Protyre Motorsport BARC F Renault 2012

[Deemun]

Originally Posted by Felipe

I'm afraid it's not the case.
I think the money progression is very big between F-Renault BARC and BF3 or GP3. Even drivers like Scott Malvern will struggle to make the budget for the big series.
On the other hand, usually F-Renault UK drivers had no problems to advance.

The only thing holding Scott Malvern's career back is lack of finance; pure & simple. His highly impressive record speaks for itself.

[Peat]

Sounds as if the grid might swell to 30 at Rockingham. A few teams are adding additional cars.

[Flavio Galtieri]

Originally Posted by Peat

Sounds as if the grid might swell to 30 at Rockingham. A few teams are adding additional cars.

That would be superb. Proof that a junior series with talented young drivers doesn't have to cost the earth.

Can't wait, after years of being bored stiff by UK FR 2.0 I am looking forward to being at Rockingham. If it is anything like the Snetterton meeting it will be worth watching.

[barnettracing]

I certainly know Hillspeed have two more cars available and are looking for drivers.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Deemun

The only thing holding Scott Malvern's career back is lack of finance; pure & simple. His highly impressive record speaks for itself.

I see some parallels with Nathan Freke's situation from a few years back. Did everything right in the FF car and then couldn't raise the money for the right drive further up and had to scratch around for the right sorts of openings ever since. I hope Scott can keep momentum going into next year.

[Felipe]

Originally Posted by Deemun

The only thing holding Scott Malvern's career back is lack of finance; pure & simple. His highly impressive record speaks for itself.

I totally agree. I'm sorry if sounded the opposite.

But, I would say lack of finance could be a problem for F-Renault BARC drivers. That's why I still can't see this boys moving to BF3 or similars. In my opinion, fully-funded drivers would go to (now former) UK series or Eurocup.

[FFfan]

Another good weekend for this championship at Thruxton. A bumper entry of almost 30 cars once again and three events so far and the championship lead has changed hands at every round which shows just how competitive it is.

Real pity there is no TV coverage.

[EastonNeston]

Interesting point about TV coverage, but is it really needed?
Most drivers at this level are funded by family money, or companies with a family link, so there is no real commecial message to send to veiwers. Indeed it is probably more effective, both in terms of cost & results, to invite the companies key customers to the event, where they can be 'sold the companies benefits' and also network with other companies involved with that driver/team.

It doesn't require expensive 'paddock club' style hospitality. I know of one driver who was entertaining his drivers with wine & cheese outside the teams truck. Simple & effective.

How effective is a brief longshot of a logo on a satilite channel when shown at non-peak viewing times? I feel that targeting a companies message to a specific audience is more effective in getting value from sponsorship.

It will be interesting to see what others think.

[bella]

i agree with you, completely. particularly since tv coverage outside of f1 with the exception of the wsr espn non-live shows consists of absolutely no features whatsoever. so there's no scope to see your logo or see your driver promoted aside from watching it go around the circuit. personally i think there's far more to be gained from a sense of involvement and belonging which you can do at the track by inviting guests in - for whatever refreshments that may be - to meet the car, ask questions, speak to them before and after the race.

human benefits like that are far greater than the brand recognition ones, i think. for that you have to buy the whole car space, and create a strong brand presence at the track which frankly is wasted on the crowds in the uk at anything but the toca meetings.

there's no point in trying to imitate what the bigger series have. instead you have to take the benefits of a smaller series - cheaper tickets, use of hospitality suites etc - and run with those instead.

[Flavio Galtieri]

Originally Posted by EastonNeston

Interesting point about TV coverage, but is it really needed?
Most drivers at this level are funded by family money, or companies with a family link, so there is no real commecial message to send to veiwers. Indeed it is probably more effective, both in terms of cost & results, to invite the companies key customers to the event, where they can be 'sold the companies benefits' and also network with other companies involved with that driver/team.

