European Formula 3 2014 Thread

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Nick Cassidy has joined T-Sport for Imola.

[Juntos]

Is FOTA lovely son Andy Chang join the next race to prepare Macau GP?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

16-year-old Sergio Sette Camara makes his debut this weekend with Eurointernational.

Ocon takes R1 pole, back to normal...

[Juntos]

Jordan King, what a disappointment. They say war is not the answer. But sometimes it's a battle just to keep the peace.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Well Ocon and Blomqvist have shared the wins so far. Verstappen has changed from a very poor rookie in R1 into someone worthy of Formula 1 in R2.

Edit: Verstappen won R3.

[steve nielsen]

So Ocon won the championship, it's a shame Max Verstappen had so many technical DNF's, it would have been a real fight in the last 3 races otherwise.

[Go_For_Pole]

I am so negatively surprised to see Berger pushing Ocon towards F1. I imagine he did the same for Verstappen. Both might be great talents but at F3 level you still have lots to learn before F1 and Berger should have been the first to know that. His role in FIA is to take care of the junior ladder not to devaluate all series that have no FIA management.

[Juntos]

Berger could start devaluating GP3. It would be helpful for European F3. My point is, paranoia can save your life.

[NaBUru38]

GP3 should allow only drivers with a full season of F3 experience.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

GP3 should allow only drivers with a full season of F3 experience.

And receive a lot of mediocrity whilst the genuine pick of the F3 bunch move on to FR3.5 or GP2. I'd be hugely surprised to see Ocon in GP3 next season. Menezes and Szykowiak, maybe. Maybe even Fuoco and Giovinazzi, but not Ocon or Verstappen.

[Go_For_Pole]

Fuoco or Giovinazzi would do fine as talent goes. Besides hype apart they are both at the level of the leading duo, it just took them a little more to get there. Typically that has little to do with talent but more so with pre season preparation.

Anyway GP3 has many other pools of talent to collect their grid. And besides how long before f3 pushes the self destruct button with budgets, trick engines etc?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Seeing how long F3 has been around for and how healthy the European series is now, I'm not so sure that is a valid argument.

Fuoco hasn't been as consistent as Ocon and Verstappen, but did come out of the blocks very fast. As for Giovinazzi, he has a season's experience to fall back on. I'm not sure they're as talented, but yes, they are certainly very, very good drivers.

[Rf1 Fan]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

Fuoco or Giovinazzi would do fine as talent goes. Besides hype apart they are both at the level of the leading duo, it just took them a little more to get there. Typically that has little to do with talent but more so with pre season preparation.

Anyway GP3 has many other pools of talent to collect their grid. And besides how long before f3 pushes the self destruct button with budgets, trick engines etc?

Let's see the qualy score between Ocon and Fuoco.
25-3 for Ocon
199 points advantage for Ocon

Ocon has pretty much blown away Fuoco.

[chunterer]

But then Ocon hasn'tt exactly starred in his first 4 3.5 races so far?

How does he compare to other supposed potential superstars in their 3.5 debuts in recent years? Sainz jnr was on it straight away. Any others?

[Rf1 Fan]

Originally Posted by chunterer

But then Ocon hasn'tt exactly starred in his first 4 3.5 races so far?

How does he compare to other supposed potential superstars in their 3.5 debuts in recent years? Sainz jnr was on it straight away. Any others?

In fact he raced in 3 races in 3.5 series without testing in midfield team.

With a day of FP in the wet and different brakes from FP.
First dry qualy : P6
First race on wet: P9 (with mistake on set up tyres pressure too high + 2 times the anti-stall system that has hindered esteban, but he made up the places)

Then in Paul Ricard, he went on to qualify with poor top speed in P10 and P13. In race 2 he would have finished in Top 7 if he did not loose 7 seconds on pit stop.


He did very fine considering his experience, when you try to compare with Sainz Jr who was racing in second generation of Gp3 which is much faster than a current F3 car.

Not to mention that before his Fr3.5 series debut , Sainz Jr had 48 races of F3, he was in fourth year car racing. Comparatively to Will Buller, Carlos Sainz Jr was slower when they were together.

