F1RMGP 2015: The Fifth (season) and the Fury

[dinizintheoven]

Here's a further thought. Why doesn't Some Hopelessly Inaccurate Tabloid report here?

[DemocalypseNow]

Here's a further thought. Why doesn't Some Hopelessly Inaccurate Tabloid report here?

Not enough sex scandals - the men and women are segregated in F1RMGP!

[SuperAguri]

Dome to appoint Ukyou Katayama as team principal.
After performing miracles with the womens team in the few races he has been running the team, it is strongly rumoured that Ukyou Katayama will be brought into the Dome team to kick some arses and improve the car as he did with the womens team. However no one at Dome was available to comment.

Yuji Ide - This is my season
Yuji Ide spoke to us after his podium at the Hungarian GP and told us that he can smell the championship, he said "We are so close to winning this, Viking are more thinking about settling down and Tarquini is not a threat and we will lead within two races.", Ide also pointed out that 2+0+1+5=8 which is a lucky number in Japan. Aguri Suzuki added "Failure is not an option and I have placed a cancelable order for a load of Tantou blades if we do fail. This will keep the drivers and engineers on their toes.".

Daihatsu working on another engine.
Ever desperate Daihatsu have announced yet another engine for the 2016 season, although the engine is code named F1RMGP-3V8 there is not much known about the engine apart from it being a V8.

STOP PRESS!
Another rumour hit us before we went to press in that Ukyou Katayama may be announced as principal as early as next week and that Keiko Ihara being more successful then the men might be be drafted in to do the last 6 races in place of Alex Yoong, who has been in the words of dome "A major disappointment".

[FMecha]

For the record, I was going to say Hungarian GP - not Belgian, Diniz. So it should read:

Rumor is that, Danny Bahar, having betraying Ai the Witch from Psycho Soldiers WEC team, along with Bahar's new co-worker, Ms. Captain Nightmare, has rigged the Dome's car fuels with the cursed Jagermeister, causing them to fail to qualify in the Hungarian GP.

Stay tuned.

Another more serious report, as reported by J.O.U.R.N.A.L. is that Luca Pacchiarini is spotted talking with Enoch Law - will F1RM use the new Coswojuddhartlambo engine? Reportedly, a turbocharger has been shoehorned into the new engine to comply with the new regulations.

[dinizintheoven]

Gazzetta dello Signor Brundell

The teams have arrived at Monza for a horsepower shootout, though presumably a bit of driver skill will be involved as well. And there are a few stories floating around that need to be confirmed or squashed...

Apicella quits Dome...
It's all gone wrong for he whose Formula One career spanned one corner. Dome have been getting worse and worse this year, some would say due to Honda throwing all the engine development parts at Super Aguri to keep them in the title hunt, others would say there's been some catastrophic mismanagement going on at Japan's third team, especially after Leyton House came screaming in last year (oddly, their fortunes have been on the wane this year as well). Marco Apicella is the casualty - treated by the others with ignominy after his indiscretions at Anderstorp, his return to the Dome drive hasn't been stellar, and he is on the way elsewhere to try and revive his career, especially with Dome sliding into pre-qualifying which will be a huge hurdle to overcome. Meanwhile, Dome are taking on Domenico Schiattarella for the remainder of the season, which is pretty much an indication that they have given up on this year and are just counting down the days until it all ends...

...and turns up at Hispania!
Out of the frying pan, into... well, who knows. The Hispania CH115 has, at the hands of a hairy icelander, been proven to be capable of a stellar performance. Unfortunately, in the hands of its current drivers, it's never made it to a race, with Norberto Fontana taking it to Friday qualifying twice only to fall at that stage both times. With Sakon Yamamoto bringing much-needed sponsorship to the team, they have been forced to ditch Fontana despite being the better-performing driver, because within minutes of Marco Apicella entering the driver market they seized on the opportunity to sign him, in the hope that he might just be able to wrench a result or two out of the remainder of the season. After all, they say, it's just worked for Pacific...

HWNSNBM to stay at Pacific for a while
Twice the series champion before his self-imposed retirement to run the F1RM team from upstairs, HWNSNBM has decided his foray back into the race seat is worth continuing with, and has agreed to race three more times for Pacific, i.e. until the end of the European season. The last three races will see the number 18 car driven by "a mystery driver who has long been linked to a drive in this series without ever actually making it"... Keith Wiggins will not be pressed on who it is, but invites the rumour mill to start rolling.

HWNSNBM's regular team have their engine for 2016 sorted out
...but they won't say who it is until after the Bathurst Enduro. Apparently, though, they have never heard of Luca Pacchiarini.

[DemocalypseNow]

Lancia confirms engine format for 2016 F1RMGP

Lancia have announced they will switch to a new V6 Turbo engine from next season in F1RMGP. The switch comes after rule changes have banned normally aspirated from the sport, with both Scuderia Alitalia Andea Coloni and Lancia Minardi Racing currently using the Lancia 015/1 V8 engine.

"We are harking back to our roots with our V6 engine," said Mika Salonen, manager of competition powertrains at Lancia. "Lancia created the first ever production V6 engine, and now we are bringing back the old formula to a new era. It is an exciting time for the entire company that we are incorparating our previous history in our bright future. Our V8 project has been a success, and we expect the same from the new V6T next year."

[dinizintheoven]

Any word on the engine capacity? The maximum is 2.0 litres, and there's a mixture of 1.6s and 1.8s in the running so far.

[DemocalypseNow]

Any word on the engine capacity? The maximum is 2.0 litres, and there's a mixture of 1.6s and 1.8s in the running so far.

Well then, let's "borrow" the JTS technology from cousins Alfa Romeo, and build a 1.9L V6 Turbo! Can't say we're not unique after that.

[dinizintheoven]

Right! As not so much hinted at as shouted from the rooftops on the WEC thread, I've been occupied this weekend (as in, I will still be tomorrow), so the next round here will have to be deferred for a couple of days. On the other hand, what I will do now is add an extra section to the main F1RMGP wiki page clearing up how the holograms are generated, seeing as it seemed like a good idea earlier. This is also partly to do with seeing that recent BBC documentary about Colin McRae, and how I was imagining an extended edition ten years into the future that includes his F1RMGP career after being brought back from the dead...

[dinizintheoven]

...it is done. And it took longer than I was expecting...

[dinizintheoven]

Round 13: Monza, Italy
Saturday, 26 September 2015


PRE-QUALIFYING

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1 –    17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'32.410
2 –    18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        1'32.736
3 –    36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'32.910
4 –    30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'33.152
5 –    35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'33.312
6 –    3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'33.533
7 –    29 P. Belmondo         Simtek         1'33.985
8 –    4  O. Beretta          AGS            1'34.143

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DNPQ – 31 P. McCarthy         Stefan         1'34.182
DNPQ – 39 E. Salazar          FIRST          1'34.303
DNPQ – 22 M. Apicella         Hispania       1'34.471
DNPQ – 25 E. Collard          SPAM           1'35.337
DNPQ – 6  A. Yoong            Dome           1'35.420
DNPQ – 26 C. Bouchut          SPAM           1'35.538
DNPQ – 5  D. Schiattarella    Dome           1'35.788

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DNPQ – 33 G. Foitek           Spyker         1'36.123
DNPQ – 21 S. Yamamoto         Hispania       1'36.711
DNPQ – 34 K. Chandhok         Spyker         1'36.869
DNPQ – 37 C. Nissany          Shekel         1'36.995
DNPQ – 38 A. Shankar          Shekel         1'37.038
DNPQ – 40 J. Camathias        FIRST          1'38.314
DNPQ – 32 M. Pavlovic         Stefan         1'38.891

Part three of the season, and that means the first pre-qualifying session after the second shake-up. And would you believe it, eight slots have been taken by four teams for the first time ever – meaning only 14 garages will be in use on the Friday and everyone else can go home. Knowing who's driving for Pacific at the moment, there's no surprise that one of the cars is on top of the timesheets... but wait a minute, it's Andrea Montermini! See, on his day he can still be very handy, and his illustrious champion of a temporary team-mate hasn't been able to beat him on equal terms today. And neither did the Pacifics romp away at the front, either; Vincenzo Sospiri, in the Arrows, was only two tenths behind HWNSNBM. Jérôme d'Ambrosio kept up his 100% record of clearing pre-qualifying, with Vitantonio Liuzzi in the second Arrows behind him. The other Simtek of Paul Belmondo was also sandwiched, this time between the two AGSs of Philippe Alliot and Olivier Beretta, forced into pre-qualifying for the first time – but if this is as much as they can get, and bear in mind this is a winning car, they might have reason to be nervous in future rounds. That's especially given that Perry McCarthy, in the reticent Stefan, was only four hundredths behind Beretta and missed out by that tiny fraction – he'd be tearing his hear out if he had any. Likewise, Eliseo Salazar in the even more recalcitrant FIRST was little more than a tenth away, and he has been into qualifying proper twice this season. Marco Apicella's first outing in a Hispania came to nothing – he really should have been able to get through pre-qualifying, but it was not to be, clearly; at least he fared better than his old team. Each Dome, also in pre-qualifying for the first time, finished behind a SPAM; Yoong behind Collard, then Schiattarella behind Bouchut, all of them missing the cut by a fair way but still not in the bottom third. That section was reserved for the two Spykers, with Sakon Yamamoto between them, then the two Shekels, then Joël Camathias, and it was Milos Pavlovic's turn to be last. Norberto Fontata, now out of a drive, is likely to be the first driver to be confirmed not to have appeared ina race all season; the four who have yet to make it out of pre-qualifying will most likely not do so at this stage.


QUALIFYING

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1 –    28 L. Badoer           SAAC           1'30.312
2 –    27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           1'30.384
3 –    23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        1'30.667
4 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   1'30.751
5 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         1'30.840
6 –    16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   1'30.924
7 –    8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    1'32.160
8 –    7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    1'32.362
9 –    13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        1'32.366
10 –   18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        1'32.571
11 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'32.583
12 –   35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'32.985
13 –   14 M. Asmer            Ice One        1'33.111

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14 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        1'33.153
15 –   3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'33.159
16 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          1'33.273
17 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          1'33.363
18 –   9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           1'33.393
19 –   2  T. Rustad           Viking         1'33.520
20 –   17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'33.570
21 –   29 P. Belmondo         Simtek         1'33.640
22 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'33.648
23 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           1'33.694
24 –   20 M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       1'33.732
25 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       1'33.813
26 –   4  O. Beretta          AGS            1'33.818

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DNQ –  19 J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       1'34.057
DNQ –  41 K. Andersen         Polestar       1'34.226

Not since Ferrari took part in the inaugural 2011 F1RMGP season has there been such a vast throng of tifosi descending on Monza for this event, but with the business dealings of the 2014/15 Silly Season, this year they were back – and wearing Lancia colours. Italy expected; the drivers delivered, and it was a one-two-three on the grid for the famous Italian marque. Championship leader Gabriele Tarquini was just beaten to the pole by Luca Badoer; Enrico Bertaggia, utterly overshadowed by his team-mate at Hungary, struck back to join his fellow Italians at the sharp end of the grid. Behind them lay a Japanese threat; nobody was too surprised to see Hideki Noda take fourth and Fabrizio Barbazza sixth, with the great wave of power they have in their Leyton Houses; between them, the current champion who could still repeat that success, Þorvaldur Einarsson, wasn't going to let the Italians have it all their own way without a fight. So dominant were these top six that they left a clear second's gap to seventh place, with nobody recording a time in the 1'31s. And so, top of the 1'32s, on row four were Yuji Ide and Shinji Nakano, best of the rest but wondering what they had to do to break into the top six. Jan Magnussen, who isn't exactly short of power with a Koenigsegg engine behind him, lined up only ninth, whereas HWNSNBM – who does have a shortage of grunt – again worked the miracles he is capable of to wrestle the Pacific into tenth, with its 2014-spec PURE engine. Possibly inspired by the patriotic efforts at the head of the field, the two Italian Arrows drivers hauled their machines up to row six, Sospiri ahead of Liuzzi, with Marko Asmer in the second Ice One rounding off the top half of the grid.

Colin McRae was the hero of Hungary, attacking the tight and twisty Hungaroring with all the fervour you'd expect from a rally driver, and it paid dividends; here, the Minardi team had concentrated their efforts on Bertie to fly the flag for the home nation, with Colin strictly in a supporting role. He won't forget his moment of glory in a hurry, though. Philippe Alliot survived his first brush with pre-qualifying to haul the AGS to 15th on the Friday, beating the two Fortis in the process; Chaves beat Sutil for 16th. Chris Dagnall, the 2013 champion, could only manage a worrying 18th for F1RM, with Tommy Rustad just behind him – Viking also concentrated their efforts on one driver, in an attempt to keep pace with the Italians. It worked – sort of, but Rustad was too close to the back of the grid for comfort. Andrea Montermini, in the second Pacific, may have had the upper hand in pre-qualifying – just – but he was comprehensively whipped here. Still, that's two Pacifics in the race for the first time since 2011, when both cars in the original incarnation of the team qualified for every race (and then Tony Fernandes bollocksed it all up). Row eleven featured the two Simteks, Paul Belmondo just edging out Jérôme d'Ambrosio by eight thousandths, but neither of them were going to feature highly as the V12 Isuzu engine is getting a bit long in the tooth now. Eric van de Poele was bricking it against a qualifying disaster but ended up 23rd; then, right at the back, nerves were shot as some big names had to drop. ATS Rial lost one car, Joachim Winkelhock's engine smoking as much as he does which caused him to miss the cut, whereas Michael Ammermüller squeezed into 24th; Polestar, the other team to escape pre-qualifying for the rest of the year, were given a sharp reminder that this doesn't mean automatic entry to the race by a long way. Their engine is so underpowered that they are effectively bringing a knife to a gunfight, and Kasper Andersen was the one to take the bullet. That's bad news for him, with Sebastial Hohenthal just making it onto the back row of the grid, ahead of final qualifier Olivier Beretta; it's a shootout for the second Viking seat in 2016, remember, and Hohenthal's last race was a hammerblow to Andersen's chances. This will surely knock the Dane back even further.