It doesn't require expensive 'paddock club' style hospitality. I know of one driver who was entertaining his drivers with wine & cheese outside the teams truck. Simple & effective.

How effective is a brief longshot of a logo on a satilite channel when shown at non-peak viewing times? I feel that targeting a companies message to a specific audience is more effective in getting value from sponsorship.

It will be interesting to see what others think.

All Club and National TV exposure on satellite is paid for by the competitors, either directly or indirectly through championship registration fees.

There is almost no measurable benefit to the sponsor in this coverage; audiences on Motors TV for example are 10-11,000 and sometimes so low as to be unrecordable. Given that you would expect to pay around £8 per thousand viewers for a 30 sec commercial on Sky then you can see that it's worth about the cost of a set of front brake pads, if not less if you're logo doesn't fill the screen for 30 secs. Get on ITV at on a Sunday afternoon and then you've got a chance.

Having said that it might well be worth having the series televised if that helps bring in more competitors and helps competitors gain financial support from the b2b opportunities that can be arranged trackside. That's the key and I'm sure it works. The TV coverage should be considered as an extra benefit for competitors, it's a bit like vanity publishing, not as a serious marketing proposition in isolation.

But with full grids already. where's the incentive for the organising club?

[RPD Motorsport]

Hey all, thought I might add the direct views of a team to the mix here...

There is no technical reason that the FR2000 cars cannot be made to run by a man and van team/ father than son, but the truth is that the level of time and depth of preperation these days is more than most people with a 9-5 job could manage.

For example, before each round of 2011 our car had
-full gearbox rebuild
-diff rebuild
-all aero kit removed and tub inspected
-engine removed and mounts crack tested
-engine leak down tested and inspected with endoscope
-uprights/wheelbearings rebuilt
-Dampers dyno tested and rebuilt as needed
-Rockers and ARBs rebuilt
-brakes rebuild every 2 rounds
-wiring loom checked at every pin through length
-steering rack every 2 rounds
ect...

That takes between 3 and 5 days for 3 mechanics full time provided there is nothing wrong. I will be the first to admit that not all of that is required every time, but by doing it every time is the only way you can ensure 100% reliability, make sure that your 'tweeks' are not working components too hard, and make sure everything feels at its best. Rebuilding and polishing a steering rack is does not make a car faster, but does make the steering feel like silk and that makes driver more happy with your car than team xyz, and that matters. That is why our cars and a couple of the other 'good teams' (IMHO) have not had any mechanical failures in 3 or more seasons, and privately run cars do have them regularly. None of the prep in the above list is beyond the skill of a good home mechanic, but the time and kit may be.

Likewise for data aynalasis - its where the real time is at in Jnr racing. All of the cars on the grid from good teams are split by 1.5 sec or less, but there is a huge amount in the drivers. Over the winter we had a 2011 series leader who is currently in the top few of BARC test with us. He had not had data engineering before our test. He was more than 3 secs off the pace at BH. 1 day of data engineering later and he was within 2 tenths of the LR. Data analysis at a basic level is again doable for driver and dad, but to do a half decent job you need a dedicated data engineer due to time requirements. With 30 mins between test sessions, you need 5 mins to plug in and download, 10 min for analysis and then 5 to run though with driver. You cant fit that in and physically prep the car... There is also a massive differance between looking at the difference between 2 lines (as you may have some fast data too) and between data ENGINEERING. Our data engineer will also be aynalising damper data, making sure damping rates and transferability are correct, roll ect... This means we can set up a car without listning to a drivers feeback - half of what we teach at this level if how to accurately feedback on a cars handling.

