2014 British F3 Silly Season

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by edenrace

Merhi ran in DTM for 2 years at Mercedes request has joined a new WSR team and is second in the championship...lapped as quick as FIA F3 cars at Spa ....Ferruci could only start car racing this year as he is just turned 16 and is driving in FIA F3 series but ran in British to gain more experience ...........appears the clowns may have more knowledge...not difficult

I respect your opinion Peter. Even though I've supported BF3 for nigh on 35 years, I don't have anything close to the inside knowledge you do. If you feel these two are in the same league as the legends that upheld the standard in this series down through the years, then fair enough.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Yeah, considering Merhi set the 2012- F3 lap record around Spa and is currently the form man in a talented FR3.5 grid, challenging Sainz Jr recently.

Ferrucci isn't Verstappen but is very raw and with more experience he could well add to the top 5 showings he produced at the Norisring in the rain. He has a hell of a lot of potential.

As far as I can see you're totally cynical and if you looked at the facts you'd realise that some of these drivers are top class. Merhi could end up in F1 next season, so to say he's a bit meh frankly makes you look like an idiot!

And if Alex Rossi nearly got into F1 then I'd expect Cao to be on the shortlist of some teams!

[p-matt]

^ I know you aren't a fan of Rossi, but he's not that bad

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by p-matt

^ I know you aren't a fan of Rossi, but he's not that bad

The word for him is either mediocre or decent. Nothing near 'good' and nearly 'credible'

[davyboy]

Kinda what we all thought... but Peter might be able to shed more light on it, seeing as he's quoted in it.

[edenrace]

Luckily Merhi did not let me down....never driven F1 car before and outpaced his teammates...he is good.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Merhi is brilliant.

Moving on from who's good and who isn't and back to davyboy's news article. Perhaps I or someone else should start another thread on the Euro F3-but-not-really-Euro-F3 series that may happen next season?

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Biscuits In A Red Bull

Merhi is brilliant.

Moving on from who's good and who isn't and back to davyboy's news article. Perhaps I or someone else should start another thread on the Euro F3-but-not-really-Euro-F3 series that may happen next season?

Glad to see Merhi acquitting himself well - there may be hope [for him] yet

[chunterer]

Come on edenrace let's have your thoughts on this mooted euro series!8

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

What even is it? They've tried to battle with the FIA European Championship and failed, they've tried to take on FR Eurocup in the UK and failed, and now they're going to be a worse version of the Euro series, which is sort of FR Eurocup territory again, but with more relevant circuits all across Europe (GB, Austria, Germany, Belgium, maybe elsewhere) compared to this season and in bigger cars that will allow for Macau qualification.

[Moneyseeker]

MSV would like to take over BF3 next year.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

MSV would like to take over BF3 next year.

Is that to effect a merger with Club F3... and call the entire series BF3 ?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Well, the 5-car field returns for the title decider at Donington. Cao and Rao share poles. The following session was qualifying for the 30 car Ginetta GT5 Challenge grid. That's 6 cars for every 1 F3 car!

[p-matt]

And yet there's more interest on here in British F3 (albeit to berate it) than GP3

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

I'm going to start a GP3 thread for next season...

Cao won R1 from Marshall, with Rao making a huge start blunder.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Biscuits In A Red Bull

I'm going to start a GP3 thread for next season...

Cao won R1 from Marshall, with Rao making a huge start blunder.

... and in other news the sun rose this morning and set this evening.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by davyboy

... and in other news the sun rose this morning and set this evening.

Erm, the sun hasn't set yet. Not in England, anyway...

...but I get your point. Autosport should move their reports into the club section. British GT was in that section as recently as 2011...

[peebee2]

Title of this thread is very apt.

Of the five, the best is THREE SECONDS of the last time the series visited!

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by davyboy

Is that to effect a merger with Club F3... and call the entire series BF3 ?

I believe he is thinking to use the current car plus a different spec engine to cut engine bills.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Speaking of cutting the engine bills, Martin Cao won the title, despite Rao winning both R2 and R3.

Hopefully the recent strength of BRDC F4, and the fact that most of the current BFF grid is made of second-season drivers, means that the series may survive for long enough to see a revival, which could happen if both BRDC F4 and FIA F4 can produce a lot of prospects and if the economy improves. However, there are a lot of things that could go wrong with that...

...or maybe this German/British F3 merger can work, although I can't really think of any pull factors that FR Eurocup doesn't have...

...but anyway, Martin Cao has achieved something that the likes of Jenson Button, Martin Brundle and Andre Lotterer couldn't, and will go down in the history books as a British Formula Three champion, alongside Daniel Ricciardo, Álvaro Parente, Jan Magnussen, Gil de Ferran, Rubens Barrichello, Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Derek Warwick, Roger Williamson, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jackie Stewart, and Jim Clark among many, many other big names...


...I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Biscuits In A Red Bull

...but anyway, Martin Cao has achieved something that the likes of Jenson Button, Martin Brundle and Andre Lotterer couldn't, and will go down in the history books as a British Formula Three champion, alongside Daniel Ricciardo, Álvaro Parente, Jan Magnussen, Gil de Ferran, Rubens Barrichello, Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Derek Warwick, Roger Williamson, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jackie Stewart, and Jim Clark among many, many other big names...

... and that's why those who belligerently kept this brain dead series on life support ought to be ashamed

[Moneyseeker]

Couldn't agree more, shameful ....

[simon drabble]

It will be interesting to see where the drivers go from here.... clearly the history books will show Cao and Rao as champion and runner up respectively but I would imagine that their current backers will have been left feeling somewhat short changed.

In Rao's case I would imagine Tony Fernandes will see little justification in continuing given he no longer has an F1 team to lose the cost of backing young Matt. As others have said a great shame that a once great series has been left to stagger into obscurity.

[jondownunder]

I'm confused - I know Matt Parry is a Caterham Academy driver, but Matt Rao?

Only single google reference I can find is one Caterham GP2 Twitter post where Rao is in the car for pitstop practice in 2013 - https://twitter.com/CaterhamGP2/stat...78444476133376

[simon drabble]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

I'm confused - I know Matt Parry is a Caterham Academy driver, but Matt Rao?

Only single google reference I can find is one Caterham GP2 Twitter post where Rao is in the car for pitstop practice in 2013 - https://twitter.com/CaterhamGP2/stat...78444476133376

and both did FF with Fluid in Duratec's.. Matt Rao's dad is head of sales at Airbus and therefore knew Fernandes and apparently managed to get him to pay for Matt's racing. All power to him if correct but I would be surprised to see it continue when he has no team to offset the cost.