RACE

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1 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   53   1h 23'42.360
2 –    28 L. Badoer           SAAC           53   1h 23'44.685
3 –    16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   53   1h 24'28.901
4 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         52   + 1 lap                                                     
5 –    7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    52   + 1 lap                                                     
6 –    3  P. Alliot           AGS            52   + 1 lap                                                     
7 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        52   + 1 lap                                                     
8 –    35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         52   + 1 lap                                                     
9 –    24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        52   + 1 lap                                                     
10 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          52   + 1 lap                                                     
11 –   4  O. Beretta          AGS            52   + 1 lap                                                     
12 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       52   + 1 lap                                                     
13 –   9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           52   + 1 lap                                                     

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14 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          52   + 1 lap                                                     
15 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           52   + 1 lap                                                     
16 –   2  T. Rustad           Viking         52   + 1 lap                                                     
17 –   20 M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       52   + 1 lap                                                     
18 –   17 A. Montermini       Pacific        52   + 1 lap                                                     
19 –   29 P. Belmondo         Simtek         51   + 2 laps                                                    
20 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         43   engine                                                      
21 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         40   puncture                                                    
22 –   13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        40   puncture                                                    
23 –   18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        39   puncture                                                    
24 –   27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           36   transmission                                                
25 –   23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        23   puncture                                                    
26 –   8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    13   engine                                                      

Italy expected. Tarquini, Badoer and Bertaggia delivered in qualifying... but the race did not turn out to be the Lancia benefit gig they were all expecting, and the thorn in their collective side was Hideki Noda.

Noda's lightning start was baulked by Gabriele Tarquini, and in the resulting squabble, Enrico Bertaggia jumped them all and took the lead. Anything you can do, Colin... Luca Badoer, on the other hand, had a nightmare and dropped down to 8th place; as, further back, did Tommy Rustad, who found his nosecone sliced clean off at the Rettifilio. Noda soon got his revenge on the bald Italian, passing Tarquini for second on lap 5, while in the other SAAC, Luca Badoer was climbing the field, swatting his rivals out the way as if they weren't even there. The tifosi loved it. Noda lapped Paul Belmondo after only 10 laps, but at this stage it was clear that his pace, and Bertaggia's at the head of the field, were due to a low fuel load, and this was confirmed on lap 13, as both headed for the pits. As did Yuji Ide, but unfortunately for him, it was with a terminal engine problem as he lit up the pits with a tirade of white oil smoke. No more of that for him if he wants to win the title, mind. So, this left Luca Badoer in the lead after he made a daring pass on Tarquini that would have had his team bosses nervously chewing on their nails; Bertaggia and Noda, meanwhile, were fifth and sixth, and Bertie was already steaming forwards to join his Lancia-powered compatriots again.

That, unfortunately for him, came to a crashing end as his right rear tyre suddenly burst and the resultant debris tore through the Minardi's bodywork as if it was tissue paper. Bertaggia thumped the steering wheel in frustration; it was not to be his day, but the Lancia A-team were still setting a viciously fast pace. Badoer, though, had to pit before Tarquini did; surely it was in SAAC's interests for Tarquini to win the race, or at least finish higher than Badoer, but who would this strategy benefit? Once the round of pit stops was over, Noda included, it looked to have fallen Tarquini's way as he hauled Badoer in, and lined him up for a pass down the back straight. And then... disaster. A loud thump, a complete loss of drive, and howls of frustration as he steadily crawled to a standstill. The tifosi hated it, because they all wanted a Lancia 1-2-3 and now the best they could hope for was a 1-2 with a miraculous Colin McRae drive to second... somehow. But still, Badoer led, Noda held second, with Þorvaldur Einarsson and Fabrizio Barbazza duking it out for the last spot on the podium, albeit both of them a second off the pace and dropping back. Chaos ensued towards the end of the race, though. Tarquini's gearbox had exploded into a million pieces, and bits of broken gearbox casing and pieces of cogs and driveshafts were scattered all over the track; the Italian marshalls, however, thought it unnecessary to wave any yellow flags, preferring instead to nip off for a quick espresso or two. It proved disastrous, first for HWNSNBM, trying to ease himself out of retirement in the asthamatic Pacific; he'd hoped to finish, not being on for points this time, but a piece of destroyed gearbox shredded one of his tyres. On the same lap, Jan Magnussen also encountered a stray cog which was as sharp as a caltrop; guess what, there goes another tyre. By the time the marshals had noticed there was a problem, Vincenzo Sospiri had also fallen victim to the jagged shards of metal littering the track, taking him out of a rare points position, and for that, the only candidate for Reject Of The Race is the lazy marshals.

The race continued, with waved yellows delimiting the point where the marshals finally swept up the debris, and Luca Badoer eased himself to what he thought would be an easy win. Only thing is, he hadn't banked on Hideki Noda spoiling his fun. Ten laps to go, with the final retirement out of the way as Jérôme d'Ambrosio departed with a blown engine, Badoer went into cruise-and-collect mode with Noda a good twelve seconds behind him. Noda drove in what can only be called a kamikaze style, launching the Leyton House at every kerb with maximum ferocity. It's known to be something of a fragile car... but it held up, and by the time Badoer had realised that there was a turquoise car in his mirrors, it was already past him. Game over. Noda went on to win the race by 2.3 seconds from Badoer, with Fabrizio Barbazza joining him on the podium to make it an excellent day for Leyton House. Þorvaldur Einarsson gave up the fight with Barbazza about five laps from the end, with the awesome power of the Leyton House not just letting Barbazza get away, the Icelander wasn't expecting to be lapped but there was Noda, nipping past at the exit of Parabolica, such was his relentless pace. 12 points wasn't such a bad return on a day where Tarquini and Ide scored a blank, though. Shinji Nakano had to pick up the remaining honours for Super Aguri, taking fifth – he was way back, though, a few seconds ahead of a proper Trulli train that Philippe Alliot led, much to his delight. After such a barren mid-season that saw AGS slide into pre-qualifying, the car finally came good again on the long straights of Monza. Marko Asmer couldn't do anything about it, and rolled up just behind in seventh; Vitantonio Liuzzi, though, more than salvaged Arrows' day. One point on the board so far, Liuzzi's eighth place takes them to five, although he is no closer to unrejectification. Colin McRae, neglected somewhat by his team for this race for the glory of Italy, brought the second Minardi home in ninth place for a couple of points, while the final one went to Adrian Sutil. Worth a mention, though, were the two drivers who didn't score but charged through the field, threatening to do so; Olivier Beretta and Sebastian Hohenthal, who'd shared the back row of the grid, ended up 11th and 12th thanks to some superb driving and a decent strategy; unfortunately for both, it went completely unrewarded! Still, they both beat the likes of Chris Dagnall and Pedro Chaves, as well as Eric van de Poele in the other F1RM, and Tommy Rustad who was always on the back foot after his first-lap nosecone change. The stragglers were Michael Ammermüller in the lone ATS Rial, which had a far worse setup for the race than either of the AGSs did, followed by Andera Montermini in the only remaining Pacific, and last – two laps down – was Paul Belmondo, who'd looked likely to be the man at the back since lap 10.

The upshot of all this is, it's really tightened up at the top of the Drivers' Championship; Gabriele Tarquini and Yuji Ide failed to score, and so those two plus Þorvaldur Einarsson, Jan Magnussen – who also drew a blank – and Hideki Noda are all within one win of each other. The situation can change very fast... and we are now into the stage of the season where not everyone can win the title.

And yes, technically, Olivier Beretta can still mathematically win the title – but it would need Gabriele Tarquini to rack up three DNQs in the last five races and Beretta to win them all... with other results going his way. But if you don't have a dream...


DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup

Five races to go, 125 points can be won.

~ indicates a driver who has switched teams – only the latest team is shown
* indicates a driver still in contention for the championship

Code: Select all

1 –    27 * G. Tarquini         SAAC           128
2 –    8  * Y. Ide              Super Aguri    121
3 –    1  * Þ. Einarsson        Viking         111
4 –    13 * J. Magnussen        Ice One        107
5 –    15 * H. Noda             Leyton House   105
6 –    9  * C. Dagnall          F1RM           97
7 –    7  * S. Nakano           Super Aguri    86
8 –    28 * L. Badoer           SAAC           79
9 –    2  * T. Rustad           Viking         66
10 –   16 * F. Barbazza         Leyton House   62
11 –   12 * A. Sutil            Forti          60
12 –   24 * C. McRae (H)        Minardi        43

Code: Select all

13 –   3  * P. Alliot           AGS            39
14 –   23 * E. Bertaggia        Minardi        31
15 –  ~22 * M. Apicella         Dome           27
16 –   14 * M. Asmer            Ice One        26
17 –   10 * E. van de Poele     F1RM           21
18 –   42 * S. Hohenthal        Polestar       20
19 –   41 * K. Andersen         Polestar       19
20 –   11 * P. Chaves           Forti          18
21 =   20 * M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       10
21 =   26 * C. Bouchut          SPAM           10
23 –   30 * J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         9
24 –   18 * HWNSNBM             Pacific        8

Code: Select all

25 –   35 * V. Liuzzi           Arrows         4
26 –   4  * O. Beretta          AGS            3
27 –   19   J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       2
28 –   36   V. Sospiri          Arrows         1

CONSTRUCTORS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Willi Kauhsen Cup

Five races to go, 215 points can be won. Every team can still win. Yes, even Shekel.

Code: Select all

1 =    Super Aguri    207
1 =    SAAC           207
3 –    Viking         177
4 –    Leyton House   167
5 –    Ice One        133
6 –    F1RM           118
7 –    Forti          78
8 –    Minardi        74
9 –    AGS            42
10 –   Polestar       39

Code: Select all

11 –   Dome           27
12 –   ATS Rial       12
13 –   SPAM           10
14 –   Simtek         9
15 –   Pacific        8
16 –   Arrows         5

The Clausura standings will be decided after the next race...

[dinizintheoven]

Where did all the newspapers go? Especially the Italian press? Where are the Hungarian fanboys cheering the (temporary) return of HWNSNBM? Where are the Japanese lamenting the demise of Yuji Ide when he might otherwise have led the championship after this race?

[DemocalypseNow]

Where did all the newspapers go? Especially the Italian press? Where are the Hungarian fanboys cheering the (temporary) return of HWNSNBM? Where are the Japanese lamenting the demise of Yuji Ide when he might otherwise have led the championship after this race?

La Gazzetta Dello Sport are pro-Alitalia, Tuttosport are part of FIAT Group, so neither wants to report negative press towards their own interests. Quite simple really!

[dinizintheoven]

ACHTUNG: Statto invades F1RMGP!

I went on the internet and I found this... actually, I didn't have to go far, as it's one of the F1 Rejects podcasts, specifically the 2005 Season Review. I never caught it first time round, but I thought I'd tune in to see what our glorious overlords had to say about the farce at Indianapolis. Amazingly, it was... nothing, beyond a cursory mention of Tiago Monteiro's celebrations on the podium which everyone except he and the Jordan team thought utterly inapparopriate. Instead, I was more drawn to a comment from Enoch about the A1GP race at Sepang, in which the cars were "about 20 seconds a lap slower than a Formula One car" - and this set me thinking, where abouts do F1RMGP cars lie in the grand scheme of motor racing?

Essentially based on 2010-2012 cars from reject teams (i.e. those three at the back, as was) with every conceivable aerodynamic aid stripped off (no turning vanes, no other flippy bits that were supposed to have been banned after 2008, single plane wings, effectively what aero parts were 25 years ago) and with a wide variety of engines of indeterminate vintage and technological level, all bankrolled by a budget that is a fraction even of HRT's, the previous comparison I'd made involved pole position laps at Interlagos, the only circuit pretty much unchanged in the last 20 years. Þorvaldur Einarsson's pole time for this season - which battered the rest of the field by two seconds - was still almost three seconds slower than Ayrton Senna's pole time in 1991, when F1 first visited the shortened circuit, and that was a proper "ye gods, these cars would lose in a straight fight to F3000/GP2/FR3.5" moment (involving the second-tire championship of your choice), the way Life and Mastercard Lola's limp F1 efforts were. But if Enoch was right about the time gap at Sepang between F1 and A1GP, and it's not as if a 2005 A1GP car was considered painfully slow (and they're still used in Auto GP, which just helped to bring Rrrrrmmmnnn Grrrrjjjjnnn back into play in F1), then how does the F1/A1GP/F1RMGP comparison stack up?

Here's the evidence I can bring to the table...