If Berger and Marko think that Ocon can go straight away to F1, they might be right or not.

Fact is that starting his season at 17 years old, Ocon became European F3 champion and Prema made sign him a contract for F3 straight away without discussion after two days of testing. At least on testing term neither Dennis Olsen or Alex Albon acheived that feat as they won't be part of Prema's macau adventure as they decided to run only 3 cars. Ocon is not as astonishing as Verstappen but he is quite special.

[Go_For_Pole]

It's all very relevant. I have seen him getting badly beaten in Karting Academy by Leclerc, Barnicoat and a Greek guy to the point that Gravity pulled him out of the championship so I am bit sceptical about that special bit. Talented I won't argue against obviously.

Fuoco is also very talented and I am sure next year he will be in with a chance. His fate this year was defined by FDA dragging their feet with his program, he allegedly was less prepared than Ocon. But anyway the thing with some academies is that they are desperate to build a cv to their drivers as if they have to justify their graduation to F1. The money spent by Gravity on project Ocon is just crazy. I am no fan of this, I believe it destroys drivers more than anything. Steady steps and proper grounding should be better long term

[p-matt]

Originally Posted by chunterer

But then Ocon hasn'tt exactly starred in his first 4 3.5 races so far?

How does he compare to other supposed potential superstars in their 3.5 debuts in recent years? Sainz jnr was on it straight away. Any others?

Will Buller was right on it in his races for Zeta last year. What happened to him?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Barnicoat looks very good though, winning FR NEC in his first season. By 2016 he'll be in either this series or maybe GP3. Leclerc looks similarly awesome.

[steve nielsen]

Originally Posted by Biscuits In A Red Bull

And receive a lot of mediocrity whilst the genuine pick of the F3 bunch move on to FR3.5 or GP2. I'd be hugely surprised to see Ocon in GP3 next season. Menezes and Szykowiak, maybe. Maybe even Fuoco and Giovinazzi, but not Ocon or Verstappen.

We all know what Max is going to do next year and maybe Ocon will move drirectly up to F1 as well(there are rumours he will test for Lotus F1 in the next months)

[Rf1 Fan]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

It's all very relevant. I have seen him getting badly beaten in Karting Academy by Leclerc, Barnicoat and a Greek guy to the point that Gravity pulled him out of the championship so I am bit sceptical about that special bit. Talented I won't argue against obviously.

Fuoco is also very talented and I am sure next year he will be in with a chance. His fate this year was defined by FDA dragging their feet with his program, he allegedly was less prepared than Ocon. But anyway the thing with some academies is that they are desperate to build a cv to their drivers as if they have to justify their graduation to F1. The money spent by Gravity on project Ocon is just crazy. I am no fan of this, I believe it destroys drivers more than anything. Steady steps and proper grounding should be better long term

I struggle to see that logic, in fact. In the case of Ocon if they decided to step him up to car racing in 2012, it was because he was already 1m85 back at time. He is so tall which penalizes driver in junior go kart.

And F3 step up for Ocon was logical but exceeded expectations by big margins.

Also back until mid 2011 he never had a proper shot in full season in factory go kart team unlike Leclerc,Barnicoat or Gasly (who were with ART or Sodi). Taking in account the fact that he had top stop racing during nearly 1 year in 2009 as french MSA refused him a license as he was too young to race internationnaly in go kart.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Well, Verstappen has R1 pole for the Hockenheim finale, just ahead of Auer, whilst Blomqvist has taken R2 and R3 poles.

[chunterer]

Tom Blom is still a very good driver even in company of the new wunderkinds! I hope he xan step up to 3.5 or something next year?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

I can see 5 or 6 drivers stepping up next season from this grid into FR3.5 or GP2. Funding dependant.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Verstappen won R1 ahead of Auer and Blomqvist. Ocon finished 7th, ahead of Menezes and Seralles. Good to see them have a good showing.

[steve nielsen]

Rcae 2 and 3 should be fun with Max starting from P9 and P8(considering the speed he showed in race 1)