The Lucas di Grassi Formula E Thread

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 10 Sep 2015, 17:01

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 10 Sep 2015, 20:04

AndreaModa wrote:Baker, you little ripper.

Why, you considering applying applying for one of those job roles, then? If so, glad I could help.

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 10 Sep 2015, 20:11

dr-baker wrote:
AndreaModa wrote:Baker, you little ripper.

Why, you considering applying applying for one of those job roles, then? If so, glad I could help.

I'm about to start a masters in marketing (quitting my current job tomorrow!) and my ultimate ambition is to get into sports marketing so even just applying here would be good. Really appreciate the heads up!

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 10 Sep 2015, 20:58

AndreaModa wrote:
dr-baker wrote:
AndreaModa wrote:Baker, you little ripper.

Why, you considering applying applying for one of those job roles, then? If so, glad I could help.

I'm about to start a masters in marketing (quitting my current job tomorrow!) and my ultimate ambition is to get into sports marketing so even just applying here would be good. Really appreciate the heads up!

All the best for the Masters and job applications! I suppose even an internship might help with the CV?

PS. On graduation (or perhaps sooner), do you think you might be able to get a job inside FOM? You may be the one to save F1 from Bernie and CVC!

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 10 Sep 2015, 22:38

AndreaModa wrote:
dr-baker wrote:
AndreaModa wrote:Baker, you little ripper.

Why, you considering applying applying for one of those job roles, then? If so, glad I could help.

I'm about to start a masters in marketing (quitting my current job tomorrow!) and my ultimate ambition is to get into sports marketing so even just applying here would be good. Really appreciate the heads up!

Keep your hands off the Community Manager role there sonny jim! That title is mine!

I think many of us here dream of one day having a career in some field or other that allows us to stay involved in motorsport on a day-to-day basis. There are a fair few engineers (past and future) around these parts, so some PR, marketing & communications guys wanting to get in on the action is no surprise really.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 14 Sep 2015, 12:37

Oliver Turvey has been confirmed as Piquet's team-mate: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/120801

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 17 Sep 2015, 16:23

Robin Frijns will complete the Andretti line-up. This just leaves Soopah Aguri to confirm both drivers.

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 17 Sep 2015, 16:45

And I see that ITV have announced that they will cover all of the of the Formula E season two races live which is good news for UK viewers. Would have been tragic to see it go to subscription.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 19 Sep 2015, 13:47

Yamamoto for Aguri, pretty please Suzuki-san?

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 19 Sep 2015, 14:06

Biscione wrote:Yamamoto for Aguri, pretty please Suzuki-san?

Throw in Ide too, if it's not too much to ask? I'll accept Sato as a compromise though.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 21 Sep 2015, 23:21

Excellent news about the TV coverage... and now to gear up for the new season. Or, in the case of some of the teams, not gear up and just use direct drive...

AxelP800 · Post by **AxelP800** » 28 Sep 2015, 12:44

Autosport reports that second-year FE tracks will be altered, some chicanes and slow areas are straightened in Beijing, Berlin while Moscow's final section will resurfaced. But the first chicane at Punta del Este and Long Beach will be tightened to slow the cars down :shock:

. I'm ready for start crashes :geek:

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 28 Sep 2015, 15:59

A new news article on their website announcing a limit of 2 driver changes per team per season, and no changes during the final three races (not rounds, I notice), and with each change requiring 2 weeks' notice. Only exceptions would be in case of force majeure...

Oh, and BT Sports in Britain to show extensive highlights, in addition to ITV4's live coverage. Hoping that this is not an eventual move to the F1 BBC/Sky compromise package...

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 28 Sep 2015, 19:00

I suppose it was inevitable that the merry-go-round of drivers would be stopped. Ah well, it was good while it lasted!

I hope that it doesn't end up on the awful BT Sport channel in future as I will never buy any of their shoddy products. Sky may not be saints in any sense of the word but at least have some understanding of customer service which is more than you'll ever get out of BT.

