GP2 Silverstone round 13 & 14

[skells22]

now the cars hit the home of British motorsport and this means home time for the British guys in GP2. and hopefully the guys will behave themselves after last time out in Valencia (street) race last time out

[Mystery]

Some of them have more points on their licenses than in the championship. Safety Car to lead most laps.

[skells22]

well, at least if cars do tangle this time the only time the SC will come out if a car is stuck in a danger spot but lucky there is run off all over this british track meaning it will be a rare SC

[chunterer]

I wonder if those with decent knowledge of the circuit will thrive this weekend.

That actually counts for an awful lot of the field though, having thought about it again!

Valsecchi's not gone very well here in recent years but I suspect he will want to put that right.

I fancy Calado and Nasr will have strong weekends and my dark horse for overall honours is Ericsson, he always seems to put on a charge at Silverstone.

[Alex K]

Do we know what sort of disagreement GP2 and Coloni had? Coloni is leaving series.

[jondownunder]

More on this here:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100935

Not only leaving the series, but having to forfeit all 2012 team points. Very odd!

[jondownunder]

Enzo Coloni sounds quite cordial about it all:

“Abbiamo preso parte al campionato fin dalla prima edizione e porteremo con noi molti bellissimi ricordi legati a questo impegno. Vorrei ringraziare Bruno Michel e lo staff della GP2 per la loro collaborazione nel corso degli anni”.

Rough translation:

"We took part in the championship since the first edition and will take with us many wonderful memories of this commitment. I would like to thank Bruno Michel of GP2 and staff for their cooperation over the years".

http://italiaracing.net/notizia.asp?id=36364&cat=4

I wonder if it has anything to do with any possible conflict of interest between GP2 and Coloni's Auto GP? Hasn't seemed to be a problem for GP2 that Coloni runs a series which is a potential rival.

[tux]

Haven't they lost the points because they are leaving at the end of the season so wont be awarded prize money?

[skells22]

yes, points are no more for that team, I have a sneaky feeling Nasjr might be in the bad books as he did set a time under yellow due to his team mate parked it at that same point

[chunterer]

For the benefit of everyone on the forum, before we get into penalties why don't we tell our posters what actually happened in qualifying?

[tux]

Leimer is on pole. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100953

Alot of cars seemed to have mechanical/electrical issues including, Nasr, Valsecchi, Ericsson, Onidi, Cecotto.

[ivanalesi]

May be it's mutual, because Mucke left GP3 and face suit as they breached their contract. May be Coloni expect that it will be very hard for them to find drivers for next season and they don't want to be part of the championship anymore. After what happened with Super Nova & Mucke, this is probably the most likely scenario. Other teams in both series are thinking about it, so I guess Coloni were the first to pull the trigger and leave.
The pool of drivers to sign up for GP2 some 2-3 years ago consisted of much more drivers. You had British & Euro F3, FM, F2 and WSbR all with 20+ cars. Now you have British & Euro F3 with 25 cars altogether, GP3 in place of FM, F2 with a small grid and WSbR as a clear competitor and on top of it GP2 budgets have gone up.

[W.A Trichlorostyrene]

Does anyone knows what will happen to today's GP2 and GP3 races, with that huge rain delay in F1 quali?

[tux]

They will take place after F1 but maybe another huge rain shower coming later in the afternoon....

EDIT: Heavy rain coming after F1 session so maybe very wet GP2/ delayed start.

EDIT2: Raining heavily again.

[rustyfan]

This is pathetic. Look, FIA - if you don't want racing in the rain, then do it NASCAR style and don't race at all instead of being silly and letting the cars run behind the SC for far too many laps.

[Mekola]

Gutiérrez and Razia won the races of the weekend, and now the Brazilian is at the top of the championship.

[chunterer]

Yes Esteban did a great job and kept cool in the awkward conditions yesterday. Apparently there was quite a lot of good action down the field?

Anyone care to comment on either of the races?

[Go_For_Pole]

It is nicely shaping up to be a three way battle for the title. I would say after this weekend my faith on Esteban taking the title has been restored.

... and thank God Ceccoto was not launched, that could have been quite a nasty shunt.

[Steven Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

... and thank God Ceccoto was not launched, that could have been quite a nasty shunt.

Indeed - I was standing behind the tyre wall he hit (I'm a marshal) - though when he hit, I had retreated to behind the portaloo!!

[Go_For_Pole]

Not much of a shelter that, is it? Thankfully we can laugh about those things but in my opinion that was seriously careless driving by both

[Steven Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

Not much of a shelter that, is it?

It was the nearest thing to duck behind! There was catch fencing to catch any big bits of car if it rolled, I was just sheltering from flying gravel/debris. Yes, in hindsight, not the most solid of shelters-plus it had been in use since Friday so could have been messy

[bella]

i was going to say, you have no idea how difficult it is to resist making a comment about being in the poo if it had all gone wrong

[Steven Humphrey]

Originally Posted by bella

i was going to say, you have no idea how difficult it is to resist making a comment about being in the poo if it had all gone wrong

There was a 'no solids' rule in place

[Go_For_Pole]

Oh the glam world of a Grand Prix

[boyndie]

After reading jonathon noble's article today on charlie whiting's "overtaking guidelines" on autosport pages it would appear that Max Chilton should clearly have recieved the penalty on sundays gp2 sprint race. Watching footage, it is clear Calado adhered to the rules (Calado's front wing past Chiltons rear wheel, in a non braking area)and yet still received a 10 place grid penalty for Germany. Then again, i guess chiltons dad is an important guy!!

Politics eh?