FR3.5 Barcelona

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Surprised this thread hasn't been started yet!

Magnussen has basically got this one. He is the perfect driver right now, and deserves a F1 drive for next season. Qually result below. The Dane has got pole no.7 of the season, whilst the Will's had a good one. Vandoorne in 4th, da Costa will never get above 3rd in the standings with a 10th.

Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap
1. Kevin Magnussen DAMS 1m29.618s
2. Will Stevens P1/Strakka 1m29.725s +0.107s
3. William Buller Zeta 1m29.885s +0.267s
4. Stoffel Vandoorne Fortec 1m29.932s +0.314s
5. Marco Sorensen Lotus 1m29.961s +0.343s
6. Sergey Sirotkin ISR 1m29.981s +0.363s
7. Nigel Melker Tech 1 1m30.020s +0.402s
8. Carlos Sainz Jr Zeta 1m30.034s +0.416s
9. Norman Nato DAMS 1m30.078s +0.460s
10. Antonio Felix da Costa Arden Caterham 1m30.208s +0.590s
11. Nico Muller Draco 1m30.306s +0.688s
12. Mikhail Aleshin Tech 1 1m30.333s +0.715s
13. Marlon Stockinger Lotus 1m30.358s +0.740s
14. Arthur Pic AV 1m30.381s +0.763s
15. Matias Laine P1/Strakka 1m30.599s +0.981s
16. Christopher Zanella ISR 1m30.601s +0.983s
17. Andre Negrao Draco 1m30.662s +1.044s
18. Oliver Webb Fortec 1m30.675s +1.057s
19. Nikolay Martsenko Pons 1m30.783s +1.165s
20. Zoel Amberg Pons 1m30.799s +1.181s
21. Daniil Move SMP/Comtec 1m30.812s +1.194s
22. Lucas Foresti SMP/Comtec 1m30.868s +1.250s
23. Pietro Fantin Arden Caterham 1m30.907s +1.289s
24. Yann Cunha AV 1m31.126s +1.508s
25. Carlos Huertas Carlin 1m31.185s +1.567s

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Magnussen wins and takes the title with that victory. Now he surely needs to get an F1 drive.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Magnussen on pole again. Hilarious to see how little people care...

[p-matt]

Not much to say really. Magnussen demonstrated he was as complete as ever. Stevens did well to get a double podium. The racing was pretty dull. That's it.

[bella]

i was busy at the circuit, sorry

another faultless weekend for magnussen and dams. makes you wonder why nato has been so quiet this year really. agree about stevens having a great weekend too, but i think the difference between him and muller is that nico is becoming adept at being in the right place at the right time. stevens is quicker when he's on his game, but it hasn't been enough to get a win. bearing in mind the up and down season da costa has had, it's fairly impressive that he's managed to wring a 3rd place out of it.

it's difficult to know what to say about vandoorne isn't it?

[ace007]

Originally Posted by bella

i was busy at the circuit, sorry

another faultless weekend for magnussen and dams. makes you wonder why nato has been so quiet this year really. agree about stevens having a great weekend too, but i think the difference between him and muller is that nico is becoming adept at being in the right place at the right time. stevens is quicker when he's on his game, but it hasn't been enough to get a win. bearing in mind the up and down season da costa has had, it's fairly impressive that he's managed to wring a 3rd place out of it.

it's difficult to know what to say about vandoorne isn't it?

Superb season from Magnussen. Nothing to add. The combination with DAMS was unique. I am looking forward to watching him in F1, sooner hopefully rather than later.

As for Vandorne, another year to get the title is no shame. He needs to get the extra qualy pace. Shouldnt be far from the tile next year...

And, as you expect, I am disappointed - and sadly indeed not surprised - by da Costa who should have shown more when an F1 seat is so near. Maybe you can not win for many reasons but you can certainly play closer than that...

To focus on the positive, my simple congrats to Magnussen for a well deserved title.