Interlagos:
Fastest time in 2012 F1 qualifying: Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1'12.458 (Q3)
Slowest time in 2012 F1 qualifying: Pedro de la Rosa, HRT, 1'19.699 (Q1; 110.0%)
Fastest time in 2015 F1RMGP qualifying: Þorvaldur Einarsson, Viking, 1'19.248 (109.4%)
Next fastest time in 2015 F1RMGP qualifying (for a more realistic comparison under the circumstances): Chris Dagnall, F1RM, 1'21.356 (112.3%)
Slowest time in 2015 F1RMGP pre-qualifying (i.e. the worst possible outcome): Chanoch Nissany, Shekel, 1'29.446 (123.4%)

For comparison with those feeder series I mentioned earlier, as they don't race at Interlagos, I'll shift the focus to Enoch's mention of Sepang, where A1GP went, as did GP2 Asia. Starting with the one he actually mentioned, which is 2005:
Fastest time in 2005 F1 qualifying (and that's individual laps, not the extremely rejectful aggregate qualifying that the start of the 2005 season brought us): Fernando Alonso, Renault, 1'32.532 (Q1)
Fastest time in A1GP qualifying (before it started raining): Neel Jani, Lola B05/52, 1'54.441 (123.7%)

You were right, Enoch: that's a 22-second gap. That Lola retconned the chassis number to B05/52 - Bxx/50 being the "Formula 3000 series" of cars, indicated that it was supposed to be on about a par with that level (or GP2 as it was then). 2008 provides a better comparison, I reckon, as over the 2008-09 winter (or summer, if you're Down Under) GP2 Asia and the last season of A1GP with the "Powered By Ferrari" car were both in action and both racing at Sepang. Plus, in 2009 F1 switched to the next generation of aero rules, presumably designed to slow them down, so I'll include the 2009 fastest lap as well for further comparison.

Fastest time in 2008 F1 qualifying: Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari, 1'34.188 (Q2; slower than 2005, but then that was the last year of the 3-litre V10s)
Fastest time in 2009 F1 qualifying: Jenson Button, Brawn, 1'33.784 (Q2; oh, right, the double diffuser intervened with that idea... I'll compare % times with the 2008 race)
Fastest time in 2008 GP2 Asia qualifying: Rrrrrmmmnnn Grrrrjjjjnnn, Dallara GP2/05 (the last stand of this car, wasn't it?), 1'44.182 (110.6%)
Fastest time in 2008 A1GP qualifying: Adam Carroll, A1GPPBF, 1'47.124 (feature race; 113.7%)

So overall I reckon Lola were right. What I'd still like to do, though, is see how F1 cars compare to two grades below - F3, GP3 and the like. For that, I reckon I'll have to move further forwards in time and see if there's a circuit I can compare all the second and third string series. I wonder if Silverstone will do the job... hey, it will! F1, GP2, GP3, FR3.5 (which so many say is a better second division series than GP2), FR2.0, and... not European F3, but British F3 uses the same cars, right? F2, irritatingly (as I wanted to see how it compared with GP2 and FR3.5) used the Bridge circuit in 2010, whereas all those I've mentioned used the Arena circuit.
Annoyingly, it rained at Silverstone in 2012, and it looks like the lower formulae were also plagued by the weather in 2011, so I'll use the 2010 seasons for comparison, and see if it works.

Fastest time in 2010 F1 qualifying: Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1'29.613 (Q3)
Fastest time in 2010 GP2 qualifying: Jules Bianchi, Dallara GP2/08, 1'39.189 (110.7%)
Fastest time in 2010 FR3.5 qualifying: Jon Lancaster, Dallara T08, 1'44.673 (116.8%)
Fastest time in 2010 GP3 qualifying: Esteban Gutierrea, Dallara GP3/10, 1'51.451 (124.4%)
Fastest time in 2010 British F3 qualifying: James Calado, 1'53.198 (126.3%)
Fastest time in 2010 FR2.0 qualifying: Kevin Korjus, 1'59.570 (133.4%)
And for further comparison...
Fastest time in 2010 GT1 qualifying: Darren Turner, Aston Martin DBR9, 1'58.808

As an attempt to make a crude comparison for F2, Jolyon Palmer's 2010 pole time round the Bridge circuit (1'36.380) was 123.3% of Sebastian Vettel's Q2 time in 2009 (1'18.119) - F2 did not race at Silverstone in 2009.

So it seems, on what I can gather, a top-ranked F1RMGP car will be round about the level of GP2 or FR3.5, which is hardly strange considering the 2012 F1RMGP cars were hacked-about Dallara GP2/08s - and are also about the level of an HRT on a bad day. Meanwhile, backmarkers in F1RMGP are more comparable with GP3 and F3 cars... which tends to be at least as much of a reflection of those who drive them as than the cars themselves.

As for that Mastercard Lola comparison, Vincenzo Sospiri's qualifying time at Melbourne in 1997 was 113.0% of the pole time, and Ricardo Rosset's was 114.2%. So I may as well investigate, while I'm here, whether the T97/30 would have been better off competing in F3000 that year. The three circuits that F3000 shared with F1 that year were Silverstone, Hockenheim, Spielberg, Spa and Jerez. so here's how they compare...

Silverstone: F1 pole - Jacques Villeneuve, 1'21.598; F3000 pole - Ricardo Zonta, 1'40.463 (123.1%)
Hockenheim: F1 pole - Gerhard Berger, 1'41.873; F3000 pole - Tom Kristensen, 2'01.579 (119.3%)
Spa: F1 pole - Jacques Villeneuve, 1'49.450; F3000 pole - Tom Kristensen, 2'29.405 (136.5%... was it raining that day?)
Spielberg: F1 pole - Jacques Villeneuve, 1'10.304; F3000 pole - Juan Pablo Montoya, 1'24.225 (119.8%)
Jerez: F1 pole - Jacques Villeneuve, 1'21.072; F3000 pole - Ricardo Zonta, 1'36.473 (119.0%)

...so the allegedly-F1 Lolas would have blitzed the F3000 field, probably by about the same margin as the rest of the F1 field left them behind. It also seems that the current crop of GP2 cars (well, the previous 2008-10 generation at least) are closer to F1 lap times than the F3000 cars of 16 years ago were, with FR3.5 - where many members of this forum say the up-and-coming talent really is - a little further back and closer to what F3000 used to be. I'm still annoyed that I couldn't make a proper comparison with F2, as it was supposed to be a second-division series but seems to have fallen in the uncanny valley between the second and third divisions (some said drivers who moved from F2 to GP2 had been promoted up a category).

And now, for those of you who are thoroughly bored of all this geekery, normal service will be resumed shortly, as the F1RMGP circus thunders towards Estoril.

[FMecha]

Rumors is that SPAM is replacing both of their drivers with Bathplug duo Montagny and Lagorce. Stay tuned...

J.O.U.R.N.A.L is back... sort of.

[dinizintheoven]

Meanwhile, despite the return (sort of) of J.O.U.R.N.A.L., I'm sure you all realised there was supposed to be another race here by now. There isn't; real life has intervened again, but normal service will be resumed as soon as possible (i.e. round about the 15th). Stay tuned!

[dinizintheoven]

Marktin Brundell allies with the Portuguese: it's newsround time

PLUS ONE TO SPONSOR F1RMGP TEAM?
After several attempts to barge, bribe, and take over their way into F1RMGP, Plus One Group have offered a lifeline to any struggling team - full sponsorship from the Group.
The deal would entail full or partial Foster's branding, depending on the client's choice, and the +1 logo to be featured anywhere on the car - but apart from that, Luke Knight, CEO of Plus One Group, assures that will be it.
"I'm not trying to force my way into F1RMGP" he said in our exclusive interview "I am just offering sponsorship from the Group. To me, this seems like an attractive offer - the sponsorship could keep any team afloat, and in return for no +1 influence on the running of the team too. If a client wishes to give us influence in their operation, we will not decline the offer, but at the moment, this is a sponsorship-only operation"
Insider sources are reporting that sponsorship will be offered to those in pre-qualifying - but to only those who qualify regularly.

Pacific, Simtek and Hispania apply for Plus One alliance
It comes, somewhat unsurprisingly, as a sign they're struggling. Life is fraught at the back of the grid, and the admission that they need that help has come from three of this season's also-rans. At Pacific, Andrea Montermini sometimes qualified, but only the temporary appearance of HWNSNBM has allowed them to haul what is not a particularly good car into respectability, and it's needed all his skill to do it. Simtek are on one of their dramatic slides downwards, exacerbated by some very questionable driver choices at the beginning of the season, but are probably resigned to losing Jérôme d'Ambrosio to a better team the say way Marko Asmer decamped to Ice One as the ship looked to be holed below the waterline. Hispania are not what you'd call a team who qualify regularly - in fact, they haven't done so at all - but the car is good, the drivers weren't, at least until the arrival of Marco Apicella. Hispania are looking for extra sponsorship that would allow them to ditch the misfiring Sakon Yamamoto, and aren't too bothered about having to carry a Foster's logo on the car even though it might upset fine sherry producer Valdespino, who have a small sponsorship deal with the team. It's been proven what can be done in their car at the Grand Reversal, and they say if they get the right driver package for next year, they'll go places, but only with the right budget.

Here comes a new challenger?
Hispania Racing might well be facing a different incarnation of themselves next year, should they survive and should this new entry be accepted. Scorpion Racing, the sort-of-successor team to Thesan Capital's HRT in F1, have applied for one of the vacant slots in the 2016 season, and it'd be interesting to see how they fared against Thesan's predecessors. There's no engine deal yet, nor have any drivers been considered, but the options will be open.

[dinizintheoven]

Round 14: Estoril, Portugal
Saturday, 10 October 2015

PRE-QUALIFYING

Code: Select all

1 –    18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        1'27.357
2 –    30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'28.677
3 –    17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'28.763
4 –    25 E. Collard          SPAM           1'28.917
5 –    36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'29.126
6 –    26 C. Bouchut          SPAM           1'29.330
7 –    6  A. Yoong            Dome           1'29.404
8 –    34 K. Chandhok         Spyker         1'29.535

Code: Select all

DNPQ – 3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'29.698
DNPQ – 21 S. Yamamoto         Hispania       1'29.808
DNPQ – 4  O. Beretta          AGS            1'29.930
DNPQ – 35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'30.181
DNPQ – 39 E. Salazar          FIRST          1'30.340
DNPQ – 31 P. McCarthy         Stefan         1'30.650
DNPQ – 29 P. Belmondo         Simtek         1'30.886

Code: Select all

DNPQ – 32 M. Pavlovic         Stefan         1'30.976
DNPQ – 5  D. Schiattarella    Dome           1'31.703
DNPQ – 37 C. Nissany          Shekel         1'32.057
DNPQ – 22 M. Apicella         Hispania       1'33.105
DNPQ – 38 A. Shankar          Shekel         1'33.832
DNPQ – 40 J. Camathias        FIRST          1'34.768
DNPQ – 33 G. Foitek           Spyker         1'42.036

He was the double series champion for a reason; this is what happens when you put a top-drawer driver in a misbehaving backmarker car, he'll wrestle a decent lap time out of it somehow. So nobody was surprised to see what HWNSNBM has been doing with that Pacific, and equally nobody was surprised to find him at the top of the timesheets in pre-qualifying. His performances are spurring Andrea Montermini onto greater things as well; this may yet swing the Plus One group in their favour, sponsorship-wise. Jérôme d'Ambrosio, though, is also driving for a team chasing that extra cash, and booted the Simtek to second place, splitting the Pacifics. Likewise, it was a resurgent performance from the season-long swings and roundabouts at SPAM, both cars making it through pre-qualifying for only the third time this year – and in the two previous cases, one of them has dropped out in main qualifying. These two were split by Vincenzo Sospiri, the only Arrows to make the grade in this session. Alex Yoong and Karun Chandhok took the last two positions to progress to Friday afternoon... for Dome and Spyker, two teams not expected to be seen again in qualifying proper this year, so can they turn it into a race appearance?

For a while, it looked like Sakon Yamamoto, of all people, would cause a massive upset and get a Hispania into qualifying proper, when this was supposed to be Marco Apicella's job. Apicella, instead, found himself languishing in the position Yamamoto would usually be expected to occupy. Still, the Japanese effort was fruitless, being barged out by Yoong and Chandhok, then by Philippe Alliot in a desperate lunge for the line that was unsuccessful, and may be a recurrent theme for AGS now. To think, this car was on pole and took the win in France... that really was a fluke. Olivier Beretta has dropped out of the race before and trundled in behind Yamamoto, while still beating Vitantonio Liuzzi who was a bit out of sorts in this session. Eliseo Salazar, Paul Belmondo and the two Stefans completed the 1'30s, which were around a second too slow to qualify. Domenico Schiattarella in the other Dome was a long way off Milos Pavlovic, which is bad enough, but for Marco Apicella, he was beaten as well by Chanoch Nissany, and will run away from Estoril as fast as humanly possible if he's got any sense. Some would say it was further karmic retribution for Anderestorp. Adrian Shankar and Joël Camathias would have been the slowest cars on track, but actually Gregor Foitek was – at over seven seconds slower than Camathias, his Spyker clearly had extreme engine problems and he never looked likely to set an even remotely competitive lap – his next fastest was a 1'51. Questions, questions, many you ask, Neotech...