Also, I notice that they are changing Fan Boost so that the vote ends after the first 6 minutes of the race. Obviously this means that the boost is only active on the second car, though teams can choose to go for a quick burst of high power, or a longer burst of not so high power. I quite like that change actually.

sw3ishida · Post by **sw3ishida** » 28 Sep 2015, 19:24

dr-baker wrote:A new news article on their website announcing a limit of 2 driver changes per team per season

Taking all bets on how long it is before we hit rejectful enough levels for an all-electric version of the Perry McCarthy/Andrea Moda situation

Waris · Post by **Waris** » 29 Sep 2015, 07:39

dr-baker wrote:A new news article on their website announcing a limit of 2 driver changes per team per season, and no changes during the final three races (not rounds, I notice), and with each change requiring 2 weeks' notice. Only exceptions would be in case of force majeure...

Ah NO, that is the worst news. It limits the reject potential of the series, which heretofore had been nearly unlimited.
Oh well, at least it's still one more change allowed than in F1...

girry · Post by **girry** » 29 Sep 2015, 11:57

That's just soooo FIA.

With their superlicense shenanigans and rule implementations in both WRC and F1 they seem obsessed with all their series have all the same drivers every race and only racing in one series.

Honestly, why? I get from a marketing/competition point of view that you probably want to have 8-12 "top" drivers who race every round, but apart from that I think it's just beneficial for any series to have a local hero have a one-off ride (Speed, Tung), or someone from another category giving it a try on his off-weekend (Sato, Duval, Andretti), or a chance get given to new driver if the previous one was underperforming (Vergne, Liuzzi) - or even just totally random pay driver hires for the weekend (Yamamoto). Pfft.

Backmarker · Post by **Backmarker** » 29 Sep 2015, 12:39

They've also adopted F1's points system for e-Licences - while 20 points is not a great many, it would have prevented Matthew Brabham and Michela Cerruti from entering.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 29 Sep 2015, 15:52

Backmarker wrote:They've also adopted F1's points system for e-Licences - while 20 points is not a great many, it would have prevented Matthew Brabham and Michela Cerruti from entering.

And that would definitely have been a BAD thing!

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 29 Sep 2015, 18:32

Personally I think both rules are very sensible and the right decision.

Formula 1 (and other long established series like WRC) already have a certain element of credibility. So when Frank Williams turned up and put a different pay driver in his customer March every weekend in the mid-70s, the championship had already been established for 25 years.

Formula E needs all the credibility it can get its hands on right now. The biggest problem for new championships (and teams for that matter) is establishing that credibility, a sense of stability and longevity that says "you can rely on this championship to be (somewhat) professional and it will be back again next year". It makes the teams and especially the sponsors much more comfortable.

Constant driver changes and drivers who, lets be frank, were way out of their depth, do more harm than good to a nascent championship in its early years. By weedling out the crap and making sure a decent standard is maintained across the year, the series gains a lot of credibility and respect. It was a no-brainer of a decision.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 17 Oct 2015, 00:56

So, you know that grand plan for a second GP Rejects Podcast to be a Formula E season preview?

Real life took over this month, and will do so all next month as well, so I can no longer devote the time and effort it will need.

However, if anyone else wants to attempt it and needs the intro theme and the sound effects, I'll send them on.

I will be watching the start of the new season, though. Definitely.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 17 Oct 2015, 11:32

dinizintheoven wrote:So, you know that grand plan for a second GP Rejects Podcast to be a Formula E season preview?

Real life took over this month, and will do so all next month as well, so I can no longer devote the time and effort it will need.

However, if anyone else wants to attempt it and needs the intro theme and the sound effects, I'll send them on.

I will be watching the start of the new season, though. Definitely.

If only I knew how to edit a podcast, I would have, but alas! Thanks for the heads up.

However, who else is excited for the start of season two in one week?

Zergon · Post by **Zergon** » 17 Oct 2015, 18:27

dr-baker wrote:
However, who else is excited for the start of season two in one week?

