Grand Prix Rejects

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Questions for F2RWRS teams and drivers
All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

We don't have an 'aim' as such, more like separate targets. Firstly, Martin van der Maeyede has this season, and this season only, to show us he is ready for a Kingfisher drive in F1RWRS in 2017. We don't believe this puts added pressure onto the lad, if anything it should be a confidence boost. He's spoken already about being excited for the future so now it's up to him to prove he has a future.
Matthias Valsattis ended last season strongly after two difficult years with us so we are looking for his performances to continue this year. F1RWRS was a little too much for him but he is very happy in F2 and alongside Martin, we have a very solid line-up.
As for the team itself, we started last year in a horrible state: an under-developed car, a rushed programme and two rookies. But we ended the year outside of pre-qualifying, setting faster laps than the Works Holden teams and scoring points so we want that to continue this year.
I wouldn't say wins and podiums are expected, but I'll be very disappointed if we don't hit our combined points total of 20.

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Questions for F2RWRS teams and drivers

All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

Phoenix McAllister wrote:We have 2 promising drivers, good technical stuff and, most importantly, a fast engine in the Lancia unit. We are expecting to be very competitive from the outset and even fight for wins.

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Questions for F2RWRS teams and drivers

All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

Brett Johnson wrote:Our goal? It is to sweep all the titles. We placed in the top three in the last two seasons, we look good for the Manufacturers' title, and we have two fantastic drivers with Alessandro Marchesi, who is already a seasoned veteran in the series, and Jordan Davies, who already looks like he will become a great driver here and a great driver in the F1RWRS. Overall, our ultimate goal is to launch both of their careers into the F1RWRS.

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Questions for F2RWRS teams and drivers
All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

RBWRT wrote:Our aim is quite simple. We want to beat FGCR. The team has two very good drivers and hopefully everyone else should be up to it.

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Questions for F2RWRS teams and drivers

All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Questions for F2RWRS teams and drivers

All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

Luke Knight wrote: Well, our principal aim is very much to qualify for races on a regular basis. Pre-Q will b very tight at the start of the year, and it'll be a big ask to escape week in, week out; but that's a challenge I feel the team is prepared for. We've got two strong drivers in Eric Swerts and Martyn Rietacher, who I feel will gel together like glue.

I feel we'll be the dark horses of F2RWRS. There has been little to no media attention focused on us, and therefore expectations are virtually non-existent. This should allow Plus One to thrie in their debut season.

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Red Bull & Good Call: You're the newest teams in the series. Are you expecting a full assault on titles, or is this by and large a learning year for you?

Luke Knight wrote:I'd say that 2016 is very much a learning year; but who says that learning cant be done whilst winning races and challenging for titles? Obviously, I'm hoping we could win a few races and maybe get involved in the championship fight, but at the moment we've still got to qualify for the races and score regular points finishes. The main priorites remain to escape pre-qualifying and to finish ahead of RBWRT in the standings at the end of the year.

www.rwrsupdate.com wrote:
Diego Alvarez Torrente - Many have said that you have committed career suicide by becoming involved in the Dofasco set up.What influenced your move to the Dofasco F2RWRS tean, given their poor results record?

Autodynamics, if by the end of the year the team is still stranded in pre-qualifying, what direction will the team take?

Daniel Moreno, why did you choose to compete in F1RWRS under the pseudonym The Stig?

John Zimmer - Would you say that a lack of a decent driver line-up has held HRT back in the last few seasons?

Revolution - How does the lack of sponsors affect your budget? Is the team run on a shoestring made of gold?

Daniel Melrose - If either of your drivers need to be replaced for whatever reason, will you step back into the cockpit?

Sammy Jones - How do you contest the rumours that the team will be shut down if it fails to win a title this year?

Phoenix McAllister - Spain hasn't had many drivers in it's F1RWRS history. What do you attribute this to?

James Davies (F1RGP2C) - What juniour driver(s) currently stand out to you as a future F1RWRS champion?

Guilliame Gauthier - What would be the greatest race of your career?

James Davies (F1RGP2C) - What juniour driver(s) currently stand out to you as a future F1RWRS champion?

James Davies wrote:There's a lot of bull to cut through in the junior categories, but right now? Dan Greenlaw. His results say everything. I reckon he could've actually pulled off a jump from F3 to F1, if I'm being honest. He should be one of the hottest properties going for 2017 after he walks the F2 title.

Guilliame Gauthier - What would be the greatest race of your career?

Guillaume Gauthier wrote:Well, there are many great races to choose from of course, but ze one which comes to mind right now is my first Grand Prix win. It will always be very special to me - no offense to McLaren, but zey're cars at the time were not race-winning cars. I got the chance to race for Williams in the American Grand Prix after Callum McAllister was injured, and I knew it was my chance to prove zat I was a world-class driver. I couldn't match Jody Scheckter for sheer single lap pace zat weekend, but our car was comfortably quicker than everyone else's, zo I focused on race pace and got a great start, and just controlled the race from there. It wasn't ze most exciting race for sure, but I've always been proud that I was able to plan out the whole weekend perfectly like that at my first opportunity.

www.rwrsupdate.com wrote:
Diego Alvarez Torrente - Many have said that you have committed career suicide by becoming involved in the Dofasco set up.What influenced your move to the Dofasco F2RWRS team, given their poor results record?