QUALIFYING

Code: Select all

1 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         1'26.431
2 –    8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    1'26.469
3 –    13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        1'26.669
4 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   1'26.786
5 –    23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        1'26.798
6 –    7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    1'26.989
7 –    16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   1'27.030
8 –    18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        1'27.121
9 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        1'27.230
10 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          1'27.230
11 –   17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'27.402
12 –   2  T. Rustad           Viking         1'27.516
13 –   28 L. Badoer           SAAC           1'27.589

Code: Select all

14 –   27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           1'27.839
15 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           1'27.879
16 –   41 K. Andersen         Polestar       1'27.882
17 –   9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           1'28.198
18 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       1'28.363
19 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          1'28.409
20 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'28.644
21 –   25 E. Collard          SPAM           1'28.685
22 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'29.118
23 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        1'29.123
24 –   19 J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       1'29.414
25 –   6  A. Yoong            Dome           1'29.456
26 –   34 K. Chandhok         Spyker         1'29.700

Code: Select all

DNQ –  26 C. Bouchut          SPAM           1'30.860
DNQ –  20 M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       1'31.138

There hasn't been a clear Pole King this season, but Þorvaldur Einarsson and Yuji Ide have had three each. It was a close scrap – the two ended up separated by less than four hundredths – but the Icelander eventually prevailed to make it 4-3 in poles. Ide wouldn't take that lying down, and vowed to take the first corner first in the race, which from the front row he had every chance of. Jan Magnussen and Hideki Noda, still counting themselves as title contenders at less than one win away from the top of the field, occupied row two, with Enrico Bertaggia the lead driver from the IBR empire, with his Minardi team still on a high after Colin McRae's recent win in Hungary. Shinji Nakano and Fabrizio Barbazza took sixth and seventh in the second Super Aguri and Leyton House; up to this point the cars had all been powerful front-runners, but in eighth, as he had done in pre-qualifying, HWNSNBM showed what he could do even in a car with all the power of Walter The Softy. Marko Asmer and Pedro Chaves recorded exactly the same time to the thousandth, Asmer taking the place as he had set his time first, and Andrea Montermini in the second Pacific was again brought towards the sharp end of the grid as if HWNSNBM had his car on a tow rope. So both Pacifics beat Tommy Rustad and the two SAACs, strangely out of form this weekend for reasons which nobody could quite fathom. Rustad, of course, had a new job to do from this position – keep them at bay for as long as possible...

Fifteenth, and heading a sort-of-two-by-two, i.e. two rows both shared by one driver of each team – was Eric van de Poele, getting the better of Chris Dagnall for once, and it'll be galling for Daggers to see his 2013 championship rival haul a car far worse than his to places it doesn't belong. Kasper Andersen also got the better of Sebastian Hohenthal, reversing a situation which hasn't been quite so one-sided as at F1RM, but has still tended to fall in the Swede's favour over the whole season. Furthermore, four thousandths faster and Andersen would have gained another place. 19th in the second Forti, the one not cheered all the way by the Portuguese crowd, was Adrian Sutil – it's clear where all the effort in that team went this weekend, because behind him were three cars which had to pre-qualify to get this far – Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Emmanuel Collard and Vincenzo Sospiri, for Simtek, SPAM and Arrows respectively. Colin McRae had one of his off-days – sliding around wildly off the track as if he was back in rallying – and could only record a time good enough for 23rd, far too close to the drop zone for comfort. Smokin' Jo Winkelhock made up for his Monza mishap, just making it onto the grid in 24th, while Alex Yoong and Karun Chandhok – the lucky two of pre-qualifying – found their luck didn't run out, and both sneaked onto the back row of the grid. So, yet again, SPAM brought two cars into qualifying proper, and only one made it into the race – Christophe Bouchut again contriving to miss the cut by over a second, with Michael Ammermüller even further behind him. I suppose, with those two gone, there'll be a lot less black smoke in the race...


RACE

Code: Select all

1 –    8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    71   1h 47'53.823
2 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         71   1h 48'24.488
3 –    16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   71   1h 49'14.856
4 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        71   1h 49'23.116
5 –    7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    70   + 1 lap                                                     
6 –    28 L. Badoer           SAAC           70   + 1 lap                                                     
7 –    27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           70   + 1 lap                                                     
8 –    2  T. Rustad           Viking         70   + 1 lap                                                     
9 –    41 K. Andersen         Polestar       70   + 1 lap                                                     
10 –   9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           70   + 1 lap                                                     
11 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          70   + 1 lap                                                     
12 –   25 E. Collard          SPAM           69   + 2 laps                                                    
13 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         69   + 2 laps                                                    

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14 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        69   + 2 laps                                                    
15 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           69   + 2 laps                                                    
16 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         69   + 2 laps                                                    
17 –   34 K. Chandhok         Spyker         69   + 2 laps                                                    
18 –   19 J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       69   + 2 laps                                                    
19 –   6  A. Yoong            Dome           68   + 3 laps                                                    
20 –   18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        58   turbo                                                       
21 –   23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        40   transmission                                                
22 –   15 H. Noda             Leyton House   37   engine                                                      
23 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       31   engine                                                      
24 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          11   transmission                                                
25 –   13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        6    crash                                                       
26 –   17 A. Montermini       Pacific        6    transmission                                                

It's coming towards crunch time in the championship. 100 points are still up for grabs after this race, but as we have seen before, even one point can make all the difference (see 2013). Yuji Ide knew this, and made good on his probmise to be first into the first corner, even if it meant a bit of banging and barging with Þorvaldur Einarsson. The Icelander came off second best in the duel, and Jan Magnussen slid past to take second. Þorvaldur dispatched his former team-mate on the second lap, and at least kept Ide's lead within shooting distance. This is more than can be said for Magnussen, who threw himself off the road in a moment of madness on lap 7, just after Andrea Montermini's gearbox had smashed itself into a thousand pieces, almost like a sympathy retirement. HWNSNBM, meanwhile, had had a fine start and was holding a steady seventh ahead of the very powerful Leyton House of Fabrizio Barbazza. Tommy Rustad hadn't been able to keep either SAAC behind him, and they were out for blood, chasing down the leaders; Magnussen's early retirement helped them, as did the disappearance of home favourite Pedro Chaves soon afterwards. Eric van de Poele was the next to hit trouble, seemingly with transmission gremlins, as he weaved about on the track slowly like a mixture of Jean-Denis Délétraz in the infamous "what is he doing?" escapade plus Lewis Hamilton trying to shake his McLaren back into gear at Interlagos in 2007. Eric escaped retirement, though, but his car was never quite the same for the rest of the race.

Round one of the pitstops, Yuji Ide was in the lead by ten seconds, with Þorvaldur Einarsson second and Enrico Bertaggia third. Bertie was the first to pit, then Þorvaldur was badly held up on his in-lap... my Colin McRae, who wasn't having the best of days and knew he could give his team-mate a helping hand. Exiting the pits, he had to race for position with HWNSNBM, who wasn't going to give up his place without a fight. Thus the gap grew in two laps to 15 seconds. HWNSNBM was a hard competitor with whoever he came up against, Hideki Noda being the next to find out the hard way that a Pacific driven by a former champion can be a tougher prospect that they'd thought. The Thunder God continued to get the worst of the luck, as his prospective team-mate for next year, Sebastian Hohenthal, found his engine burst and Þorvaldur had half a gallon of oil sprayed over his visor. Ide was getting away all the time, and by the time the second round of pit stops happened, Ide could pit and afford a mistake or two from his mechanics. They didn't make any. Behind him, Hideki Noda was on course for third but that came to nothing when his engine blew even more violently than Hohenthal's, Enrico Bertaggia's great race also ended pointlessly when his driveshaft broke, possibly with the strain of trying to chase down his rivals for a podium position, but worst of all, HWNSNBM retired from fourth place as his turbo decided it had had enough for the day. HWNSNBM may be awesome, but the reliability of the Pacific PR04 is not, and there was nothing he could do about it other than scream in frustration that a haul of points for the struggling team had been lost. Smashes and crashes were also heard from inside the Pacific pit, and the sight of Keith Wiggins with a heavily bandaged hand afterwards and broken glass on the pit floor suggested what had happened in there. On a day of very little rejectful driving of note, Reject Of The Race can only go to HWNSNBM's turbo for thieving him and the team of much-needed points.

HWNSNBM's unfortunate retirement was the last major incident of the race. It was won in fine style by Yuji Ide, who soared into the lead of the Drivers' Championship, with Þorvaldur Einarsson half a minute behind in the end – that keeps him intact near the top. However, due to the retirements of Magnussen, Noda, Bertaggia and HWNSNBM, the championship lead wasn't as wide as it could have been. Fabrizio Barbazza had been the first benificiary; he could barely believe it when told he'd finished third and would be up there on the podium, having been 81 seconds slower over the race distance than the winner – but he didn't mind one bit. Neither, also, did Marko Asmer, who recorded his best result of the year. Not his best result ever, as we all know, but in a season that just hasn't gone the way Ice One wanted it to, they'll take this, especially with Asmer still on the lead lap. Nobody could quite work out what happened to Shinji Nakano – by all rights it should have been him in third but he went off the boil on race day, to end up fifth. Sixth and seventh were the two SAACs who had never threatened to be so high up, until all the disasters unfolded in front of them, but from the team's perspective, they finished in the wrong order. 20 seconds separated them, though, so it's not as if they could have switched it easily. Even if Tommy Rustad had kept them both behind him it'd only have shaved two points off both drivers, so it's not a total disaster for Þorvaldur's title charge, even if Viking wanted more points for the Constructors' title. Kasper Andersen took ninth, somewhat fortuitously, and with that, goes ahead of Sebastian Hohenthal in the Drivers' table... there's a Viking drive at stake, remember. And finally, Chris Dagnall picked up one point on a day where he wasn't at the races, but it was that one point that won him the title in 2013...

Those who didn't score started with Adrian Sutil, the last man to be one lap down. Emmanuel Collard and Jérôme d'Ambrosio got the better of Colin McRae for 12th to 14th positions, while Eric van de Poele much-evident problems earlier in the race cost him dearly and he found himself down in 15th. Vincenzo Sospiri took 16th for Arrows, and in 17th was Karun Chandhok – not such a bad job in the limping Spyker that barely manages to make it through pre-qualifying on a very good day. He even managed to beat Joachim Winkelhock in the more powerful ATS Rial, and last of all, three laps down, Alex Yoong, who at least brought the Dome to the chequered flag when most people assumed it wouldn't make it that far.

Four races remain in the season, and each one will count hugely with eleven drivers mathematically still in with a shot of the Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup. It's bow Yuji Ide who leads the way, and the third of these four races is in Japan, where the crowd are likely to be deafening. Meanwhile, the next stop is in Spain, the last round of the European season.



DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup

Four races to go, 100 points can be won.

~ indicates a driver who has switched teams – only the latest team is shown
* indicates a driver still in contention for the championship

Code: Select all

1 –    8  * Y. Ide              Super Aguri    146
2 –    27 * G. Tarquini         SAAC           134
3 –    1  * Þ. Einarsson        Viking         129
4 –    13 * J. Magnussen        Ice One        107
5 –    15 * H. Noda             Leyton House   105
6 –    9  * C. Dagnall          F1RM           98
7 –    7  * S. Nakano           Super Aguri    96
8 –    28 * L. Badoer           SAAC           87
9 –    16 * F. Barbazza         Leyton House   77
10 –   2  * T. Rustad           Viking         70
11 –   12 * A. Sutil            Forti          60
12 –   24   C. McRae (H)        Minardi        43

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13 –   3    P. Alliot           AGS            39
14 –   14   M. Asmer            Ice One        38
15 –   23   E. Bertaggia        Minardi        31
16 –  ~22   M. Apicella         Hispania       27
17 =   10   E. van de Poele     F1RM           21
17 =   41   K. Andersen         Polestar       21
19 –   42   S. Hohenthal        Polestar       20
20 –   11   P. Chaves           Forti          18
21 =   20   M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       10
21 =   26   C. Bouchut          SPAM           10
23 –   30   J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         9
24 –   18   HWNSNBM             Pacific        8

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25 –   35   V. Liuzzi           Arrows         4
26 –   4    O. Beretta          AGS            3
27 –   19   J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       2
28 –   36   V. Sospiri          Arrows         1

CONSTRUCTORS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Willi Kauhsen Cup

Four races to go, 172 points can be won.

* indicates a constructor still in contention for the championship

Code: Select all

1 –  * Super Aguri    242
2 –  * SAAC           212
3 –  * Viking         199
4 –  * Leyton House   182
5 –  * Ice One        145
6 –  * F1RM           119
7 –  * Forti          78
8 –  * Minardi        74
9 –    AGS            42
10 –   Polestar       41

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11 –   Dome           27
12 –   ATS Rial       12
13 –   SPAM           10
14 –   Simtek         9
15 –   Pacific        8
16 –   Arrows         5

CLAUSURA

With four races to go, the Clausura can begin, and with none of the top 16 drivers equal on points, the draw is even more obvious than it usually is. So here's who will be duelling with who at Jerez:

(1) Ide v (16) Apicella
(2) Tarquini v (15) Bertaggia
(3) Einarsson v (14) Asmer
(4) Magnussen v (13) Alliot
(5) Noda v (12) McRae
(6) Dagnall v (11) Sutil
(7) Nakano v (10) Rustad
(8) Badoer v (9) Barbazza

Onwards!

[DemocalypseNow]

Unbelieveable. Someone is race fixing against us. Someone has sabotaged both the F1RMGP and WEC teams in the same weekend. I am furious. But of course the sporting authorities probably won't even bother launching an investigation and instead just sweep it under the carpet.