I am. I´m actually waiting the Formula E race more than F1 race.... :shock:

Post by **Nuppiz** » 18 Oct 2015, 17:49

I noticed Formula E is going to be broadcast on free-to-air TV here, so I might take a look at it as well.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 19 Oct 2015, 19:12

A while ago, I realised that Nelson Piquet Jnr was the inaugural FE champ, the inaugural A1GP sprint and feature race winner (and Brazil never went on to win again in that series), and an F1 podium scorer, thereby unrejectifying himself in each of the three series. And after the Saturday FE race at Battersea, a few of us who had attended the event met in a pub afterwards, and calculated that more than half (just!) the FE entrants in the 2014/15 season (18/35) had also been F1 drivers. So this got me wondering. How many drivers have been in F1, A1GP and FE, and had any been rejects in all three? So I made a table!
NR = non-reject;
R = reject;
blank = did not compete in that series.
The list of drivers are all that competed in the first season of FE, in championship order.

Code: Select all

DRIVER                    FE   A1GP    F1
Nelson Piquet Jnr         NR   NR      NR
Sebastien Buemi           NR   NR      R
Lucas di Grassi           NR           R
Jerome d'Ambrosio         NR           R
Sam Bird                  NR
Nicolas Prost             NR   R
Jean-Eric Vergne          NR           R
Antonio Felix da Costa    NR
Loic Duval                NR   NR
Bruno Senna               NR           R
Daniel Abt                NR
Nick Heidfeld             NR           NR

Code: Select all

DRIVER                    FE   A1GP    F1
Jaime Alguersuari         NR           R
Stephane Sarrazin         R            R
Franck Montagny           NR   R       R   
Scott Speed               NR   NR      R
Karun Chandhok            NR   R       R
Charles Pic               NR           R
Oriol Servia              R
Jarno Trulli              NR           NR
Salvador Duran            R    NR
Oliver Turvey             R
Vitantonio Liuzzi         R    NR      R
Takuma Sato               R            NR

Code: Select all

DRIVER                    FE   A1GP    F1
Justin Wilson             R            R
Ho-Pin Tung               R    NR
Antonio Garcia            R
Simona de Silvestro       R
Michela Cerruti           R
Marco Andretti            R    NR           
Matthew Brabham           R
Fabio Leimer              R
Alex Fontana              R
Katherine Legge           R
Sakon Yamamoto            R            R

Sources (all accessed on 19th October 2015)

http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/results/d ... dings.aspx
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5427&p=312555&hilit=COMPLETE+LIST+OF+REJECTS#p312555
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=419
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... ix_drivers

So, in brief, the 6 drivers who have competed in all three series:

Code: Select all

DRIVER                    FE   A1GP    F1
Nelson Piquet Jnr         NR   NR      NR
Sebastien Buemi           NR   NR      R
Franck Montagny           NR   R       R   
Scott Speed               NR   NR      R
Karun Chandhok            NR   R       R
Vitantonio Liuzzi         R    NR      R

So only Piquet has unrejectified himself in all three series, and nobody is a reject in all three. Unless you believe Montagny should have been DSQed from all FE results because of his reasons for being banned for two years...

May update this if needed over the next few years, if more ex-F1/A1GP drivers turn up (like Hulkenberg for example).

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 19 Oct 2015, 19:56

Totally different topic, so separate post...

At FantasyRacers.com, I have set up a private league for us if anybody else is interested in a fantasy FE predictions league. League name is "FE Rejects", password is "ferejects". We are league number 9, so it shouldn't be too hard to unrejectify ourselves here?

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 19 Oct 2015, 22:42

Finally! The Hammer Of Rejectribution is back and ready to swat allcomers away like a... big hammer. One that makes thunder and lightning. Which is relevant to Formula E. Isn't it?

Bring on this coming weekend.

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 20 Oct 2015, 07:21

dinizintheoven wrote:Finally! The Hammer Of Rejectribution is back and ready to swat allcomers away like a... big hammer. One that makes thunder and lightning. Which is relevant to Formula E. Isn't it?