[bella]

i think you've got a point *to a point* with your handbagging of da costa, but you're not applying the rules that you insist we judge sam bird by to him. you insist that we need to know the full story, and yet without knowing the full story you're happy to go for da costa.

to me it seems like a complete no-brainer to place vandoorne at dams in 3.5 next season. i appreciate the "but then he HAS to win" point, but wouldn't that be the case in gp2? i mean, "people" (never sure who that means) are going to write him off no matter what if he doesn't win whatever it is next year. neither vergne nor ricciardo ever won the 3.5 title, regardless of how long they had to try, and that was almost immediately forgotten as soon as they started a f1 race.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by bella

i think you've got a point *to a point* with your handbagging of da costa, but you're not applying the rules that you insist we judge sam bird by to him. you insist that we need to know the full story, and yet without knowing the full story you're happy to go for da costa.

to me it seems like a complete no-brainer to place vandoorne at dams in 3.5 next season. i appreciate the "but then he HAS to win" point, but wouldn't that be the case in gp2? i mean, "people" (never sure who that means) are going to write him off no matter what if he doesn't win whatever it is next year. neither vergne nor ricciardo ever won the 3.5 title, regardless of how long they had to try, and that was almost immediately forgotten as soon as they started a f1 race.

Neither did Vettel, and it's pretty obvious where he is in his career

[chunterer]

My views from the 2 races!

Kevin M in a class of his own, again. It is breathtaking when man and machine work so well in harmony (as it is apparent with Vettel in F1 it seems!).

Vandoorne was much closer again after his mid season dip (him or team?), but he has looked and driven frustrated in the last few races it seems to me?

He will surely be the main man if he remains in the Formula next season, and as bella rightly says he should be the DAMS no 1 surely?

Stevens looked more at home, and he has got better and better as the season progressed.

Disappointed in Da Costa, but I have been one of those who has never really rated him as a megastar, just my gut feeling, that's all. He did put up a couple of tigerish drives last weekend, particularly on Sunday to recover from that elbowing off round T2. But I wouldn't like to see him disappear, hopefully he can find the support for another tilt in 2015, when all the cards fall in the right order for him?

Sainz looked ok but his car was all over the place early in Sunday's race. Are we all pretty sure he's doing the full season with RB next season?

Muller has impressed me, he could be a driver to watch but then other guys who should've done well judging by their pace at times like Sirotkin, Pic and Melker, and even maybe guys like Zanella were never consistent. How much is that down to their relative skills or inexperience, or their respective teams abilities to get the best out of the cars?

[Down F0rce]

The racing wasn´t spectacular this weekend, but I still enjoyed being in sunny Spain! I´m told I even got on TV at one point. Awesome.

Great for Magnussen, faultless all weekend. Formula One beckons...

Vandoorne needs another season. Taking Magnussen´s seat at DAMS would be a great move for him. He needs to win the title next year if there is any hope for F1, such is the nature of the beast these days.

Not sure what next for AFC. His short 2012 season built him up to be a superstar, which he didn´t deliver this year. And now he´s lost the Toro Rosso drive to some Russian bloke no one has ever heard of. What next? DAMS? Red Bull youngster scrapheap? GP2?

Fun weekend all in all for me, WRC this weekend!

[bella]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Stevens looked more at home, and he has got better and better as the season progressed.

he has a *lot* of race pace. i just felt like there was a consistency missing from either him or the team, it's difficult to say who was the source of it. but when he's on it, a podium is almost inevitable.

Originally Posted by chunterer

Sainz looked ok but his car was all over the place early in Sunday's race. Are we all pretty sure he's doing the full season with RB next season?

i don't think it's confirmed, nor with which team but i'd like to see red bull place him with a tech1 or dams type team. sometimes, you wonder whether da costa's season would have been any different if he'd been at one of the teams vergne or ricciardo were placed with.