[dinizintheoven]

Dr Francesca Rimmer implicated in disappearance of the F1 Rejects universe

It took some investigation, but after the finger pointed at such a diverse array of subjects as Sir Bernard Shekelslike, two of his ex-wives, Lewis Hamilton, Max Mosley, Max Mosley's favourite hooker, Don Pentecost, Alasdair Lindsay, Jean-Denis Délétraz, Joey Zyla, Günther Schmidt, Prince Malik, Prince Falik, Prince Walik, Daniel Melrose, Sammy Jones, Kay Lon, Ai, Alan the Shoe Trader, Timo Glock, Adrian Sutil's champagne glass, Heikki Kovalainen, Lewis Hamilton (again) and his pet tortoise... finally we have a guilty party, and it seems that violently antisexual women can still get PMS. Nobody quite knows what triggered the kill switch in Dr Francesca Rimmer's head, other than the inescapable fact that every day she looks more and more like Jimmy Page, but the source of the disappearance of the F1 Rejects universe was traced to her very unorthodox activity on the Hologram Projection Unit. Who'd have thought it was possible to write the kind of code that would produce a hologrammatic equivalent of the black hole that those less educated in physics were convinced the Large Hadron Collider would generate to finish us all off? Nobody. But having established that such code was possible and had been written, the evidence of which had been carelessly not deleted from the Hologram mainframe, there was only one possible suspect. Fortunately for all involved, with the entire F1 Rejects universe being reduced to a singularity, all characters involved were merged into one and shared one mind... whereupon the information as to what had happened and how it had happened was laid bare for all to see and the hologrammatic black hole could be reversed. Only, with the time dilation involved with black holes, it looks like it's been a week for us.

The singularity revealed some weird, weird things about some of the people in the F1 Rejects universe, but as there was no longer anything delimiting who was who, then nobody knows who the individuals concerned were. All we know is: someone has an overwhelming armpit fetish, someone likes to dress up as Sailor Moon, someone watches re-runs of Scrapheap Challenge on a continuous loop, someone thinks there's been race-fixing going on, someone knows there has... but also that it only happened in the Lotus Racing League, someone is planning an impossible team for the Bathurst Enduro, someone has a spiralling and soon-to-be-fatal alcohol problem, someone wants to create an extreme-left ultra-egalitarian *cough*"utopia" where all the inhabitants are genetically identical hermaphrodites, someone is trying to build a new racing HQ out of Minecraft-themed Lego bricks, someone is planning to resurrect James Hunt again, someone has a golden statue of Dany Bahar in his/her garden, and someone is actually owed a cheque for $9,243,850,053,985,352,142.47... in Zimbabwe dollars.

"I'm afraid that's... all we know."

[Salamander]

Dr Francesca Rimmer implicated in disappearance of the F1 Rejects universe

I'm surprised James Davies' ego wasn't one of the suspects...

In other news, it's been rumoured that Guillaume Gauthier is looking to possibly buy out either AGS, or SPAM, or even start up a brand new team with his mysterious investor partner from F1RWRS.

[DemocalypseNow]

The singularity revealed some weird, weird things about some of the people in the F1 Rejects universe, but as there was no longer anything delimiting who was who, then nobody knows who the individuals concerned were. All we know is: someone has an overwhelming armpit fetish, someone likes to dress up as Sailor Moon, someone watches re-runs of Scrapheap Challenge on a continuous loop, someone thinks there's been race-fixing going on, someone knows there has... but also that it only happened in the Lotus Racing League, someone is planning an impossible team for the Bathurst Enduro, someone has a spiralling and soon-to-be-fatal alcohol problem, someone wants to create an extreme-left ultra-egalitarian *cough*"utopia" where all the inhabitants are genetically identical hermaphrodites, someone is trying to build a new racing HQ out of Minecraft-themed Lego bricks, someone is planning to resurrect James Hunt again, someone has a golden statue of Dany Bahar in his/her garden, and someone is actually owed a cheque for $9,243,850,053,985,352,142.47... in Zimbabwe dollars.

Alasdair Lindsay is more than one of these things.

[dinizintheoven]

Dr Francesca Rimmer implicated in disappearance of the F1 Rejects universe

I'm surprised James Davies' ego wasn't one of the suspects...

Ditto Alex Wurz...

Alasdair Lindsay is more than one of these things.

I'm guessing the engineer of the far-left egalitarian "utopia" isn't one of them, given that in such a place you might expect everyone to finish every race all at the same time and share first place. But, in fact, motor racing would be banned on the grounds that not everyone could afford it, therefore nobody would ever be allowed to, and hence IBR and Scuderia Alitalia would be forcibly shut down, along with every other team. And then, of course, all the team bosses, drivers, sponsors, caterers and drivers' wives' hairstylists would all be lined up against a wall and shot.

But enough left-wing violence and enforced social engineering for one day, it's time to relocate this series to somewhere that has... shock, gasp, horror, a KING! And he isn't the kind of lunatic autocratic dictator who the people would want to rise up against and overthrow, because that madman came before the monarchy was restored. We're all off to sunny Spain, and the south of Spain at that, deep into sherry country. ¡Olé!

[dinizintheoven]

Round 15: Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
Saturday, 17 October 2015

PRE-QUALIFYING

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1 –    18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        1'30.241
2 –    17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'30.940
3 –    35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'30.947
4 –    36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'31.258
5 –    3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'31.263
6 –    4  O. Beretta          AGS            1'31.297
7 –    26 C. Bouchut          SPAM           1'31.494
8 –    30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'31.523

Code: Select all

DNPQ – 34 K. Chandhok         Spyker         1'31.799
DNPQ – 25 E. Collard          SPAM           1'31.828
DNPQ – 6  A. Yoong            Dome           1'31.912
DNPQ – 39 E. Salazar          FIRST          1'31.912
DNPQ – 22 M. Apicella         Hispania       1'32.032
DNPQ – 29 P. Belmondo         Simtek         1'32.220
DNPQ – 5  D. Schiattarella    Dome           1'32.295

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DNPQ – 31 P. McCarthy         Stefan         1'32.999
DNPQ – 40 J. Camathias        FIRST          1'34.045
DNPQ – 21 S. Yamamoto         Hispania       1'34.344
DNPQ – 33 G. Foitek           Spyker         1'34.427
DNPQ – 32 M. Pavlovic         Stefan         1'36.587
DNPQ – 37 C. Nissany          Shekel         1'38.322
DNPQ – 38 A. Shankar          Shekel         1'40.952

I thought this was F1RMGP, not Formula One in recent years. So what's all this business of the animals going in two by two? Anyone would think it was all about the car, not the driver. But, as ever, the driver makes enough of a difference that HWNSNBM yet again hauled his Pacific to the top of the pre-qualifying timesheets, and brought Andrea Montermini with him for the ride. Third and fourth were Arrows, Vitantonio Liuzzi leading Vincenzo Sospiri with only half a hundredth splitting them, while fifth and sixth were AGS, Philippe Alliot leading Olivier Beretta. Three teams made it through to the Friday unscathed; SPAM and Simtek both managed one car each, courtesy of Christophe Bouchut and Jérôme d'Ambrosio, who cane as close as he ever has to not making the cut... but his 100% record remains intact.

Karun Chandhok can consider himself unlucky not to have made the grade today, but pre-qualifying is as brutal as it ever was before, and he was almost three tenths away from where he needed to be. Emmanuel Collard couldn't match his team-mate's pace and was also cut; Alex Yoong and Eliseo Salazar didmatch each other, thousandth for thousandth in different cars, but it was all academic as they were both too slow to make it. At their home race, Hispania couldn't pull a result out of the bag – Marco Apicella could only manage a time seven tenths from where he needed to be, and his ship is sinking fast; the gamble to move to Hispania is really not paying off right now. At least he's doing better than his replacement, though; behind Apicella was Paul Belmondo, and behind him, Domenico Schiattarella – outqualified by his team-mate, his ex-team-mate at Simtek and the man he replaced at Dome. Tragic.

Right down the blunt end, Perry McCarthy's season-long crusade to save Stefan from the scrapheap has really gone sour – he qualified a few times early on but that seems like a pipe dream now, and Stefan haven't shown any signs they'd be better this year than they were with their two jokers in previous years. Joël Camathias unusually put his FIRST higher up than we'd expect, but he was still a second slower than McCarthy, while Sakon Yamamoto, Gregor Foitek, Milos Pavlovic and the two howling mad clowns at Shekel posted times progressively ever further away from the qualifying threshold and by ever increasing gaps, that some wondered whether they were at the same race.


QUALIFYING

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1 –    13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        1'28.274
2 –    7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    1'28.548
3 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         1'28.940
4 –    8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    1'29.100
5 –    9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           1'29.123
6 –    28 L. Badoer           SAAC           1'29.355
7 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   1'29.623
8 –    27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           1'29.828
9 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        1'29.908
10 –   2  T. Rustad           Viking         1'30.102
11 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          1'30.254
12 –   18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        1'30.355
13 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'30.368

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14 –   41 K. Andersen         Polestar       1'30.671
15 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           1'30.745
16 –   3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'30.873
17 –   35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'31.016
18 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          1'31.024
19 –   17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'31.130
20 –   23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        1'31.214
21 –   4  O. Beretta          AGS            1'31.245
22 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        1'31.338
23 –   16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   1'31.448
24 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       1'31.451
25 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'32.022
26 –   19 J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       1'32.035

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DNQ –  26 C. Bouchut          SPAM           1'33.184
DNQ –  20 M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       1'34.073

Jan Magnussen has had something of a shoddy season by his standards; to this point he hadn't won a race or taken pole, and had been on the podium only three times. But such is the competitive nature of F1RMGP these days that even with statistics like that he could still be in fourth place in the championship, and one of his errors for the year he's put right. Finally, he's put Ice One Racing in pole position, something he'd presumably promised to himself and his former employers that he would do at Interlagos (and that wasn't to be). Surrounding him are his old team-mate and current champion, Þorvaldur Einarsson, directly behind him in third, with the two Super Aguris joining in the fun – Shinji Nakano on the front row, and current championship leader Yuji Ide in fourth. That should make things very spicy. Former champion Chris Dagnall took fifth for former champions F1RM, abrely two tenths behind Ide, with initial championship favourite Luca Badoer taking sixth. Can you see how they're all crammed in here at the sharp end? It gets better; seventh was Hideki Noda, in what is known to be the most powerful car in the field, with the other SAAC of Gabriele Tarquinin in eighth, and the number twos of the Nordic teams on row five – Marko Asmer ahead of Tommy Rustad. Pedro Chaves would start in Golden Papaya position, and talking of papayas, he whose name the mention of will send a torrent of those tropical fruit your way again showed ability can overcome any car deficiencies with a fine drive to wrench the Pacific to twelfth, within touching distance of all the front runners. Hail HWNSNBM, once more. So we have to get to 13th position to find someone who's never experienced the sharp end of an F1RMGP grid – Jérôme d'Ambrosio, in the Simtek – which, like HWNSNBM's Pacific, has to make it through the rigours of pre-qualifying and after his shaky performance yesterday, he was back on form to sneak into the top half of the grid.

Into the second half, and also like HWNSNBM's Pacific, something Kasper Andersen doesn't have at his disposal is power, but still he managed to drag the wheezing Polestar to 14th, ahead of Eric van de Poele in the PURE-engined F1RM. Philippe Alliot avoided any qualifying horrors and lined up a semi-respectable 16th, as that win at Paul Ricard looks ever more like a massive fluke. Tonio Liuzzi in the Arrows was kept company on row nine by F1 contemporary and former team-mate Adrian Sutil, while Andrea Montermini in the other Pacific qualified 19th – ahead of Enrico Bertaggia. It was a bad day at the office all the way through for Minardi, Colin McRae starting 22nd and staring at his team-mate's rear wing, with Olivier Beretta between them. But if Minardi were having a bad day, spare a thought for Fabrizio Barbazza, who's been lurching up and down this season like Bill Clinton's trousers, and right now, those trousers were round his ankles. 23rd place for the formerly big-haired Italian, and only three thousandths behind him was Sebastian Hohenthal, with a power difference between the Leyton House and the Polestar that's an entire Vauxhall Corsa. Finally, on the back row, we found Vincenzo Sospiri, not living up to his pre-qualifying promise, and Joachim Winkelhock, which means... the same two drivers who missed the cut by a fair whack at Estoril have lathered, rinsed and repeated. And considering Christophe Bouchut's lack of hair, that's some achievement. D'oh.


RACE

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1 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         69   1h 47'58.514
2 –    13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        69   1h 47'59.460
3 –    28 L. Badoer           SAAC           69   1h 48'19.434
4 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   69   1h 48'31.870
5 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        69   1h 49'25.848
6 –    11 P. Chaves           Forti          68   + 1 lap                                                     
7 –    18 HWNSNBM             Pacific        68   + 1 lap                                                     
8 –    2  T. Rustad           Viking         68   + 1 lap                                                     
9 –    3  P. Alliot           AGS            68   + 1 lap                                                     
10 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          68   + 1 lap                                                     
11 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           68   + 1 lap                                                     
12 –   4  O. Beretta          AGS            68   + 1 lap                                                     
13 –   16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   67   + 2 laps                                                    

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14 –   17 A. Montermini       Pacific        67   + 2 laps                                                    
15 –   27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           67   + 2 laps                                                    
16 –   19 J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       67   + 2 laps                                                    
17 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        67   + 2 laps                                                    
18 –   35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         67   + 2 laps                                                    
19 –   41 K. Andersen         Polestar       67   + 2 laps                                                    
20 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         67   + 2 laps                                                    
21 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       62   oil leak                                                    
22 –   7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    59   puncture                                                    
23 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         53   engine                                                      
24 –   8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    39   engine                                                      
25 –   9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           18   crash                                                       
26 –   23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        6    engine                                                       

Everyone knows every point counts in this championship. Some have a hatful of points taken away from them by chance, some deprive themselves needlessly, and others get the luck of the draw.

