British Formula Three as a GP Support Event

[GilesGuthrie]

Hi Y'all

Well, some of you will know that I went to the British GP, for the third straight year. It was an interesting event, not just because of the GP, but also because of the non-championship British Formula 3 race that was also being held during the weekend.

Heikki Kovalainen won the race, claiming his first Formula 3 victory, as Fortec Motorsport and Renault scored a triumphant one-two result.

Kovalainen beat Fabio Carbone, his pole-sitting team-mate into Copse at the start and went on to retain his lead to the flag. Carbone and Carlin's James Courtney kept him under pressure, but Carbone was too busy fending off Courtney to stand a realistic chance of challenging for the lead.

In this race, which promised to be a cracker as the gloves were off, everyone was remarkably well behaved. In particular, the three front runners drove exceptionally well with moisture in the air, keeping the cars on the track and facing the right way. Courtney was impressive again after leaving an impression on me in the double header at the Super-Racing Weekend at Silverstone in May. There is a star of the future - he'll just have to get out of his Jaguar contract soon!

One amusing event was a single driver who, as I found out from speaking to another driver the next day, was 21 seconds off the pace. Indeed, so tardy was he off the line, that Silverstone Syd, the Fire Tender driver, passed him in his Jaguar XJR at the start!

 

[vat_man]

I see Courtney had a big one in testing the Jag at Monza last night. He's something special, though. I saw some of his FFord drives on video a couple of years ago (plus that unbelievable karting record of his).

I didn't realise that event was non-championship.

Is there any news on what he's doing next year? I wouldn't have thought Jaguar would have been that bad - they're pretty well funded, everyone has low expectations and they must be bound to turn around soon - and I'm fairly sure Ford are committed to them medium term at least.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by vat_man
I see Courtney had a big one in testing the Jag at Monza last night. He's something special, though. I saw some of his FFord drives on video a couple of years ago (plus that unbelievable karting record of his).

I didn't realise that event was non-championship.

Is there any news on what he's doing next year? I wouldn't have thought Jaguar would have been that bad - they're pretty well funded, everyone has low expectations and they must be bound to turn around soon - and I'm fairly sure Ford are committed to them medium term at least.

The non-championship thing was a real twist, because it meant all the drivers could just go for it, and it's lots more exposure for the sponsors.

I agree that there's a certain degree of long-termism to a Jaguar race deal, unless of course Lauda takes another turn and terminates the contract, in which case... well you're only as good as your last race, aren't you, and in a Jaguar, that's probably not that great!

 

[vat_man]

Well, whilst you might be more likely to score points in an Arrows, you'd be feeling a bit more secure in a Jaguar (unless you're Irish).

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by vat_man
Well, whilst you might be more likely to score points in an Arrows, you'd be feeling a bit more secure in a Jaguar (unless you're Irish).

True, but there should be a vacant seat at Jordan at the end of the year...

 

[vat_man]

Just in front of the vacant engine bay!

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by vat_man
Just in front of the vacant engine bay!

Would that be the engine bay whose cover was painted plain white?!

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by vat_man
I wouldn't have thought Jaguar would have been that bad - they're pretty well funded, everyone has low expectations and they must be bound to turn around soon - and I'm fairly sure Ford are committed to them medium term at least.

If you haven't been to the F1 forum recently, you might want to read this

 

[vat_man]

I was actually kidding about the Jordans, I'd pretty much taken it as given that Jordan were getting the Cossies - but the question is, would Ford walk away from the team or sell it?

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Bad time to sell, with one space on the pit lane already free, and a large possibility of another becoming free soon, now is not the time to be selling F1 teams.

Ford really need to persevere with this one I think, but all the branding issues in the world aren't going to sort out the fact that their F1 team is being headed by an idiot.

 

[vat_man]

What do you think the time limit is - 3 years?

Fair comment on the team leader - I really don't know why they ditched Rahal - at least he had long term vision.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by vat_man
What do you think the time limit is - 3 years?

It's an interesting question. I'm not sure that the top management in Ford are really behind the idea - I think Ford have dropped the ball on their branding, in a way that VW haven't. I think they were more rocked by the whole Ford/Firestone thing than they're willing to admit, and part of them seems to be chasing the European market, and part of them wants to re-establish pre-eminence in the US. This has confused their motorsport strategy, but with the single-supplier deal in CART, they could start to regain some sort of hold on the US, which could ironically strengthen the Euro/Asia focussed F1 program.

They simply can't pull out of F1 at the moment, because they've done so badly, they would get huge amounts of negative press.

Originally posted by vat_man
Fair comment on the team leader - I really don't know why they ditched Rahal - at least he had long term vision.

Absolutely, and at least Rahal had proven experience of running a successful race team! It was sheer lunacy.