Renault World Series 2009 (Off season/General thread)

[Sev]

I'm continuing this discussion at http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111321 because this doesn't seem the place for it.

[chunterer]

Sensible idea sev, totally agree.

[WSR Fan]

The second test of the winter kicks off at Valencia tomorrow and Italiaracing.net have published a list of the runners and riders who will be in action. I'm especially looking forward to seeing how Mortara and Ebbesvik get on, as well as Piscopo, who has his prize Ferrari F1 test on Wednesday before flying to Valencia.

Wednesday 26th November

Tech 1
Charles Pic - TBA
Draco
Claudio Cantelli - Marco Barba
Carlin
Oliver Turvey - TBA
Epsilon
Pasquale Di Sabatino - Jake Rosenzweig
Prema
Rodolfo Gonzalez - Omar Leal
RC Motorsport
Andy Soucek - Stefano Coletti
Pons
Federico Leo - Marcos Martinez
KTR
Siso Cunill - Miguel Molina
Interwetten
Tobias Hegewald - TBA
P1 Motorsport
Daniil Move - James Walker
Fortec
Sten Pentus - Mihai Marinescu
Comtec
Max Chilton - Christian Ebbesvik
Ultimate/Signature
Edoardo Mortara - Greg Mansell

Thursday 27th November

Tech 1
Charles Pic - Rodolfo Gonzalez
Draco
Claudio Cantelli - Edoardo Piscopo
Carlin
Oliver Turvey - TBA
Epsilon
Pasquale Di Sabatino - Jake Rosenzweig
Prema
Alexandre Marsoin - Omar Leal
RC Motorsport
Andy Soucek - Federico Leo
Pons
Claudio Cantelli - Marcos Martinez
KTR
Siso Cunill - TBA
Interwetten
Tobias Hegewald - TBA
P1 Motorsport
Daniil Move - James Walker
Fortec
Sten Pentus - Christian Ebbesvik
Comtec
Max Chilton - Anton Nebilitskyi
Ultimate/Signature
Edoardo Mortara - Greg Mansell

[chunterer]

Hegewald??!!

I thought he was throwing his eggs towards an F3 basket?

Interesting....

[strider]

Thanks for the list, WSR fan, very interesting reading.

Mortara should go well as Ultimate have pretty much established themselves to be a/the top team with wins by both Carbone and Guerrieri last season. Wonder what will happen to those two, incidentally, GP2?

[N.A-D.R]

Thats a pretty strong field there.

[WSR Fan]

Day One, Morning Times:

1 - James Walker - P1 - 1'22"319 - 58 Laps
2 - Charles Pic - Tech 1 - 1'22"453 - 42
3 - Andy Soucek - RC - 1'22"608 - 30
4 - Miguel Molina - KTR - 1'22"719 - 44
5 - Alexandre Marsoin - Tech 1 - 1'22"883 - 59
6 - Marcos Martinez - Pons - 1'22"936 - 56
7 - Edoardo Mortara - Ultimate/Signature - 1'22"936 - 65
8 - Jaime Alguersuari - Carlin - 1'22"976 - 52
9 - Stefano Coletti - RC - 1'23"064 - 55
10 - Daniil Move - P1 - 1'23"154 - 63
11 - Claudio Cantelli - Draco - 1'23"177 - 55
12 - Siso Cunill - KTR - 1'23"260 - 50
13 - Marco Barba - Draco - 1'23"299 - 39
14 - Greg Mansell - Ultimate/Signature - 1'23"384 - 75
15 - Jake Rosenzweig - Epsilon - 1'23"506 - 65
16 - Tobias Hegewald - Interwetten - 1'23"786 - 56
17 - Federico Leo - Pons - 1'24"023 - 56
18 - Christian Ebbesvik - Comtec - 1'24"073 - 59
19 - Oliver Turvey - Carlin - 1'24"150 - 48
20 - Mihai Marinescu - Fortec - 1'24"854 - 49
21 - Sten Pentus - Fortec - 1'25"018 - 62
22 - Pasquale Di Sabatino - Epsilon - 1'25"161 - 43
23 - Rodolfo Gonzalez - Prema - 1'25"185 - 58
24 - Omar Leal - Prema - 1'25"248 - 41
25 - Max Chilton - Comtec - 1'25"267 - 54

Originally Posted by N.A-D.R

Thats a pretty strong field there.

Yes, it's looking quite promising for next year at the moment. If we ended up with a grid containing the likes of Pic, Alguersuari, Turvey, Molina, Mortara, Ebbesvik etc. I'd be very happy indeed!

[OJB]

This isn't very new news, but Prema have signed Omar Leal for WSR next season.

[WSR Fan]

Bertrand Baguette re-signs with Draco for 2009..

http://www.dracoracing.com/eng/news_det.asp?news_id=444

I'm a little bit surprised about this, given the fact that he has spent much of the winter testing a variety of different cars (GP2, DTM and most recently the Pescarolo LMP1 prototype). Being with Draco again gives him that all-important continuity and as a result he has to be considered as one of the title favourites for '09.