Today was Jan Magnussen's race for the taking. Though he made a hesitant start, getting a nosebleed from being back up the very front of the grid for the first time this year, and dropped to third, by the end of lap 2 he had dispatched Þorvaldur Einarsson and Shinji Nakano and set about thundering off into the lead. In the complete opposite way, his team-mate, Marko Asmer, had made a thunderous start to find himself fifth, ahead of Yuji Ide, who'd also made a meal of his start. Magnussen and Ide are in championship contention, but haven't won it yet, and some commentators said the pressure was starting to tell on both. Magnussen, especially, had cracked last year. However, he'd vowed that would not happen this time round, and Ice One's fortunes were soon back the way we expect, with Magnussen shooting off in the lead, while Marko Asmer's good work was all undone as he was frightened out of the way and put down to 8th. Þorvaldur was playing the long game and had fuelled heavily, so nobody was surprised when he was Shinjinated out of the way on lap 5. For Super Aguri, of course, the "wrong" driver was at the front, but with Ide struggling, they were in no position to issue team orders. Ide, though, saw his title lead evaporating, and put the hammer down. Only nobody had told Chris Dagnall that he was going to have to let the Japanese through, and Ide swarmed all over his gearbox for five whole laps. Daggers would not budge, but was eventually forced to when he had to pit for fuel. Ide said dozo yoroshiku Daggers-san, and carried on regardless, easily coming out ahead of the Englishman when he pitted five laps later. Daggers, almost apologetically, then slid off the racetrack at Curva Sito Pons for a completely unprovoked retirement that nobody in his team could explain. Ide thundered on, now chasing Luca Badoer who was in front of him on the road, but also needed to pit soon. The 8.2 second gap disappeared in no time at all. By the time he met another of the front runners, it was... Shinji Nakano, temporarily relegated to third after a pit stop. And, ordinarily, Aguri Suzuki would have picked up the team radio and told the Shinjinator to get out of the way because there's a championship to be won here. Only, instead, the radio call came the other way, as a howl of polite Japanese derision screeched by Ide could be heard all around the paddock as his engine let go. They're fast, the Super Aguris, but they've got a dreadful fragility record, and it's cost Ide his seventh retirement of the season.

That, for a while, was that. Jan Magnussen, Shinji Nakano and Þorvaldur Einarsson cruised serenely onwards in the podium positions, seemingly ambling towards an inevitable result. Enter Sebastian Hohenthal, mired at the back as his Polestar was having a particularly troubling handling problem; on lap 51. Magnussen needed to lap him. Hohenthal swerved wildly at just the wrong moment and came within an inch of chopping Magnussen's nosecone off. Magnussen dispatched him on the pit straight, but seemed massively distracted from the job in hand. On lap 54, he drifted into the gravel trap on the exit of turn 4... and then, as if to not learn his lesson, did exactly the same thing on lap 55. This time he was not so lucky, entering the trap far faster, and tore his front wing off the way Hohenthal had threatened to do himself. Nakano passed him as he limped back to the pits; he'd blown a 20-second lead, and exited third. Gabriele Tarquini, running sixth, made a repeat performance of Magnussen's non-heroics, and also needed a nose change, dropping him right down to 15th – and then, Kasper Andersen, as if to apologise for his team-mate's near-misdemeanours, thought he'd also have a go. And as he'd had an unwanted collision with Olivier Beretta at the start, his nosecone change was his second of the day.

Lap 59 brought a dramatic end to Shinji Nakano's race, as his right rear tyre exploded into a million pieces and shattered the suspension, putting him out straight away. Magnussen's third place was now second... a mere two seconds behind Þorvaldur Einarsson. Cast your minds back to last year; the two were team-mates, both in with a shout of the championship, but with the Icelander favourite and Magnussen needing to finish ahead to keep the title race alive. Of course, he didn't, Þorvaldur finishing a mere two seconds ahead to take the title, even though the two were fifth and sixth on the road. This was the start of Jan Magnussen's relationship with Viking Racing going into complete meltdown, and now, here he was, at the same circuit, facing the same opponent, but now they were in rival teams and this was for the win. Within a lap, the two second lead had been eradicated, and Jan was right under Þorvaldur's rear wing. But the Icelander knew his old team-mates's tactics very well, and was able to counter for corner after corner. It was a scene reminiscent of Mansell/Senna at Monaco in 1992, or Schumacher/Alonso at Imola in 2005, as Magnussen threw everything he could at his old adversary, including the kitchen sink, the taps, the pipework underneath, and all the bottles of Cillit Bang and Windolene that were stashed underneath. And every time, Þorvaldur had an answer for it. For seven laps, Magnussen was like a snarling dog that wouldn't let go of the postman's leg. And then, on the last lap... they hit traffic. While at Viking, Stefan Johansson had told them both of the time he was driving for Onyx and Nigel Mansell had taken advantage of his lack of speed to pass Ayrton Senna – the cars were three abreast at the Hungaroring, a circuit that was supposedly impossible to pass on. And if the hairy-faced Brummie could do it there, why, Jan thought, couldn't he reverse the tables here on the one with the big beard?

But it didn't work out for him, as Þorvaldur hacked past Andrea Montermini to create a buffer. Magnussen had to slot in behind the Italian, and Þorvaldur pulled away a bit. Next up the road was Fabrizio Barbazza, who they'd have a bit more trouble elbowing out the way with that powerful Suzuki engine. But, by the time Magnussen had cleared Montermini, Þorvaldur was past Barbazza and that's how it stayed as they crossed the line, with the lapped Leyton House between them.

It was Magnussen's race to lose, and he'd lost it. Second was a consolation of sorts in that he stayed in the title hunt, but who wants to win a title with no race wins? Þorvaldur now had three of them this year, and had taken the lead in the championship. Yuji Ide, who had departed on lap 40, has four, and nobody else has more than one. It's going to be a tough task now, Jan... and we've still got to go to Suzuka.

Third place on the podium went to Luca Badoer, who almost looked lost. Both Super Aguris had retired, but if they hadn't it would have been Nakano, the "wrong" one, who was up there. And Badoer was, in a way, the "wrong" SAAC, being much further down the table. But the team should take this podium as it was handed to them, on a day when Gabriele Tarquini screwed up just as much as Magunssen did, maybe even far more. Fourth place, inconsequentially, was Hideki Noda; fifth and sixth were Marko Asmer and a very relieved Pedro Chaves, in only his second points-scoring finish of the season, and it could have been so different had his replacement at SA(A)C not tried to intervene. I will elaborate. Tarquini, down in 15th after his unprovoked foray into the gravel trap and limp to the pits for a new front wing, had been lapped by Asmer, and he was none too happy about it. He was then lapped by Chaves, on worn tyres, and gave the Portuguese driver a little nudge. Chaves slewed all over the track like a drunk, and Tarquini unlapped himself. Chaves had a quick trip into the gravel before recovering, still in sixth. Tarquini then set about getting his revenge on Asmer for daring to lap him; a lap and a half later, he encountered the Estonian at turn 4, where he had been off the track in the first place, and drove right into the side of him as Asmer turned in. In what was practically a T-boning, Asmer was lucky to survive the collision and even luckier to survive without losing a place, although Chaves was a few seconds back now. But, Gabriele Tarquini, if you want to win this championship, that is not the way to go about doing it, not even slightly, and you can have a Reject Of The Race award to think about.

Definitely not a reject, not at all, was the former champion, HWNSNBM. This would be the last instalment of his Busman's Holiday at Pacific, and after he'd been cruelly robbed of points at Estoril by a failing turbo, this time he brought the car safely home in seventh – who knows, it could have been more if Asmer and Chaves had been unluckier with Tarquini's antics. That puts Pacific ahead of ATS Rial and SPAM, if not out of pre-qualifying for 2016; it should be enough to ensure the team's survival. Some of the rest of the points went to those who were practically begging for it as well; Tommy Rustad, in 8th, isn't one of those and he pretty much knows what he'll be doing next year, whereas Philippe Alliot's two points for AGS were highly welcomed as the beleagured team has slid ever further into the mire. Adrian Sutil, who has also had a questionable run of form since his early season win, took the final point for tenth. Eric van de Poele had to miss out, as did Olivier Beretta, but both were still within a lap of the leaders. Two down were Fabrizio Barbazza and Andrea Montermini, caught and passed on the last lap as they desperately tried not to get in the way of the Nordic battle for victory; also two down was Gabriele Tarquini, who will no doubt want to run away and hide for a while after today. Joachim Winkelhock rumbled up in 16th, ahead of Colin McRae – the Minardis really didn't have a good day at all. And in the last three places, Tonio Liuzzi, Kasper Andersen and Vincenzo Sospiri – the two Arrows never really recovered from an awful start, and Andersen had a race to forget with his two front wing changes; indeed, he only escaped Reject Of The Race because Tarquini did the same and had much more to lose.

To those who fell in battle; I said Minardi had a bad day, which was really compounded when Enrico Bertaggia's engine screamed enough after a mere six laps. Chris Dagnall's inexplicable crash has been covered, as has Yuji Ide's engine failure; the same happened to Jérôme d'Ambrosio, whose engine blowout on lap 54 at Turn 4 may have been what caused all the chaos, but his car did not appear to be dumping any oil anywhere. That's more than can be said for Sebastian Hohenthal, though, as not long after he'd almost taken Jan Magnussen out of the action, his car erupted into flames with a massive oil leak. Fortunately, it all ended up off the racing line so his conscience can be clear.

It almost wasn't a mad race; in the end, it was. Now, we have three races to go, the first of which is in a totally new location for this series – Kyalami. And by that, we mean the old Kyalami from the days when South Africa's political climate was a lot less friendly than it is now. But those days are past, and irrespective of colour or origin, we can all look to huddling round the braai on the circuit campsite as kudu steak and boerewors are grilled to perfection, and the race should be a cracker. Eish, bro.



DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup

Three races to go, 75 points can be won.

~ indicates a driver who has switched teams – only the latest team is shown
* indicates a driver still in contention for the championship

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1 –    1  * Þ. Einarsson        Viking         154
2 –    8  * Y. Ide              Super Aguri    146
3 –    27 * G. Tarquini         SAAC           134
4 –    13 * J. Magnussen        Ice One        125
5 –    15 * H. Noda             Leyton House   117
6 –    28 * L. Badoer           SAAC           102
7 –    9  * C. Dagnall          F1RM           98
8 –    7  * S. Nakano           Super Aguri    96
9 –    16   F. Barbazza         Leyton House   77
10 –   2    T. Rustad           Viking         74
11 –   12   A. Sutil            Forti          61
12 –   14   M. Asmer            Ice One        48

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13 –   24   C. McRae (H)        Minardi        43
14 –   3    P. Alliot           AGS            41
15 –   23   E. Bertaggia        Minardi        31
16 –  ~22   M. Apicella         Hispania       27
17 –   11   P. Chaves           Forti          26
18 =   10   E. van de Poele     F1RM           21
18 =   41   K. Andersen         Polestar       21
20 –   42   S. Hohenthal        Polestar       20
21 –   18   HWNSNBM             Pacific        14
22 =   20   M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       10
22 =   26   C. Bouchut          SPAM           10
24 –   30   J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         9

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25 –   35   V. Liuzzi           Arrows         4
26 –   4    O. Beretta          AGS            3
27 –   19   J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       2
28 –   36   V. Sospiri          Arrows         1

CONSTRUCTORS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Willi Kauhsen Cup

Three races to go, 129 points can be won.

* indicates a constructor still in contention for the championship

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1 –  * Super Aguri    242
2 –  * SAAC           236
3 –  * Viking         228
4 –  * Leyton House   194
5 –  * Ice One        173
6 –  * F1RM           119
7 –    Forti          87
8 –    Minardi        74
9 –    AGS            44
10 –   Polestar       41

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11 –   Dome           27
12 –   Pacific        14
13 –   ATS Rial       12
14 –   SPAM           10
15 –   Simtek         9
16 –   Arrows         5

CLAUSURA: FIRST ROUND

(1) Ide (DNF) v (16) Apicella (DNPQ) – you were lucky, Yuji!
(2) Tarquini (15th) v (15) Bertaggia (DNF) - you were even luckier, Tarq, going through to the next round despite being ROTR!
(3) Einarsson (1st) v (14) Asmer (5th) - Marko's best performance in ages, but he got the impossible draw
(4) Magnussen (2nd) v (13) Alliot (9th) - ditto for Philippe Alliot, who's been a mile away since that win
(5) Noda (4th) v (12) McRae (17th)
(6) Dagnall (DNF) v (11) Sutil (10th)
(7) Nakano (DNF) v (10) Rustad (8th)
(8) Badoer (3rd) v (9) Barbazza (13th)

And so, the draw for the quarters is:

(1) Ide v (8) Badoer
(2) Tarquini v (10) Rustad
(3) Einarsson v (11) Sutil
(4) Magnussen v (5) Noda

To the Southern Hemisphere!

[FMecha]

For next year, Scorpion Racing - who were once linked to HRT - and KV Racing Technology are reported to join F1RMGP, as reported by J.O.U.R.N.A.L.

[dinizintheoven]

For next year, Scorpion Racing - who were once linked to HRT - and KV Racing Technology are reported to join F1RMGP, as reported by J.O.U.R.N.A.L.

J.O.U.R.N.A.L.'s new tagline: "Always slow off the mark!"

Marktin Brundell allies with the Portuguese: it's newsround time
Here comes a new challenger?
Hispania Racing might well be facing a different incarnation of themselves next year, should they survive and should this new entry be accepted. Scorpion Racing, the sort-of-successor team to Thesan Capital's HRT in F1, have applied for one of the vacant slots in the 2016 season, and it'd be interesting to see how they fared against Thesan's predecessors. There's no engine deal yet, nor have any drivers been considered, but the options will be open.

[dinizintheoven]

HWNSNBM: "My work here is done!"

