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Old 7 Apr 2014, 22:09 (Ref:3389955)   #1
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Should all sportscar fans be watching GP2?

The question is only half serious. But does anyone watch this series?

A lot of jokes get made about F1 being a feeder series for the WEC.

GP2 is the real feeder series, and after 9 seasons the amount of ex-GP2 talent making up the current WEC grid is significant.

Olivier Pla, Toni Vilander (2 rounds), Neel Jani, Nicolas Lapierre, Lucas di Grassi, Mike Conway, Alvaro Parente, Filipe Albuquerque (4 rounds), Davide Rigon, Sam Bird, Oliver Turvey, Fabio Leimer, Brendon Hartley (multiple appearances), James Calado.

Plus guys who went GP2 via F1 to sportscars: Sebastien Buemi, Bruno Senna, Gianmaria Bruni, Karun Chandhok.

Don't forget other drivers like Alex Premat, Adam Carroll, Yelmer Buurman, Nelson Panciatici, Rodolfo Gonzalez, Ho-Pin Tung, Tristan Gommendy. There's plenty of fringe guys you can also name.


Obviously there's nothing new about this in terms of drivers going the single seater route and ending up in sportscars. But with the top three from last year's series racing at Silverstone in two weeks and also Le Mans - you know more guys on the grid are looking.

Of the current 2014 crop Jon Lancaster and Nathanael Berthon were at the recent ELMS test. Alex Rossi did Le Mans last year. How long before we see Jolyon Palmer in sportscars?
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Old 7 Apr 2014, 23:30 (Ref:3389986)   #2
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With F1 drivers starving themselves to death nowadays, I'm not so sure F1 is the FEEDER serie to anything anymore....
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 02:12 (Ref:3390009)   #3
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For what its worth, I've been watching the GP2 series for a few years on its own merits. The racing is often better than F1 (perhaps due in part to the wider range of driver talent). While the drivers probably all want to go to F1, there is a shelf life in GP2. If you don't prove yourself and move on, you're viewed a bit suspiciously. With that being the case and very few F1 openings available, it is only natural that some of the GP2 drivers end up in sportscars. Good for them. Glad that sportscars are viewed as a good option for those guys.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 05:04 (Ref:3390030)   #4
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why do you think i've come over to sportscars from formula renault 3.5?

no, but seriously. it's completely correct. the one to watch is actually 3.5 - that's where the guys who seriously don't have the money for the next step are hanging around, and where the most underestimated talent is. might not be true in 2014, but crikey it was true in '13.

i don't think anyone's viewed suspiciously if they don't prove themselves in gp2. it's worse if you do a cecotto and erm, cover yourself in glory gp2 has so many mitigating factors that can stop someone being able to prove themselves. it's a lot like f1 in that respect. 3.5 is a little more "pure" but it's still difficult to achieve if you don't have the right resources or you don't know how to use them.

some of these guys coming over from single seaters i think aren't as good as some more established drivers, and there's a degree of being blinded by youth. i fear a little for sportscars because of that.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 06:20 (Ref:3390041)   #5
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With F1 drivers starving themselves to death nowadays, I'm not so sure F1 is the FEEDER serie to anything anymore....
very good vince
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 06:25 (Ref:3390044)   #6
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You know what, this thread reminds me of Nick Heidfeld. Poor guy with the most podium finish without a win, most points scored without a win. He is now working for Rebellion and still the hope of a victory is dim.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 06:58 (Ref:3390063)   #7
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i don't think anyone's viewed suspiciously if they don't prove themselves in gp2.
I think the OP meant (correct me if i'm wrong) that if they don't prove themselves immediately and move on.

The 'great' GP2 graduates I think of are the guys that go in for 1 year and blitz it (Hamilton, Hulkenberg etc). 3 of the last 4 champions are not what i would regard as 'mega-talents'. Maldonado, Valsecchi & Leimer, with all due respect, just seemed to hang around until the depth of field was low enough or that they had so much experience that they couldn't lose!

Anyway, I do watch most GP2 races. I keep an eye on all the junior formulae. I can't imagine, personally, being the person saying (and there were many) "Who's this Kevin Magnussen chap then?" as he stood on an F1 podium a few weeks ago.

The list of drivers in the OP are all very good racing drivers and I am delighted they have all found a berth in Sportscars. To the fickle world of F1 they are mostly labelled as either "crap" or "who?". That's their loss.

So yes, I think it's useful to keep an eye on the up-and-coming single-seater boys if you are a sportscar fan, especially as the trend is that more and more of them are now targeting sportscars.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 07:13 (Ref:3390066)   #8
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I'm not sure whether it is still on their agenda - but GP2 squad Racing Engineering were looking at branching out into LMP2 this year. Obviously that got parked but could be something to watch later this year.


Speaking of the mega talents - when Stoffel Vandoorne graduates straight to F1 and boots Button out of McLaren - at least we can point to his sportscar outing at Baku.