Thor't of.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 20 Oct 2015, 11:21

...there's someone in another league with a team called "Formula 1 Rejects"!

Cheeky. (Also Goopa, Bodkin, Spike, Grimbo, Bogie... anyone who gets that reference without looking it up, somehow, gets free beer.)

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 23 Oct 2015, 10:15

Someone's running with extra ballast.....

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 23 Oct 2015, 11:27

CoopsII wrote:Someone's running with extra ballast.....

Is that in an attempt to move the weight bias forward a bit in the car?

And looking at the half-hour practice time, the Trulli team really are the Rejects of the Pre-Season! Still not a single timed lap...

Post by **Londoner** » 23 Oct 2015, 13:19

It goes from bad to worse for old Jarno. Trulli embarrassing stuff. I'll get me coat

I was going to wonder how Jarno has the money to run a team and develop a new powertrain, then I remembered he was part of the Toyota money pit no, sorry, F1 team for half a decade.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 24 Oct 2015, 00:15

Did someone say Andrea Moda?

Anyway, whether they did or not, and regardless of Trulli GP almost certainly sealing the award for ROTS two seasons in a row (because it was them first time round, surely?), here's something I would have said on the Season Preview Podcast if I'd had a chance to make it:

Jean-Éric Vergne for the title!

That is assuming he doesn't get picked for the other Haas seat which I have no idea of right now. And as I suspect Eyebrows-Squared is going to get that seat, I'll stick by what I just said and was going to say some weeks ago.

girry · Post by **girry** » 24 Oct 2015, 08:25

Is it too early for buemiwinslol?

WaffleCat · Post by **WaffleCat** » 24 Oct 2015, 10:56

No, no, no. It's just race 1, after all.

And also, did any of you stick around for the podium? It was absolutely fantastic, especially the way the drivers ran down the aisle, surrounded by adoring fans left and right as they ran their way to the podium. Phenomenal, that.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 24 Oct 2015, 11:50

Can I just say "oh bathplug", along with Marc Priestley.

Next time, Karun, you'll have that smug grin wiped off your face. Next time!

Post by **Miguel98** » 24 Oct 2015, 12:30

Great race. The powertrain rules have definetelly not ruined the racing, despite BUEMIWINSLOL running wild today. I shat my pants when Jerome went down the inside of Duval with two laps to go. That could've ended with three cars in the wall.

But, Heidfeld back on a podium, yes!

Shame Da Costa decided that the back of JV's car was a better place to be than racing...

AxelP800 · Post by **AxelP800** » 24 Oct 2015, 15:52

Miguel98 wrote:Great race. The powertrain rules have definetelly not ruined the racing, despite BUEMIWINSLOL running wild today. I shat my pants when Jerome went down the inside of Duval with two laps to go. That could've ended with three cars in the wall.

But, Heidfeld back on a podium, yes!
Shame Da Costa decided that the back of JV's car was a better place to be than racing...

I also scared that Heidfeldnitis might happened to Duval, but it wasn't. Nice introduction to new rules

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 24 Oct 2015, 19:06

Only just caught up with this race, having had a busy day today (work, driving to another town to hand in my timesheets, swimming with jacuzzi, car refuelling, browsing the new Mini Clubman a week early and some BMWs). And need to catch up with US GP qualifying later, after dinner and Doctor Who.

Anyway,..

dinizintheoven wrote:Did someone say Andrea Moda?

Exactly how I was thinking. With hints of HRT in preseason testing. In their own country!

IIDOTR: Nick Heidfeld, for surviving the last lap under pressure and apparently crossing the line with 0.08% energy left. Honorary mention to Buemi for such a significant winning margin.

ROTR:
1. Piquet, for finishing 2 laps down as champion and a generally hopeless race
2. Prost, for throwing away a podium
3. Da Costa, for his contre-temps with Villeneuve

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 26 Oct 2015, 09:54

Great drive from Buemi but it's too early to talk title. Equally, Piquet title defence appears equal to Damon Hill's 1997 effort but it's far from over.

Villeneuve was rather M.I.A. throughout, though, I thought.