we couldn't see if he could go for another win but Cecotto the headcase did a spectaculaly good job to fend off those 3 drivers who hounded him.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Erm, the F1 cars are developing at a really fast rate and that development, whilst it will slow down, will only continue...