Setup can be a minefield, and to be frank, it is not possible to set up a car to be fast from driver feel. That is just a provable fact with chassis dynamics. The best setup is when you minimize contact patch force variation through all road input frequencies. That means aynalasis of the pitch, heave and warp modes, as well as calculating effects of heave/jounce on aero. To do that needs at lot of maths and engineering. You can get a dam good setup off of feel, but a much better one by using 4/7 post rigs, multibody simulations and 1st principals, obviously confirmed with real testing. This only needs to be done once for each team... The reason that setupa end up differant is that imagen you have the perfect setup... this does the best thing possible AT THE TYRES, the sprung mass, i.e. the body may be going nuts and the car may feel horrible to drive. In this case the driver may only ger 40% out of the setup, ending up slow. However they may find a setup through feel that they can get 100% from as they are happy and comfortable. A race engineers job is to push the setup as close as possible to 'dynamicly optimal' whilst ensuring the driver cann get the most from it.

So to cap it off, yes a man/van can run, bit in real life will struggle to compete with the 'bigger' team who are doing all of the above. In real life it takes 1 person per car to just do fuel and wheel washing, 1 person to mechanic it and at least 1 to do data. A 'good' team will then also have a data engineer using data to moniter setup and dynamics and a driver coach who works as a halfway house between data coaching with camera footage.

The real issue in Renault is the economy. Budgets are about £120k +VAT for the most expensive drives, but at the bottom end of the buaget range they go for £45 k+VAT or less. No team is making good money. We have ended up in a race for the lowest budget. Teams may employe 3 full time staff for example at £30l/year each. So if the drives are not selling at £60k, they will make a loss of at least £90k that season. They can drop them to 5k below cost (lets say coast for a given package id £50k for example) and they then only make a £15k loss. Tough but its either make a loss now and get drivers foe 2013 or dont run and not be on the scene for next year. Thats where we are with it - we cannot, and wont run at an outright loss for anything other than the very best drivers. We offer fully inclusive drives where some others hand out billd for consumables ect that are unexpected by the driver. Thats why you see some drivers dropping out half way. By the time drivers realise that its too late. The bubble will burst, running at a loss is not sustainable for long. But we desperately need to pick things up again. Hey ho...

[Flavio Galtieri]

Very informative post.

Thanks!

[EastonNeston]

Thank you for your detailed and honest post. It's good for the readers here to see the facts from someone who runs a well presented professional team.

There are many here that would like to remain to some long gone 'golden age' were you ran from a trailer with no awnings etc with just one person working on each car.

You can still run like that in low level clubbie racing, but that will not be competitive in a serious professional series.

[Flavio Galtieri]

There's a lot of debate about "aero" and "non aero" cars on other parts of the forum, particularly regarding the possible addition of wings to FF Ecoboost.

Personally I've never thought Formula BMW wings added much downforce, they seem pretty cosmetic to me, and I've always thought they were more or less a fashion accessory, but I wonder if there are any figures on Formula Renault aero packages?

How much downforce is actually produced? Is it from the wings or floor or both. How adjustable is it at high speed tracks like Thruxton, for example? Does it require changes of spring rates/ ride heights at different tracks? How complicated is it to get around for someone coming from, say, Formula Ford?

[Peter Cammish]

The current generation FR is a pretty fast car, about 4 seconds off a class B F3 around the new silverstone GP circuit when a FF is around 14 seconds off so there is a big difference in grip as FF is faster than FR on the straight also the FR brakes are better and the tyres yeild a lot more grip,. With regard to the slicks/wings debate its a question of finance if you have a very large budget maybe 2 years in FR is the way if you only have a budget for 1 year in FR dont bother and try to do 2 -3 in FF as chances are you will be retired after Year 1 in FR so I dont think the debate is about Wings its about giving drivers who dont have accident of birth the opportunity to race in a very good championship for sensible money and FF gives that and I for one hope it continues and I think it will, its demise have been predicted for around 20 years!! the only thing for me that is wrong is the tyre it is too durable and the formula was better on the AVON as the "two lap" window is the norm in the higher formula so in that respect I think the series went the wrong way and I dont think it helped costs , it certainly didn help me so I probably would say that... I personally think a FF 2000 championship in Britian would take off and I would like to see it.