Originally Posted by chunterer

Muller has impressed me, he could be a driver to watch but then other guys who should've done well judging by their pace at times like Sirotkin, Pic and Melker, and even maybe guys like Zanella were never consistent. How much is that down to their relative skills or inexperience, or their respective teams abilities to get the best out of the cars?

good question. i mean, would melker improve in 2014 in the same way muller did this season over last? if muller didn't have an opportunity elsewhere, would he be able to get a good enough deal from one of the front running 3.5 teams to have a serious shot at the title next year?

i'm not sure pic has improved at all on his previous seasons. *personally* i think sirotkin needs a really strong, old school engineer and a really decent driver coach, and another season. i'd like to see buller in the 2014 field based on his performances so far, he has kept sainz very honest...

[chunterer]

Sorensen would surely benefit from a more consistently set up car as well.

Maybe it'll be between him and Stoffel for the DAMS seat alongside Nato.

Oh hang on... this is silly season thread stuff!!

Sorry!

Buller looks like a real old school sleeves rolled up driver. But like Sainz then?! We like those sorts of pedallers!

[bella]

nah, we're reviewing the year

i don't know where this season leaves sorensen. his engineers are a+ (and the same as he had last year), and he's clearly really quick but he did have a lot of mechanical troubles which makes you wonder about money, team procedure... all that sort of thing. lotus would be silly to give up on him though. his performances at the red bull ring were magnussen-esque.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by bella

nah, we're reviewing the year

i don't know where this season leaves sorensen. his engineers are a+ (and the same as he had last year), and he's clearly really quick but he did have a lot of mechanical troubles which makes you wonder about money, team procedure... all that sort of thing. lotus would be silly to give up on him though. his performances at the red bull ring were magnussen-esque.

Yes he was stunning there, a reminder of what he is capable of. His consistency on Sunday to eke out the tyres as long as he could, also a clear sign that he has it. But is that enough to persuade money men to keep bankrolling him?

We need to see him and AFDC in the series (or similar, ugh..) next season. They are too good to be lost to top level single seaters, certainly up against some of the dross we witness tooling about every other weekend!

Who else should we single out for analysis?

[bella]

norman nato is a bit confusing. he's obviously no slouch but it's been a bit of a quiet season. were dams uber-focussed on magnussen, first year issues or is he just not as quick as we thought?

[ivanalesi]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Kevin M in a class of his own, again. It is breathtaking when man and machine work so well in harmony (as it is apparent with Vettel in F1 it seems!).

Precisely! Beautiful art.

I don't know why Vandoorne should move to DAMS from Fortec, they're both great teams. If there were tensions at the end of this year, then OK, but if he stays he'll only get stronger.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by bella

norman nato is a bit confusing. he's obviously no slouch but it's been a bit of a quiet season. were dams uber-focussed on magnussen, first year issues or is he just not as quick as we thought?

Good one!

He was quick straight out of the box at Motorland, and often qualified ok, but seemingly struggled as the season wore on.

Maybe it was partly because it has been incredibly tough in the series this year because of the depth of talent, so the newbies were really up against it?

Mind you, Vandoorne was one of the title challengers so that might suggest there isn't great weight to this theory!

I wonder that should Gravity want Sorensen in a new team to see how he copes, or if Red Bull pay for Sainz to go there, whether DAMS will actually retain Nato?

[p-matt]

Didn't Felipe Nasr say last year that the DAMS GP2 team but all their eggs in Valsecchi to win the title that they couldn't focus on his car as much. Perhaps it's the same with Nato.

The trouble with Vandoorne is how can we be sure that he didn't do what Korjus did in his first year in 3.5, and that he won't utterly flop in year 2 like Kevin did. I could see him being underwhelming equally as much as him winning the title next year.

[bella]

vandoorne won't be underwhelming as long as they pick the right team for him and can pony up a decent budget to ensure the thing is reliable. if they gamble or try and do it on a lower budget than it needs then it'll go wrong.

regarding nasr's comment, iirc magnussen made a similar one about carlin at the end of the season last year, so evidently it's swings and roundabouts. this time it went in his favour...