Diego Alvarez Torrente wrote:It would look like that on the surface! But you have to remember, Dofasco never had the best engines last year and so Buyvolov did some excellent drives. This year, we've got partnerships with Lancia and Dallara...so we think we might be able to challenge for points on a regular basis. In fact, without that Lancia deal I doubt I'd be here, as that was the key for me. Perhaps the ego came in where I thought I could help Dofasco on the up. I've proven we've got pace in the non-championship race earlier at Tropico, where I got pole ahead of Jordan Davies and Marko [Jantscher]. So, there's reason to be optimistic, I think.

Ataxia wrote:Because it doesn't say anything about lower formulae...[/quite]
Indeed, it could be used for other formulas too

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Falik Arrows: You fell back by some degree from your good 2014 form last year. Are you confident that you'll be able to arrest any slides in performance?

Prince Falik wrote:Well we do have a smaller budget then the top teams and I think we do well with what we have. Rosco Vantini was a masterful driver, I could see from his Italian F3 career that he would be F1RWRS material and I snapped him up after only 2 races and he won the Italian F3 title with races to spare. To be honest, Vantini took the car to places it quite frankly should not have been, yes, yes, yes. I don't think our form dropped too much but Katayama and Carlise did not step up, Katayama did perform better and has got various F1RWRS test drives and a couple of races for my good friends down at Tropico this year but we are going to spend more on the handling of the car to see if we can get some results. If we do not the Carlise might find himself with a P45 in his hand.

pasta_maldonado wrote:

www.rwrsupdate.com wrote:Revolution - How does the lack of sponsors affect your budget? Is the team run on a shoestring made of gold?

Daniel Moreno wrote:Simple, nobody wanted to hire a 40-something driver, who had also made an arse of himself on television and disliked by the teams across the paddock. Put on a helmet, mumble a bit and suddenly everyone puts you on the cover of their magazines...

www.rwrsupdate.com wrote:John Zimmer - Would you say that a lack of a decent driver line-up has held HRT back in the last few seasons?

John Zimmer wrote:It's one of the factors, yes. The only really good driver we had since 2012 has been Davies. Everyone else, including Frank and myself, have had too many poor performances. Frank's lucky I didn't smash his skull in after Macau last year. As for others, Watkinson and Whitechapel looked good to start with but got worse over time, and the less said about Melrose, the better.

www.rwrsupdate.com wrote:Phoenix McAllister - Spain hasn't had many drivers in it's F1RWRS history. What do you attribute this to?

Phoenix McAllister wrote:It's quite simple: for one reason or another, F1RWRS has lacked awareness so far in Spain, not least of which because of the usually poor results of the Spanish teams, CR Motorsports and our former incarnation as Team Phoenix. But with Aeroracing Engineering we've taken a big step forward to draw attention to the FRWRS and away from F1, where most Spanish young racing drivers dream of being right now. However, I think F1 is on its way down, just like CART was after the IRL secession. Right now, we have a couple of very promising Spanish young hotshots at F2RWRS, Diego Álvarez Torrente and my son Judd, both driving for Dofasco, which should do well this season because they have Lancia engines. There's also Marcos Marcia at IFRC, which in my opinion is a grossly overlooked series. Depending on how he does there, who knows? Overall, we're in much better shape, and the fact Repsol is supporting us throughout our multiple operations in the diverse FRWRS series speaks volumes about our firm commitment to make FRWRS a household term in the sports media, because Repsol has got experience supporting succesful racing teams in motorbikes and rallying and they're good at drawing attention. So, yeah, we are sure we're in the right direction in that regard.

Autosport wrote:
Sunshine : Since Infiniti left you have been dropping down the table, what are you doing to stop the rot?

João Lagos wrote:Well, it's been a bit out of our control really. In our full first year, as it is common knowledge, we had an agreement with the previous owners to keep the chassis that year. We were truthful to our word and we went instead investing on one of the best engines available. We knew our chassis would be an handicap so we faced the year as a transitional one. Obviously the chassis revealed itself to be more outdated that what we hoped for leading to internal problems with our main driver at that date (Katayama). This year was supposed to see us keep the engine and invest heavily on a new chassis. Unfortunately the rules changed and we were forced to change our engine too. Our partners, Daihatsu, had come up with a good value solution and we obviously took that. We are also satisfied with our current chassis but it will be a trying year really. The engine is brand new, which is also true for the chassis, and teething problems are to be expected. Hopefully we can be present at most races and the slowly improve on that. Honestly, it will be yet another difficult year...

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:Licor Beirao: You fell back by some degree from your good 2014 form last year. Are you confident that you'll be able to arrest any slides in performance?

Manuel João wrote:Last year was to be another good year and indeed we had the speed, but we hit some reliability issues that prevented us from a better performance overall. Hopefully this year, with Marko Jantscher, we are able to mount another championship fight. We kept our faith in BMW and indeed the regulations haven't changed much.

www.lequipe.fr/rwrs wrote:All teams in F2RWRS: What are your aims for this season? Where will the biggest surprises come from?

Manuel João wrote:We have an improved driver pairing really. As I previously said, we want to be up there. That has to be our goal. We only have to iron out some issues with reliability and hope that our chosen drivers can prove themselves as fast ones. We have much faith in Marko since he battled for the F3RWRS title. As for surprises, I think João Antonio Soares might raise a few eyebrows since it is obvious that his speed was disguised by a lorry... Erm... I mean a back of the grid car... *Ahem* I must clarify that this is not one bit the fault of Daihatsu's engines. No sir. Daihatsu FTW! (can I say FTW on press conferences? )