formula renault 3.5 @ barcelona (merged x2)

[JamesRamone]

Today's result sets up an excellent finale. I'm going for Ricciardo, Aleshin seems to be losing his bottle.

[strider]

Anyone have a video link for tomorrow as the race is not being shown on Eurosport until the evening?

[bella]

Originally Posted by N.A-D.R

did u not see practice results? ricciardo spent all of fp1 on very old tyres working on setup. and in fp2 he put on new tyres for the first time and went p1 straight away.

thanks, but i actually *saw* practice i also must have clearly misread his quote from fr2 on autosport.com as well. "working on setup"... he actually says he was worried he wasn't learning anything. so sure, working on setup, that's a good catch-all statement

in qualifying it was a bit shady that he went off, screwed everybody's last fast lap or two and still stayed on top but that just shows what an excellent job he did with those few laps. incredible pace. and aleshin pulled his earlier season form out of the bag which has to make you wonder what he's been doing for the middle part when ricciardo and guerrieri were catching up really...

it'll be interesting to see what happens in qualifying. worth getting up really early to get to the circuit for specially again, that's for sure

[WSR Fan]

Wow, it's not often you see two drivers level on points going into the last race of the year in any given championship!

Before the weekend my money was on Aleshin, but Ricciardo seems to have all the momentum at the moment. It's such a shame that Guerrieri is out of the hunt now. Still, to finish third after missing four races and getting a DQ in another is a huge achievement.

Whoever wins the title now, it's been a great year of racing

[bella]

well said!

[cavvy]

Originally Posted by WSR Fan

Wow, it's not often you see two drivers level on points going into the last race of the year in any given championship!

Before the weekend my money was on Aleshin, but Ricciardo seems to have all the momentum at the moment. It's such a shame that Guerrieri is out of the hunt now. Still, to finish third after missing four races and getting a DQ in another is a huge achievement.

Whoever wins the title now, it's been a great year of racing

A truly fine sentiment unless you are unashamedly a Ricciardo follower - go Dan.

[MCWB]

And Aleshin takes it! Amazing race to watch on live timing, Ricciardo certainly did my blood pressure no favours. Props to Guerrieri as well, dominating win today!

[N.A-D.R]

yeah it's sad for Ricciardo to lose it again in the last few laps after holding him off for basically 90% of the race, but Aleshin did a top job. Hats off to those 3 guys they were standouts this year.

[strider]

I'm not so happy that gut feeling about the outcome was correct, but very pleased for Esteban, who has shown himself to be the best driver out there this year.

[Belatti]

Why is Red Bull bothering sponsoring drivers like Ricciardo? He may be fast but when things matter he fades away... Congrats to Aleshin for the Championship.

[JamesRamone]

Originally Posted by Belatti

Why is Red Bull bothering sponsoring drivers like Ricciardo? He may be fast but when things matter he fades away... Congrats to Aleshin for the Championship.

A poor comment in my opinion.

Ricciardo won the British F3 title at his first go, and to come VERY close to the World Series title at his first go was very credible.

Red Bull dropped Aleshin from their program because he wasn't performing. Granted he has come good this year, but he is the one who nearly threw it away, and he's had much longer to learn the circuits and the car.

[Belatti]

Fair James, but then how come he drive like if he doesnt care the title was slipping away from his hands. The same type of driving he did at Silverstone.

[bella]

i think the red bull thing back when aleshin was doing it was more commercially motivated than it is now. it's not really fair to compare them on that basis.

i was a bit disappointed with ricciardo's driving at silverstone but he really wasn't able to do anything else to hold back aleshin without falling off and when it came down to it, we had a very clear championship battle in that respect - the man most able to drive quickly, think on his feet and overtake took the title.

tell me how many other times we've seen that recently!

i don't think aleshin was a particularly memorable champion but you really can't deny that the guy earned it on the day.

[chunterer]

Yup I think the guy with the greater experience, not necessarily the greatest overall ability, won out in the end.

Think it's fair to add that Ricciardo is still very much a developing driver whereas Aleshin has probably peaked.

[kobefly]

It's difficult to understand how weak was Ricciardo's defensive move (if there was any) to retain his position. I expected a stronger opposition even if Aleshin was looking in much better shape at that moment of the race.

I am glad Guerrieri could take one more victory and this time under heavy rain. Even without the championship this closed his season in a great way.

