Doesn’t it make you wonder?

Filed under: Thoughts on March 15, 2007

Formula Renault driver Alexander Sims and Japan’s Sho Hawana who finished 12th and DNF respectively in last weekends UK Formula Vee race were back in action the following Monday for the official Formula Renault test at Brands Hatch.

During this test, Sims finished 2nd fastest with a 44.152 whilst Hawana was 9th fastest, 3 tenths slower.

Pos	No.	Name	Nat	Class	Team	Best Tm	In Lap	Diff	Gap	Best Spd
1	4	Riki CHRISTODOULOU	GBR	G	Fortec Motorsport	44.009	82	-	-	99.143
2	22	Alexander SIMS	GBR	G	Manor Competition	44.152	45	+0.143	+0.143	98.822
3	23	Duncan TAPPY	GBR		Fortec Motorsport	44.312	27	+0.303	+0.160	98.465
4	94	Richard KEEN	GBR	C	Hi Tech Racing	44.325	55	+0.316	+0.013	98.437
5	2	Dean SMITH	GBR		Fortec Motorsport	44.339	20	+0.330	+0.014	98.405
6	5	Adam CHRISTODOULOU	GBR	G	AKA Cobra	44.367	57	+0.358	+0.028	98.343
7	11	Alex MORGAN	GBR		Manor Competition	44.388	42	+0.379	+0.021	98.297
8	7	Chris HOLMES	GBR		AKA Cobra	44.432	81	+0.423	+0.044	98.199
9	26	Sho HANAWA	JPN	G	Mark Burdett Motorsport	44.433	36	+0.424	+0.001	98.197
10	9	Jordan OAKES	GBR	G	Eurotek Motorsport	44.496	56	+0.487	+0.063	98.058

The previous week at Snetterton (07/03/06), Sims finished 5th fastest for Manor Motorsport with a 1:05.123, four tenths of a second off the ultimate pace. Hanawa finished 16th just over half a second off the best Sims could achieve.

Pos	No.	Name	Nat	Class	Team	Best Tm	In Lap	Diff	Gap	Best Spd
1	2	Dean SMITH	GBR		Fortec Motorsport	1:04.656	55	-	-	108.686
2	5	Adam CHRISTODOULOU	GBR	G	AKA Cobra	1:04.800	46	+0.144	+0.144	108.444
3	4	Riki CHRISTODOULOU	GBR	G	Fortec Motorsport	1:04.929	46	+0.273	+0.129	108.229
4	23	Duncan TAPPY	GBR		Fortec Motorsport	1:05.053	36	+0.397	+0.124	108.023
5	22	Alexander SIMS	GBR	G	Manor Competition	1:05.123	54	+0.467	+0.070	107.907
6	6	Jeremy METCALFE	GBR		AKA Cobra	1:05.208	54	+0.552	+0.085	107.766
7	34	Adriano BUZAID	BRA		Eucatex Premier Pet Shoptour	1:05.220	42	+0.564	+0.012	107.746
8	20	Will BRATT	GBR		Apotex Scorpio Motorsport	1:05.296	41	+0.640	+0.076	107.621
9	35	Kris LOANE	GBR	G	Manor Competition	1:05.301	47	+0.645	+0.005	107.612
10	7	Chris HOLMES	GBR		AKA Cobra	1:05.315	54	+0.659	+0.014	107.589
…
14	3	Richard SINGLETON	GBR	G	Manor Competition	1:05.540	42	+0.884	+0.064	107.220
15	90	Andrew MEYRICK	GBR		Apotex Scorpio Motorsport	1:05.684	55	+1.028	+0.144	106.985
16	26	Sho HANAWA	JPN	G	Mark Burdett Motorsport	1:05.708	29	+1.052	+0.024	106.946

It makes me wonder if by normalising their performances, in each series, could you conclude anything about the quality at the front of UK Formula Vee? After all, last weekends top six were all drivers of equivalent youth. What do you think?