F1RM, being the in-house team, are always one of the wildcard entries for the Bathurst Enduro, and it's no secret that HWNSNBM's four-race stint with Pacific was to get himself back to racing for a bit this year, and to help out the team who are using F1RM's old engines. His ability has brought 14 points to the team that they'd likely have not had if he hadn't arrived, and now he can return to his castle for a while and prepare to race alongside Chris Dagnall and Eric van de Poele at Mount Panorama (while Jean-Denis Délétraz presumably stays as far away as possible). And so, Pacific need a replacement driver. He's been suggested for a drive in this series for ages now, with all the Japanese teams, or anything running a Japanese engine. Pacific have neither of those, but I think they'll welcome this man into their ranks with great fervour...



Banzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

[dinizintheoven]

During his performance in a 1994 race he drew the attention of Satoru Nakajima, a well-known Japanese Formula One driver, whereupon he joined the Nakajima Racing team and competed in the Formula 3000. He was heavily involved in the team from 1995 until he was chosen as Tyrrell's Formula One test driver in 1997. He graduated to a race seat for 1998, becoming the sixth Japanese driver to compete in F1.

I knew as soon as I saw it, how incredibly wrong that is.

1975 - Hiroshi Fushida, Maki, DNQ once
1976 - Masahiro Hasemi, Kojima, actually finished a race 11th
1976 - Noritake Takahara, Tyrrell, also finished a race, in 9th - enough for two points in today's system!
1976 - Kazuyoshi Hoshino, Kojima, raced but retired
1976 - Masami Kuwashima, Wolf-Williams, drove in practice

So that's five Japanese drivers in the 1970s, in two all-Japanese teams, before we get to the first permanent fixture:

1987 - Satoru Nakajima, Lotus
1988 - Aguri Suzuki, Larrousse (one race, then that disastrous Zakspeed season)
1991 - Naoki Hattori, Coloni (easy to forget, but did compete in pre-qualifying)
1992 - Ukyo Katayama, Larrousse
1993 - Toshio Suzuki, Larrousse (also easy to forget, but qualified to for two races)
1994 - Taki Inoue, Simtek (and how we laughed the next season)

And then... Tora got his chance in 1998. I can see where the confusion came from, in a way, they'd thought of Nakajima as "the first ever", then thought of both Suzukis, Katayama and Inoue and forgotten Hattori, thus making Taki the "sixth".

Which, of course, he wasn't, and that's the worst example of critical research failure I've come across in quite some time.

[takagi_for_the_win]

YEEEEHHAAAAAAWWWWW!!
Dis gon b gud

[dinizintheoven]

Out here in the real world, the new F1 season is about to start. In the world of F1RMGP, it's time to go flying away for the season closers, which I'm going to post in the run-up to lights out in Melbourne. And so...


Round 16: Kyalami, South Africa
Saturday, 31 October 2015


PRE-QUALIFYING

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1 –    35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'05.785
2 –    30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'06.126
3 –    18 T. Takagi           Pacific        1'06.170
4 –    25 E. Collard          SPAM           1'06.370
5 –    31 P. McCarthy         Stefan         1'06.792
6 –    3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'06.866
7 –    36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'06.905
8 –    22 M. Apicella         Hispania       1'07.532

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DNPQ – 17 A. Montermini       Pacific        1'07.594
DNPQ – 34 K. Chandhok         Spyker         1'07.599
DNPQ – 4  O. Beretta          AGS            1'07.860
DNPQ – 26 C. Bouchut          SPAM           1'07.983
DNPQ – 21 S. Yamamoto         Hispania       1'08.337
DNPQ – 39 E. Salazar          FIRST          1'08.377
DNPQ – 6  A. Yoong            Dome           1'08.494

Code: Select all

DNPQ – 29 P. Belmondo         Simtek         1'08.765
DNPQ – 33 G. Foitek           Spyker         1'08.994
DNPQ – 5  D. Schiattarella    Dome           1'09.299
DNPQ – 37 C. Nissany          Shekel         1'09.341
DNPQ – 32 M. Pavlovic         Stefan         1'10.307
DNPQ – 40 J. Camathias        FIRST          1'10.768
DNPQ – 38 A. Shankar          Shekel         1'12.730

And so began pre-qualifying at Kyalami, the start of F1RMGP's Great African Adventure, in the land of boerewors, proteas and a dodgy political system that has been consigned to the dustbin of history – only, via the magic of Sir Bernard Shekelslike and Dr Francesca Rimmer, they found themselves racing on the circuit that was last used at the time when no other sport would touch South Africa with a barge pole. Because, let's face it, this was always a far better circuit than the one that surfaced when F1 was allowed to go back in 1992. Vitantonio Liuzzi proved himself to be king of the Thursday afternoon high-stakes session, recording the only time under 1'06. Jérôme d'Ambrosio was second for Simtek, and only half a tenth behind him was newboy Tora Takagi, giving a performance for Pacific that led many people to suggest that it was still HWNSNBM driving. The Hungarian legend did at least send him a message from his castle just outside Debrecen that was translated carelessly into Japanese and said "Just a roller skate grand touring, all over the physical ironic power!" No, none of us know how that happened either. Emmanuel Collard made up for his recent failures to make the cut taking fourth in the session, while Perry McCarthy, who hasn't seen the other side of pre-qualifying since Belgium back in July, was incredibly relieved to finally make it through again, hindered though he is by the awful Stefan. Philippe Alliot again ensured at least one AGS would be in qualifying on Friday, while Vincenzo Sospiri ensured his record of clearing pre-qualifying that stretches all the way back to Monaco remains intact.

The last place in qualifying proper was contested by Andrea Montermini, Karun Chandhok and Marco Apicella. Montermini was widely tipped to make it, still on a high from the way HWNSNBM pulled the whole team along with him, while Chandhok was quietly getting on with the job in hand and threatened to dethrone the Italian at the last minute. But the man who did was Marco Apicella, finally finding some speed in the Hispania at the last minute, knocking them both out and seeing a Friday afternoon with his new team at the fourth time of asking. Norberto Fontana, of course, did that twice but never managed to convert it into an appearance in the race. Behind Chandhok, one AGS and one SPAM would not make it, Olivier Beretta and Christophe Bouchut this time, and behind them, Sakon Yamamoto wasn't as far off the pace as he'd usually be, but was still miles away nevertheless. Eliseo Salazar and Alex Yoong were next, Salazar in particular being at a massive disadvantage in the pathetic FIRST on this fast circuit. Even so, he kept more powerful cars behind him – Paul Belmondo in the Simtek, whose season is falling to bits faster than a chest of drawers from MFI, Gregor Foitek, whose season has never got going at all, Domenico Schiattarella, who is about as useful to Dome as he was to Simtek, and then the four jokers at the back. Chanoch Nissany was in the lead of those this time, knocking on the door of beating Schiattarella back a further place, but he couldn't. Milos Pavlovic was in the 1'10s, as was Joël Camathias, and... who'd have bet on Adrian Shankar to not come last at this circuit? He shouldn't have done, as the Shekel has far more power than the FIRST, but it's not what you've got that counts, it's what you do with it.


QUALIFYING

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1 –    13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        1'05.125
2 –    9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           1'05.401
3 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   1'05.470
4 –    7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    1'05.556
5 –    27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           1'05.626
6 –    8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    1'05.675
7 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        1'05.751
8 –    35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         1'05.820
9 –    30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         1'05.979
10 –   28 L. Badoer           SAAC           1'05.981
11 –   1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         1'05.982
12 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        1'06.130
13 –   16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   1'06.242

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14 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          1'06.248
15 –   2  T. Rustad           Viking         1'06.284
16 –   18 T. Takagi           Pacific        1'06.369
17 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          1'06.405
18 –   23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        1'06.479
19 –   22 M. Apicella         Hispania       1'06.567
20 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         1'06.745
21 –   31 P. McCarthy         Stefan         1'06.904
22 –   41 K. Andersen         Polestar       1'06.940
23 –   10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           1'06.951
24 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       1'07.405
25 –   25 E. Collard          SPAM           1'07.803
26 –   3  P. Alliot           AGS            1'07.983

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DNQ –  20 M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       1'08.843
DNQ –  19 J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       1'09.026

It's fair to say Jan Magnussen is a driven man. The script at Jerez read: win from pole. He's still furious at himself that he allowed that to be torn up and thrown in the bin, and that it was all self-inflicted. This time: no more mistakes, and he signalled his intentions by taking pole by almost three tenths. Keeping him company at the front is Chris Dagnall, who always likes to remind us that neither he nor his former-champion team should ever be written off, PURE engine or not. Hideki Noda took third, as we'd expect Leyton House to be up the sharp end at a fast circuit; for Japan's other major team, though, things went slightly awry as yet again, Shinji Nakano outqualified Yuji Ide. They're fourth and sixth respectively, with Gabriele Tarquini, in with a shout of the championship and keen to make up for a torrid race at Jerez, sitting between them. If seventh was a respectable effort from Marko Asmer, then eighth and ninth for Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jérôme d'Ambrosio, both in cars that have already faced the rigours of pre-qualifying, is a magnificent achievement. Look who they've beaten as well – current champion and series leader at this point, Þorvaldur Einarsson. It's safe to say the Vikings weren't having a great day, having possibly overdone it a bit at the "welcome F1RMGP to South Africa" celebratory braai the evening before. Behind the current champ are another couple of drivers who you'd have to say are no slouch – Colin McRae and Fabrizio Barbazza, hammering home even more the great job that Liuzzi and d'Ambrosio did.

Andrian Sutil kicked off the second half of the grid, keeping Barb company on row seven and trailing him by only six thousandths. Tommy Rustad, also slightly worse for wear after the night before, only managed 15th, with new kid on the block Tora Takagi alongside him, in the only Pacific to make it this far. Banzai. Pedro Chaves and Enrico Bertaggia occupied row nine, Bertie unusually far back given the power at his disposal, but some say he was also far too indulgent at last night's big celebration. But, rejoice, Spanish F1RMGP fans, look who's made it onto the grid – easily, as it turns out – Marco Apicella, a mere 19th, but that'll do for everyone who's had to wait until this 16th attempt, and the release of Norberto Fontana, to see the Spanish car with the it's-actually-German diesel engine on the grid. Kyalami doesn't much favour diesels, so it seems, Apicella being the highest of the diesel runners. Fellow pre-qualifier Vincenzo Sospiri lined up alongside him in 20th, with Perry McCarthy refusing to fall at this hurdle again, dragging the Stefan up to 21st. Kasper Andersen and Sebastian Hohenthal, disadvantaged as they are by the woeful powerplant in their Polestars, took 22nd and 24th, on a day both feared the dreaded DNQ but neither would fall; Eric van de Poele, sitting between them in 23rd, should never be this far down, and he's raced on the 1990s version of this circuit. Finally, on the back row, belching black smoke like a Gauloises factory, the French diesels – Emmanuel Collard, in the SPAM, ahead of Philippe Alliot, in the AGS. And that means only one thing – the German diesels were nowhere to be found, Michael Ammermüller being almost a second off Alliot, and Joachim Winkelhock two tenths further back, and so it's Auf Wiedersehen to ATS Rial all in one go, just like it used to be in t'old days.


RACE

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1 –    13 J. Magnussen        Ice One        75   1h 26'04.828
2 –    8  Y. Ide              Super Aguri    75   1h 26'47.418
3 –    15 H. Noda             Leyton House   75   1h 27'09.706
4 –    27 G. Tarquini         SAAC           74   + 1 lap                                                     
5 –    9  C. Dagnall          F1RM           74   + 1 lap                                                     
6 –    14 M. Asmer            Ice One        74   + 1 lap                                                     
7 –    1  Þ. Einarsson        Viking         74   + 1 lap                                                     
8 –    10 E. van de Poele     F1RM           74   + 1 lap                                                     
9 –    2  T. Rustad           Viking         74   + 1 lap                                                     
10 –   42 S. Hohenthal        Polestar       74   + 1 lap                                                     
11 –   28 L. Badoer           SAAC           73   + 2 laps                                                    
12 –   25 E. Collard          SPAM           73   + 2 laps                                                    
13 –   36 V. Sospiri          Arrows         73   + 2 laps                                                    

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14 –   22 M. Apicella         Hispania       73   + 2 laps                                                    
15 –   31 P. McCarthy         Stefan         73   + 2 laps                                                    
16 –   3  P. Alliot           AGS            73   + 2 laps                                                    
17 –   30 J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         73   + 2 laps                                                    
18 –   11 P. Chaves           Forti          73   + 2 laps                                                    
19 –   23 E. Bertaggia        Minardi        72   + 3 laps (DNF, oil leak)                                                   
20 –   41 K. Andersen         Polestar       59   engine                                                      
21 –   35 V. Liuzzi           Arrows         55   transmission                                                
22 –   12 A. Sutil            Forti          48   engine                                                      
23 –   18 T. Takagi           Pacific        28   electrical                                                  
24 –   7  S. Nakano           Super Aguri    26   transmission                                                
25 –   24 C. McRae (H)        Minardi        16   transmission                                                
26 –   16 F. Barbazza         Leyton House   13   suspension                                                  

It's been a while, but finally, the Danish flag flew over the top step of the podium again. Some would say it's been a testing time for Jan Magnussen this year, in the new team that was supposed to carry him to the title. He's only managed to win his first race of the year at the sixteenth time of asking. But, as was said in qualifying, this time there were to be no mistakes.