So far, I make that three confirmed drivers for next year (Baguette/Marco Barba at Draco and Leal at Prema) with Pic almost certain to stay at Tech 1 and Alguersuari likely to join Carlin.

[Go_For_Pole]

sportmotores claims that Alguersuari is definatelly in at Carlin, they should know better I suppose.

[runshaw]

James Walker says he will definately be in the series next year, and I assume he will chose P1 considering he has been right on the pace recently. He should be consistently in the top 6 next year.

[Go_For_Pole]

at long last, WSR back to Eurosport

[jondownunder]

Fantastic news, the next best thing after they lost GP2.

[Alex K]

This is a great boost for them, bring it on. Of_topic. I don't know if you knew but you could have watched FR3.5 on italiaracing.net, it wasn't the best coverage lolz, but you could.

[bella]

the videos went up about a week after the races if i remember rightly. it was better than nothing

[WSR Fan]

Great news about the Eurosport coverage. I know that Gareth Rees has cut back on his commentary duties, but hopefully Martin Haven will be covering it instead.

Another bit of interesting news to come out in the last 48 hours is Draco Racing linking up with Force India to become their official junior team:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72571

[gomick]

that is good news. hopefully the force india $$$ are in motorsport for a few years to come...

[Fernando_S]

Does anyone know about Ultimate Signature ´09 driver lineup? There were several drivers testing, but I hope Guerrieri could keep his seat.

[OJB]

There are quite a few people in the frame for those Ultimate seats, I think. My guess would be Guerrieri as he'd be a title contender and maybe Greg Mansell, as he seems to have a close relationship with the team.

Reckon they will want at least one British driver this year as they doing a driver scheme now, aren't they? James Walker is another one, although he seems to be leading more towards P1.

In other news, Anton Nebylitskiy is going to race for Comtec this year. For reference, he is 19 and raced for SG in Formula Renault last year (Eurocup and WEC), with one podium to his name. Seemed fairly useful in testing, but I'd be surprised if he is a front runner.

[WSR Fan]

I'd pretty much agree with all of those points, OJB. And according to Martin Donnelly, it sounds as though Nebylitskiy is on a two-year deal at Comtec.

The driver market in WSR is hard to predict at the best of times, but after some searching around, I've come up with a rough guide as to who goes where in 2009:

Tech 1 Racing - Pic, Marsoin, Panciatici
Ultimate Signature - Mansell, Guerrieri, Walker, Mortara,Texeira
P1 Motorsport - Grubmuller, Walker, Move
Prema Powerteam - Leal, Van der Zande, Cantelli, Gonzalez
Carlin Motorsport - Alguersuari, Turvey
Draco Racing - Baguette, M Barba
Interwetten.com -
Comtec Racing - Nebilitskiy, Schlegelmilch, Ebbesvik, R Christodoulou
Fortec Motorsport - R Christodoulou, A Christodoulou, Ebbesvik, Pentus
Epsilon Euskadi - Molina, Clos, di Sabatino, Rosenzweig
Pons Racing - Martinez, Leo, Cantelli
KTR - Cunill, Molina, Pentus
RC Motorsport - di Sabatino, Coletti, Leo

Confirmed
Likely
Possible
Outside Chance

[runshaw]

Originally Posted by runshaw

James Walker says he will definately be in the series next year, and I assume he will chose P1 considering he has been right on the pace recently.

And this is now confirmed. He has signed for P1.

[OJB]

I'm glad he has found a seat (and a good one at that) as I wasn't convinced his 2 seasons in WSbR so far have been impressive enough for a third attempt. Guess it's title or nothing now, though.

[runshaw]

I'm glad he has found a top seat, so far he has had Fortec's best results in the World Series by far, and even made them race winners in their debut year. Richard Phillipe, Yelmer Buurman and Fairuz Fauzy never made it onto the podium. He almost won the last race of 2008 too, but finished 2nd. He was also leading at Le Mans but his tyre blew with 10 laps remaining.

I think he has a lot of raw speed, but has lacked consistency in his career so far (maybe due to the fact he did NO karting). This year is make or break though as you say OJB. He is with the champion team and is already a race winner in the World Series, Superleague Formula and British F3.

[Alex K]

I will argue with you, it seems to me he is 1 of the best backed British racing drivers, former BF3 champ, FR3.5 winner. FR3.5 is just so, so competitive, there is no one , or even two dominant teams, it's about consistancy. Look what happened to Comtec year after, look what happened to Epsilon year after, etc. If it's not Walker's year, and he'll keep his sponsorship contracts he can still revive his career in GP2 in 2010 or move to IndyCar/Indy Lights scene. Wish him all the best anywayz.

I still think, even though vd Garde won the Championship last year that P1 does not belong to the top teams of FR3.5, vd Garde's gr8ness made them winners.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

James Walker isn't an F3 champion is he.