Source: http://www.formula3.cc/content/view/14917/259/

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Comments

Ben

March 22nd, 2007

I do see you point but how much testing did those 2 guys have before they raced at Mallory (they certainly were not out in the 750 test day the week before)? The young front runners in Vee have all got at least a years experience to utlise to their benefit. I do think that many of the front runners in Vee are very good drivers but doubt you can get a good comparison until you put one from each series in a similar car that they both have equal experince in.

Flavio Galtieri

March 23rd, 2007

This is a difficult question but worth airing What it boils down to is how can you judge junior drivers in different series against one another? I think Martin has a point and it does make you wonder, but then so does Ben who questions the fairness of judging on one performance alone.

During the war, as Uncle Albert used to say, it was fairly easy to see Jim Clark racing a Lotus Cortina or Graham Hill racing a 250 GTO in between F1 Events and gain the distinct impression that if it had wheels they would drive it and probably win. Latterly FF1600 was the only game in town whether you moved up to more powerful single-seaters, the BTTC or Sports Cars.

Nowadays, motor racing for a young driver with professional ambitions has become like boxing.
On the way up the ladder it’s not who you beat so much as who you don’t lose to that counts.
With FFORD UK, FBMW, FRENAULT, and now FPALMER-AUDI all offering a â€œrouteâ€ to F3 it’s a matter of tactics as much as anything else for the well funded young driver. Sims will be racing in both FPA and FR this year. That’s called hedging your bets.

What is needed is for the governing body to get a grip and organise a proper end of year shoot out between the top 6 drivers in the top 5 single seater classes. (I’ve included FVEE here). Each driver drives each of the cars (including their own) in 5 separate races on the same day. A day earlier each will have a seat fitting and 20 minute test in the cars. Then on to race day with no excuses, the best points scorer wins a fully MSA funded drive in a National Class F3 car for the next season.

I don’t know about you but I for one would buy a ticket for that meeting, and sell the sponsorship to boot! Why isn’t it happening?

Sideways Sam

March 24th, 2007

the kids in these trendy junior series FBMW/FRen etc.. learn very little about developing the car something you have to learn in FVEE.

Also due the silly money spent in those series the driver line ups are limited to wealthy ex karters so its not a very good cross section. Its like only looking for talented people at snobby boarding schools. Whereas the real talent is to be found in the state schools.

If Martin and his like had the funding the deserve to run in the trendy series they would certainly be a match for the rich kids.

I do think that there should be national points system where the most promising drivers get picked for a MSA funded season in Brit F3

Martin

March 25th, 2007

Interesting conversation…

Ben: Yes, I think you have to get some kind of context, but you also need to remember Formula Vee is essentially a step-down from Formula Renault or similar. The learning process should be relatively small.

All this has inspired me. Expect something on the subject within the week…

dune

March 25th, 2007

Come on Flavio, Nobody involved in motorsport for a living is going to support a level playing field shoot out like you suggest. Neither will the MSA. How many Formula Vee drivers in the top 20 of the so called MSA “Elite”?
I think your boxing analogy is good though, didn’t even Senna wait until Tommy Byrne was out of the picture before moving up?
Motor racing teams make their money from selling dreams, whether in FBMW, FRenault, UKFFord or FPA. They’re not going to support a stupid idea like “Let’s find out who’s the hottest driver regardless of budget” because it will damage their trade.
Martin, keep up the good work.

churchill

March 26th, 2007

I can see where Martins coming from there are some better drivers in Fvee than some of the so called elite series admitally they donâ€™t have the budget to do them but in my opinion, a good Fvee driver is better than a good Frenault/Fbmw driver. I Know of a driver who had a Frenault test in 2005 with only Fvee experience and ended the day quicker than a FBmw driver in the same car by some margin, then had another test with another Frenault team who had a driver who was constantly in the top ten of Frenault UK series (not BARC) and was quicker than him by about 1/2 a second. I know his budget could not put him in a Frenault but I think he proved Martins point.
He ran last year in a sports car series and had some bad luck but mixed it with some professional drivers and proved he could race with the best thanks to his year in FVee.