The stars of the show in the opening stages, though, were the other title protagonists, Yuji Ide and Þorvaldur Einarsson, making lightning starts that propelled the two of them to second and third respectively. Þorvaldur's was particularly astounding, as it came from eleventh. But for him, it didn't last, as he found Shinji Nakano, Hideki Noda, Gabriele Tarquini and Marko Asmer all ganging up on him and after 16 laps, that third had become seventh. Ide, though, fended off everything that was thrown at him – not that a lot was, as Nakano took third and acted as a superb rear gunner for his team-mate. The big losers were Chris Dagnall, whose front row came to nothing and he found himself tenth, as well as the race-rusty Perry McCarthy and Marco Apicella, who no sooner had the lights gone out than they found themselves bringing up the rear. But enough of the rear; up the front, the sight of three of the five title contenders all duking it out in close combat, usually one overtaking one of the others every lap, was a joy to behold. Noda, the furthest back in the title race, was particularly aggressive, never giving an inch to either Tarquini or the interloping Asmer, determined to prove his lacklustre season could be polished at the last gasp. Þorvaldur was too cautious about not getting knocked off the road, hence the way he dropped back, figuring some points would be better than none; Noda was anything but, and while Tarquini tried to be careful, it wasn't always possible and his ignominious performance in Spain was still at the front of his mind.

Slightly behind the leaders, Fabrizio Barbazza wasn't having the kind of afternoon he wanted, and it came crashing down around him after only 13 laps when his right front suspension bent itself like a banana. Colin McRae, taking no prisoners in a charge towards the front (Enrico Bertaggia and Luca Badoer, another slow starter, being caught up in the Scottish whirlwind), would also go unrewarded; possibly the transmission failure his car suffered on lap 16 was due to a bit too much exertion. Trouble brewed for Yuji Ide up the front, when on lap 26 he lost his rear gunner, Shinji Nakano losing his top three gears all in one go and retiring on the spot. The pit strategy was weird; both Ice Ones pitted early, on lap 21, temporarily putting Ide in the lead; Magnussen, though, was so fast that he'd caught up to Ide on lap 23 and passed him before his scheduled stop. That, if anything, spelled out to Ide that second was the best he could hope for, and if anyone was going to charge through the field, he hoped it wasn't Marko Asmer, who'd also stopped early and was setting almost as blistering a pace as Magnussen. The Vikings, not quite at the races in the way they're used to, decided to play the long game – one stop, round about lap 30-ish, fuel the cars to the brim, and hope the drivers could do it. Tommy Rustad's first stop put him way down in 18th... but everyone in front of him would be driving through the pits at least once, and the team pinned their hopes that it would work for both drivers.

All was calm amongst the front runners, seemingly content to hold positions, maybe one would pass another occasionally, and so it would finish with Magnussen winning by 43 seconds – Yuji Ide was quite content with second, though, as it put him back at the top of the championship going into Suzuka. The Noda/Tarquini/Asmer battle was eventually resolved in favour of Noda, taking the third step of the podium; he'd pulled away from that pack just enough to avoid being lapped; to say Tarquini was very surprised at seeing Magnussen pass him from behind was a huge understatement, and underlined exactly how fast the Dane had been. Mixed in with these three scrappers was Chris Dagnall, who was so incensed at his awful start that he spent the entire race carving through the field, throwing in the kind of daring moves that won him four races in a midfield Toleman, earned him the promotion to F1RM and then the 2013 championship. In the end, that charge took him to sixth, but ultimately it was not going to be enough to keep him in the title hunt and he would have to bow out by the end. Even so, his charge cost Þorvaldur Einarsson two points and by the end of the race he was swarming all over Gabriele Tarquini like an angry wasp; Marko Asmer had been clinically dispatched into sixth with only two laps to go. The Viking strategy paid off as much as it was ever going to; Þorvaldur Einarsson's seventh place was really the best he was going to manage, and having started 11th, it was damage limitation all the way. Tommy Rustad could have been just behind him in eighth but eventually lost out in a 20-lap-long battle to Eric van de Poele. For Eric, this was a resulyt he hadn't expected; he passed Rustad with four laps to go, and two laps later, Enrico Bertaggia lost eighth place as his oil filter sprang a leak, and the burning oil completely toasted his shiny Lancia engine. Two retirements for Minardi, no points. So, in the end, the last point went to Sebastian Hohenthal, who'd quietly made his way up from the rear of the field. It's getting hard to separate the Polestar drivers; they're even on points, even on DNQs, and Kasper Andersen was on a similar run in this race – slightly behind Hohenthal – until his charge was halted by a blown engine.

11th place, two laps down, was Luca Badoer, now out of the title race with this blank score and, likely as not, subject to team orders from now on. Whether he'll do that or not when the two Minardi drivers are gunning for a place at SAAC, we will see. Emmanuel Collard, in 12th, was a surprise package; aided by some retirements along the way, he got the strategy right, was faster than others around him, but still went unrewarded for the day, when SPAM could do with some points. Tonio Liuzzi's excellent effort in qualifying came to nothing when his transmission broke after 55 laps, and he was running ninth behind Bertaggia; his demise is what made the Rustad/van de Poele fight for more than one point. His team-mate, Vincenzo Sospiri, wasn't on the pace and could only manage 13th. Marco Apicella, 14th, won the battle of the backmarkers with Perry McCarthy, and those they passed might well be embarrassed. Philippe Alliot was slow in a way that Collard wasn't, Jérôme d'Ambrosio was swamped at the start and then hindered by a series of unfortunate events with two punctures that saw him finish only 17th – but, behind him, having dropped right back from the midfield – Pedro Chaves, the last of the finishers, had spent most of the race trundling around with Apicella and McCarthy, only for them both to get past when they both remembered what a race was. In fact, both Fortis were slow, just the way they used to be in F1 in the mid-90s, but they're supposed to be a competitive team. Chaves and Adrian Sutil exchanged positions regularly without threatening to make any impression on the leaders, and this was only stopped when Sutil's engine exploded in a shower of nuts and bolts after 48 laps. No pace, no points, no glory, it's Reject Of The Race for Forti.

Kyalami leaves us with a situation in which the top four drivers in the championship are all with in a second place of each other. Hideki Noda, in fifth, can still win it, and Yuji Ide is in the lead. And where are we going next? Suzuka. Hold onto your eardrums, because if things really go his way, Yuji Ide could be handed the title at his home race, and if ever there was call for a screaming Japanese crowd, that'd be it.



DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup

Two races to go, 50 points can be won.

~ indicates a driver who has switched teams – only the latest team is shown
* indicates a driver still in contention for the championship

Code: Select all

1 –    8  * Y. Ide              Super Aguri    164
2 –    1  * Þ. Einarsson        Viking         160
3 –    13 * J. Magnussen        Ice One        150
4 –    27 * G. Tarquini         SAAC           146
5 –    15 * H. Noda             Leyton House   132
6 –    9    C. Dagnall          F1RM           108
7 –    28   L. Badoer           SAAC           102
8 –    7    S. Nakano           Super Aguri    96
9 –    16   F. Barbazza         Leyton House   77
10 –   2    T. Rustad           Viking         76
11 –   12   A. Sutil            Forti          61
12 –   14   M. Asmer            Ice One        56

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13 –   24   C. McRae (H)        Minardi        43
14 –   3    P. Alliot           AGS            41
15 –   23   E. Bertaggia        Minardi        31
16 –  ~22   M. Apicella         Hispania       27
17 –   11   P. Chaves           Forti          26
18 –   10   E. van de Poele     F1RM           25
19 =   41   K. Andersen         Polestar       21
19 =   42   S. Hohenthal        Polestar       21
21 –        HWNSNBM             Pacific        14
22 =   20   M. Ammermüller      ATS Rial       10
22 =   26   C. Bouchut          SPAM           10
24 –   30   J. d'Ambrosio       Simtek         9

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25 –   35   V. Liuzzi           Arrows         4
26 –   4    O. Beretta          AGS            3
27 –   19   J. Winkelhock       ATS Rial       2
28 –   36   V. Sospiri          Arrows         1

CONSTRUCTORS' CHAMPIONSHIP
for the Willi Kauhsen Cup

Two races to go, 86 points can be won.

* indicates a constructor still in contention for the championship

Code: Select all

1 –  * Super Aguri    260
2 –  * SAAC           248
3 –  * Viking         236
4 –  * Leyton House   209
5 –  * Ice One        206
6 –    F1RM           133
7 –    Forti          87
8 –    Minardi        74
9 –    AGS            44
10 –   Polestar       42

Code: Select all

11 –   Dome           27
12 –   Pacific        14
13 –   ATS Rial       12
14 –   SPAM           10
15 –   Simtek         9
16 –   Arrows         5

CLAUSURA: QUARTER FINALS

(1) Ide (2nd) v (8) Badoer (11th)
(2) Tarquini (4th) v (10) Rustad (9th)
(3) Einarsson (7th) v (11) Sutil (DNF)
(4) Magnussen (1st) v (5) Noda (3rd)

Unlucky, Hideki! But still, it does mean we've got the top four seeds in the semis...

(1) Ide v (4) Magnussen
(2) Tarquini v (3) Einarsson


DRIVERS' TITLE PERMUTATIONS

Four points in front, Yuji Ide is the only one who can win the title in Japan; everyone else will have to wait until Australia.

Ide has to win to have any chance of taking the title in Japan. If he does, the following can take it all the way to Australia:
- Einarsson needs to finish seventh or better
- Magnussen needs to finish third or better
- Tarquini and Noda will be out of the title race, though.

If Ide finishes second, even with all the other contenders scoring nothing, he will be 22 points ahead and still catchable.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Oh god, I do not want Ide to win the championship as he has usually underacheived until this year

[takagi_for_the_win]

Come on Einarsson! Time to recreate your form from last season! And meanwhile, it would appear that Takagi could be a star in the making

[takagi_for_the_win]

Come on Einarsson! Time to recreate your form from last season! And meanwhile, it would appear that Takagi could be a star in the making

[DemocalypseNow]

Mon dieu! All-female lineup for SAAC in 2016?

There are rumours that Alasdair Lindsay, so furious with his team's recent form, is on the verge of sacking both Gabriele Tarquni and Luca Badoer, and will instead replace them with WEC duo Alice Powell and Michele Mouton.

Powell and Mouton were the main protagonists in this year's WEC title battle, with West Cliff driver Powell dominating the season, while Alitaliana driver Mouton had to fight off her team-mate Vanina Ickx as well as fight Powell. However, she has proven to be one of the best drivers in the series over its two year history, and given her record in the WRC, it comes as no surprise.

"Michele? She's as capable as any male driver," said team principal Lindsay. "She took cars that were an absolute handful and wrung the neck of them. She drove in the Group B era and won. It's no wonder she is so fast in F1RMGP."

"Alice Powell also seems to be one of the best young talents at the moment," he continued. "Unfortunately for us, she totally dominated this season. I'm intrigued as to whether she'd do the same in the main series."

However, Lindsay was coy on questions about his main series teams' lineups for next year.

"Gabriele is still in the thick of a title battle right now, and we are also in a tense constructors battle at the moment with SAAC. We are focusing 100% on the here and now, beacuse we have chance to either win or lose both titles. It's a very difficult situation but we're going to give it everything we have. As for Minardi, they've improved massively since we got involved, they scored a win this year which is really incredible. We're happy with Enrico and Colin's performances and they deserve to be here again next season, no doubt."

"What will the lineups be for next season? We'll have to wait and see. But our guys have been so fantastic I can't see much changing."

[dr-baker]

Well, I can assure you that West Cliff Racing will be determined to keep hold of Alice Powell for next season's WEC championship so their title and honour may be defended!!!

[Salamander]

Well, I can assure you that West Cliff Racing will be determined to keep hold of Alice Powell for next season's WEC championship so their title and honour may be defended!!!

I think she would prefer winning the main event, though...

[FMecha]

Scorpion Racing's hopes over before it got started?

Rumors have circulated that Scorpion Racing's attempt to enter F1RMGP could be over before it's even begun after it was discovered a part-recycling company, which recently sponsored Hispania, has announced an takeover plan of the team. No-one from Scorpion or the part-recycling company is available for contact, not even from Hispania either.

A F1RMGP race in Tropico?

With the RWRS Tropican GP being confirmed, some Tropican media outlets are hyping-up the possibility of a race in the island-state in the future. A spokesman for the circuit where the Tropico GP will be held even handed out the possiblity of a F1RMGP race, even if it's just a non-championship race. No-one from F1RMGP series management is available for comment.

French gutter press, meanwhile, kept linked the Voecklers - Frederic-Maxime and Benoit - for a seat in SPAM in 2016.

[DemocalypseNow]

French gutter press, meanwhile, kept linked the Voecklers - Frederic-Maxime and Benoit - for a seat in SPAM in 2016.

Yet, ironically, failed to link the only Voeckler who has actually race in F1 - Jeremy-Etienne - to the seat instead. They really are gutter press huh...

[Salamander]

French gutter press, meanwhile, kept linked the Voecklers - Frederic-Maxime and Benoit - for a seat in SPAM in 2016.

Yet, ironically, failed to link the only Voeckler who has actually race in F1 - Jeremy-Etienne - to the seat instead. They really are gutter press huh...

He hasn't raced in F1 yet.

[DemocalypseNow]

French gutter press, meanwhile, kept linked the Voecklers - Frederic-Maxime and Benoit - for a seat in SPAM in 2016.

Yet, ironically, failed to link the only Voeckler who has actually race in F1 - Jeremy-Etienne - to the seat instead. They really are gutter press huh...

He hasn't raced in F1 yet.

He will. If Renault don't give him his big break, he'll look for it elsewhere. Perhaps at Ligier...