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Old 8 Apr 2014, 07:33 (Ref:3390069)   #9
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And Strakka have branched out from sports cars to FR3.5, so they will have a very good idea of who is who, and may end up placing drivers from their development program.

One of the natural advantages of sports cars, besides the surge in GT3 fields and the rising profile of the WEC, is that each car needs 2 or 3 drivers, which effectively doubles or triples the available drives. An obvious point, I know, but significant.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 10:15 (Ref:3390121)   #10
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For what its worth, I've been watching the GP2 series for a few years on its own merits. The racing is often better than F1 (perhaps due in part to the wider range of driver talent).
It can be great to watch, however driver standards can be a real issue sometimes, just look at what happened at Monaco last year.

As long as drivers get some more experience to knock some sense into them than just a season in GP2 then it should be a great proving ground for racing in sportscars.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 11:05 (Ref:3390132)   #11
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One of the natural advantages of sports cars, besides the surge in GT3 fields and the rising profile of the WEC, is that each car needs 2 or 3 drivers, which effectively doubles or triples the available drives. An obvious point, I know, but significant.
on the downside, those cars also need funding. sometimes these single seater refugees come in thinking they're going to be able to get a drive for nothing which isn't necessarily the case. like i said before, i fear for the well-established but ultimately not that well-walleted guys who are much better drivers than a kid with a bit of money who suddenly realised he's not as talented as his dad told him all these years.

at the moment the balance is just about right. you *want* the calados, the kliens and the leimers. but i'm finding that the "wow he's REALLY talented" threshold in sportscars is pretty low. you guys are getting pretty excited about people who were able to buy some pretty good drives in single seaters with some quality staff behind them and who did very little with them.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 11:42 (Ref:3390145)   #12
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I think what we're seeing is that drivers who can't make it into F1 have their eyes on sports car racing due to higher profile championships.

In the WEC you can be a World Champion now. That's instantly going to get a young driver's attention. I can also see the appeal of the two Blancpain series to young drivers - if you've been brought up on single-make championships, you'll probably like the combination of a BoP formula with cool, powerful GT cars.

The ladder for drivers is extremely conflated these days, but the F3/FR3.5/GP2/LMP2/GTE-PRO/LMP1 sort of route seems to be one of the more obvious ones.

Another factor is that there's an incredible amount of stability in the F1 driver market which means new seats are like gold-dust. Just look at the amount of previous World Champions on the grid. That's partly due to the modern safety of the sport, but also because a lot of them still feel like that they have something left to prove, not to mention the fact them some of them are very young multiple WCs with no plans of retirement on the horizon.

So with a stagnant F1 driver market, the increasing profile of sports cars, and with series like DTM and IndyCars being how they are...I guess that with hindsight, this trend was inevitable.
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 14:26 (Ref:3390229)   #13
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Another driver to note is Vaxiviere. He's jumping up from FR2.0 (?) to FR3.5 this year, and at the same time is doing either ELMS or WEC (can't remember which off the top of my head) in an AM Porsche.
Pretty odd.
Not criticising him in the slightest, I think racing drivers should seek to race everything possible, but normally young drivers finish single seaters before heading to sportscars or touring cars (though Christian Vietoris drove in both GP2 and DTM for a season iirc).
I hope 2014 works out well for him
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Old 8 Apr 2014, 15:50 (Ref:3390257)   #14
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I think what we're seeing is that drivers who can't make it into F1 have their eyes on sports car racing due to higher profile championships.
i suspect you're over thinking it a little. the guys simply want a career in motorsport once they've got over the f1 dream. full stop, end of story. doesn't really matter what they're racing. it just so happens that now there's no money in f1, and there's loads of money in sportscars, and dtm are taking young drivers seriously.
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Not criticising him in the slightest, I think racing drivers should seek to race everything possible, but normally young drivers finish single seaters before heading to sportscars or touring cars (though Christian Vietoris drove in both GP2 and DTM for a season iirc).
i think it's wec that vaxiviere is doing - there's at least 2 clashes between 3.5 and elms this season.

to their credit the french guys think a bit laterally anyway, much more so than british racers. for example, panciatici did formula renault 3.5, then a couple of rallys including the monte over the winter (family ties), then went into lmp2 with signatech. a couple of formula renault 2 litre and f3 drivers have gone into national rally full time (yann clairay?), and ragues is having a go this year as well. nathanael berthon did the andros trophy over the winter. paul loup chatin went from eurocup in 2012 to lmpc in elms in '13 to lmp2 this year - he also did the french porsches last year as well. jean karl vernay will race literally anything - take a look at his career record on forix. etc etc.
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Old 9 Apr 2014, 18:43 (Ref:3390615)   #15
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Another one.

2012 GP2 champ Davide Valsecchi moves to GT Open this year in a Lambo.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113373

Hopefully it's the start of something and he'll get more drives in other series.
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