Formula Renault and Donington Festival weekend

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by Mathias

Great day's qualifying, despite the ****-poor weather!

Anyone know where any easily printoffable results are? MST say "info not available yet" and renault-sport.com is just really **** to use.

MST didn't do the timing and scoring at Donington (more's the pity).

[jondownunder]

Great weekend, despite the Saturday weather. My first trip to Donington and I was quite impressed with the choice of viewing areas. Though being a GP spec track you don't get quite as close to the action as somewhere like Castle Combe or Thruxton.

Does anyone know who was driving this 2-seater? And I'm sure it's the old Renault V6 chassis, but it looked and sounded quicker/more powerful than I got the impression those were... different engine??

[chunterer]

Yeah it was good stuff. That picture must've been taken from just in front of where my lot were sitting!

Decided to park up on the bank at Starkey's as hadn't spectated there since about '94. Couple of mates turned up lot later than us - about 10ish and they said that it was fairly packed , they hadn't been able to drive round to us so had to park outside paddock entrance gates and walk down to us...ouch!!

From my view the spectators were several rows deep on outside of Redgate and there were a lot of people opposite on inside of old hairpin.

First time i'd seen the WS cars in the flesh as it were. My impressions are that it's a top line series with a good mix of up and coming drivers (ok some have been around for a while) and the cars are big, well noisy and quick, which is good for attracting teams, drivers, sponsors and fans.

How come there haven't been many separate threads on this championship, especially when there's been so much controversy and scrapping during the year?

Maldonado is a 'head case' but i have a feeling that if Renault continue his backing for a second season (possibly they won't?? what do we all think???) next year he could go a long way as he is feisty and quick. Valles looks pretty useful too and Winklehock drove an ace second race. I was disappointed with Dirani's debut, but then the cars must be fairly tought to master straight away? Carbone drove 2 excellent races from well down the grid and i still think that he is a top driver and has a lot to offer, even though Renault dropped him from their scholarship.

Definitely a good championship with some decent drivers.

[runshaw]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Maldonado is a 'head case' but i have a feeling that if Renault continue his backing for a second season (possibly they won't?? what do we all think???) next year he could go a long way as he is feisty and quick.

Yes he is very quick, and even put in an impressive test time for Minardi at the end of last year when he was just 19. But I have been wondering if Renault will drop him as well, his mistake at Monaco was very serious, and he completely made a mess of the second race when he may have been able to win. Trouble is, is that he has been banned from Monaco for life- this may be a very big obstacle to him in the future.

[Kicking-back]

Originally Posted by runshaw

Trouble is, is that he has been banned from Monaco for life- this may be a very big obstacle to him in the future.

The initial reports were incorrect, as I recall.

He has not been banned from Monaco.

[jondownunder]

Just remembered: What on earth was Tomas Kostka doing at the restart in race 1? The top 8 were crossing the startline and Kostka was totally asleep, not even into Goddards, meaning there was instantly a gap of about 7 seconds between the leader and the pack Kostka was holding up. Totally inexcusable and beyond comprehension... You should always prepare for the safety car coming in sooner than you'd expect.

[runshaw]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

Just remembered: What on earth was Tomas Kostka doing at the restart in race 1? The top 8 were crossing the startline and Kostka was totally asleep, not even into Goddards, meaning there was instantly a gap of about 7 seconds between the leader and the pack Kostka was holding up. Totally inexcusable and beyond comprehension... You should always prepare for the safety car coming in sooner than you'd expect.

Yes, it was very weird seeing such a massive gap when they should have all been bunched up. How can he possibly get it so wrong! The gap to the leaders was so big that you think he would have thought 'I need to hurry up.' Unbelievable that he did that, I bet the guys behind him were far from impressed. Mind you, Maldonado spinning whilst leading behind the safety car is also inexcusable!

[maximus]

It was a great weekend, except for the terrible weather on Saturday that threatened to ruin my tent! (I wasn't that impressed with the camp site either but thats another story)

There was some great racing, the meganes looked and sounded fantastic, IMO the best races of the weekend and the WSR Renaults were also amazing, they sound beautiful. I enjoyed the classic F1 car going round too, sounded beautiful, and Frank Montagony trying to see just how fast he could go was incredible (interesting to hear the traction control kicking in on the kraner curves too!) Shame that Arnoux binned it on Saturday at Coppice! DOH!!

What I enjoyed the most though was the open paddock. I loved being able to watch everyone working on their cars, starting them up to clear the engines out (the Meganes especially!) and asking the mechanics questions and complimenting their cars. I really enjoyed the access and the fact it was free made it even better!

The car parks weren't too bad either, they were well organised and I got out of Donington in 20 minutes, which isn't bad considering it was the busiest I have ever seen it!

The only disappointment for me was the camp site and the Clios, even though I saw some good moves. The track was a bit too long for them and it got boring after so long when waiting for them to come round again.