World Series by Reanult Formula 3.5 R01 Alcaniz 2015

[p-matt]

Some pretty ugly driving from de Vries today - slowing the pace too much on the safety car restart, and then what looked like a deliberate side swipe at Vaxiviere when he passed. I would be amazed if he escapes without a penalty.

[codename_47]

.I don't think it was deliberate, just surprise when he saw the lotus on the outside of him and floored the throttle trying to get his usual great run off the corner .
In a puddle
luckily there are no penalties as a result of that. Investigating that hard racing was bad enough.

Surprised no one tried slicks at the very end of the pit window though. The track looked more than ready for them

Amazing last corner pass though. that's what we watch Motorsport for!
Stick your strategies and your pitstops and your undercuts, let's have 2 drivers going hard into the final few corners and see who comes out on top

[tux]

Martin Kodrics crash in the 2.0 race was scary, so glad it wasn't worse than it could have been, stupid error from him though.

[chunterer]

2 good races overall.

However some strange performances from some and some serious work to do for others!

De Vries was desperate in that side swipe on Vaxiviere who clearly was extremely keen to pinch that win to make up for the Saturday cock up!

He is definitely going to be Rowland's main challenger for the title but I think others will be in the frame as well judging by their pace.

Merhi had a shocker, clearly something amiss with his set up but his defensive skills on Saturday were brilliant it has to be said!

Stoneman played himself in nicely but will be annoyed for the error whilst he was pressing Vaxiviere on Sunday. He will be up there all season and is my dark horse for the title.

[bella]

Originally Posted by codename_47

Surprised no one tried slicks at the very end of the pit window though. The track looked more than ready for them

they'd have lost too much time - you can only change two tyres at once in 3.5. the last guys to come in were at the pointy end, so they probably had more to lose than gain from doing that. it did dry up incredibly quickly - the air temp was in the late teens which helped. it was definitely close to being an option though, if they hadn't tried to start the race under the safety car before the rain got heavier and wasted time there it would have been worth a punt.

it appeared from the trackside replays that there was contact mid-corner between de vries and vaxiviere before de vries, er, drove into him. it's also not particularly clear how much space vaxiviere left de vries, though the latter said he'd overheated his tyres after caning it in the early part of the race, and with that in mind it was probably inevitable that a passing move wasn't going to be clean. great move by vaxiviere - i wonder if his experience in endurance has given him a bit of an edge in tyre management?

merhi definitely was a long way short of where he should be, even if the team has struggled in the past few seasons. his presence brought in the fans though and he was very popular with the locals which is definitely a good thing. the crowd numbers were down on previous years though which is continuing a bit of a trend they're either content with (it's gotta be cheaper for someone, and there's visibly been cost-cutting in the event side over the past few years), or aren't concerned with given the good tv availability.

rowland's just getting those points in the bag isn't he? sensible stuff. motorland isn't usually representative of the season as a whole so i would be sceptical of taking any of what we've seen as a solid guide to the title battle. for some reason i don't see vaxiviere as having the consistent pace to be at the front - lotus/charouz have always had strong pace at motorland.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by bella

merhi definitely was a long way short of where he should be, even if the team has struggled in the past few seasons. his presence brought in the fans though and he was very popular with the locals which is definitely a good thing. the crowd numbers were down on previous years though which is continuing a bit of a trend they're either content with (it's gotta be cheaper for someone, and there's visibly been cost-cutting in the event side over the past few years), or aren't concerned with given the good tv availability.

rowland's just getting those points in the bag isn't he? sensible stuff. motorland isn't usually representative of the season as a whole so i would be sceptical of taking any of what we've seen as a solid guide to the title battle. for some reason i don't see vaxiviere as having the consistent pace to be at the front - lotus/charouz have always had strong pace at motorland.

Merhi's sitch was definitely not a true picture, regardless of his missing endplate on Saturday...

However, I am surprised that Stevens is pumping him so easily in the Manor. But then they can probably only afford to properly set up one car at the moment!

Re Vaxiviere, he showed enough glimpses when he returned from his injury last year for me to think it was just more track time he needed to get up front.

The team he is with has been very hit and miss in the last couple of years but maybe that is going to be different. He seemed to give up a bit on Saturday but was well fired up on Sunday..

DAMS may still be the outfit to beat but with 2 new drivers maybe that will give their closest competition in the engineering stakes who are running returning drivers a real chance?

All Rowland needs to be is more consistent than last year tbh, he has the pace and now he has the car knowledge at all the tracks so I would guess that if he doesn't win a race he will top 4 it (or non finish).

Another guy who caught my eye was Celis Jnr... be interesting to see if he can keep up his strong race pace throughout the year.

Malja will also figure strongly. He qualified front row for Saturday before getting the penalty. He was charging in both races though. Definitely some ability there....

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Nobody's mentioned van Buuren really, he drove well imo! Yes, he's not shown a lot of promise before, but if Malja and Celis Jr are being mentioned, why not? He won a race on the road, and got two comfortable top 10s. If Vaxiviere stays at the sharp end then I expect he'll be there too.

[WSR Fan]

With Celis Jr. I just wonder how he'll cope/manage switching between FR3.5 and GP3 over the course of the season. I suppose it just varies between drivers, some will inevitability find it easier than others - it didn't seem to be too much of a problem for Vaxiviere last season who during September, for example, had a WEC race in Austin sandwiched between the Hungarian and French FR3.5 rounds!

Malja is an interesting one - as they said in commentary at the weekend, people may look at his Eurocup results and think he's just another journeyman, but it's easy to forget he finished runner-up in ADAC Formel Masters (at just 16 years and 10 months old!) and has six podiums, including a couple of wins, from his time in FR2.0 NEC. Although he's not a member of their official junior team, he is part of McLaren's 'Driver Performance Academy' and was named their driver of the year for 2014.

With the likes of Malja, Rosenqvist, Jimmy Eriksson and Marcus Ericsson, it's nice to see Swedish motorsport doing so well at the moment.