[Mak]

I think it is very wrong to judge any driver alone. Racing is about a team and there are so many variables. All drivers have had good and bad fortunes during the season, some very visual and obvious, others very much behind the scenes. All three top drivers should be very proud of their efforts and hopefully go on to bigger things.
Congradulations to Mikhail who did what was needed and held his nerve right to the end. I always though that Red Bull were too quick to dump drivers after putting them through an apprentiship. Aleshin has just kept improving.

[bella]

Originally Posted by kobefly

It's difficult to understand how weak was Ricciardo's defensive move (if there was any) to retain his position. I expected a stronger opposition even if Aleshin was looking in much better shape at that moment of the race.

i think it was pretty difficult considering ricciardo wasn't necessarily in control of his car at the time. he did perhaps put up less of a fight than guerrieri, but he really is the extreme case in terms of opposition. more often than not his overtakes rely on the other guy not driving like he does! aleshin was also a LOT faster than ricciardo. i think if you look at the big picture he'd have really struggled to hold the lead.

[F3 Rocks]

[QUOTE=kobefly;2774035]It's difficult to understand how weak was Ricciardo's defensive move (if there was any) to retain his position. I expected a stronger opposition even if Aleshin was looking in much better shape at that moment of the race.



Daniels car was spraying oil on the rear wheels towards the end of the race, and he lost the championship when the idiot Lancaster took him out at Silverstone

[JamesRamone]

I didn't think Ricciardo was too bad at Silverstone. As mentioned above he was taken out by Jon in race 1, and Guerrieri was really fired up for race 2 and deserved to win that race. It was a great move by Esteban to win the 2nd race and I think Ricciardo was happy with 2nd place knowing that Aleshin was running outside the top 10.

I don't think he was driving like he didn't care, it was probably just experience.

Fair play to Mikhail, he did what was needed on the day and credit to him for that. What next for him though?

[N.A-D.R]

That's the thing. I have the impression Aleshin won't be an f1 driver, he will probably do gp2 or move into something in america or even gt cars or something. Depends how big his bank account is.

[bella]

well unlike petrov, he does seem to carry a number of russian sponsors on his car (i don't read russian, for all i know they could be the names of his pet hamsters) so perhaps he's more of a commercial asset. he has taken a lower cost route to "the top" though so perhaps not.

say if ricciardo was dropped now, would he end up in f1 without red bulls support? if you take off your australian hat for a moment and discard the "but he's a red bull driver, he'll get there anyway" thoughts, would *you* sign him up? or would you perhaps wait to see for another year or so?

[chunterer]

Well for selfish sport watching reasons, I hope Ricciardo does GP2 for a year or two before F1 but that depends on Marko.

I would expect he would be a front runner there.

would also like to see him up against old FR2.0 rival Bottas, wonder what Williams have in store for him (I thought their backing depended on him winiing F3ES?).

Aleshin has done one or two GP2 races but that was a long time ago and he wasn't very competitive. Can't knock him for that because it's bloody hard to get in there and go quick straight off. However I can't see where else he can go if he wants to keep racing single seaters in Europe and has any hope of getting to F1.

On talent one would have to say Dan and Esteban deserve to be either in front running GP2 seats or into F1 ahead of Mikhail on ability but then the world doesn't work like that.

[bella]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Well for selfish sport watching reasons, I hope Ricciardo does GP2 for a year or two before F1 but that depends on Marko.

yeah, it must be frustrating to have your future in the hands of a mad guy with pocket money but equally it's a drama i'm sure many drivers would kill a puppy to have.

i'd actually like to see ricciardo *not* in the best car and actually have to see what he can pull out of the bag to keep his drive. it's interesting that at silverstone we saw hartley pull a seriously good qualifying performance out in a car that wasn't in as good a position as his old one, but that it was a performance he struggled to replicate regularly *in* the old one. if ricciardo really is as good he should be very interesting to watch in a midfield gp2 car.

good point about bottas - he's really disappeared under the radar this year hasn't he?

[ivanalesi]

Bella, Aleshin's sponsor is Gazprom which is the state owned company that sells gas to all of Europe. Also one of his sponsors is a big tire company(I mean in the ex-USSR market). No puppies If they truly believe in him, he's in F1, if not... GP2 and it will take him lots of time to show winning pace.
He's testing with RF1, so he may change Petrov Renault's Russian sponsors care only about there being a Russian driver. But I think it's highly unlikely.

[p-matt]

I can see them bring Aleshin to Renault as a test driver. I'm sure they have already decided that Petrov's roubles are worth keeping him around for another year and having a Russian tester can only add to their portfolio of Russian sponsors.

Renault seemed quite positive about Aleshin when he did the mid-season test weren't they?