dotdotdotcomma.com RoadToF1 news

Baldyfellow: first oval run 'awesome'

2012-05-09T12:42:13Z

Rubens Baldyfellow¹ has described his first IndyCar oval test at Texas Motor Speedway as 'truly awesome'.

The Brazilian said he was able to feel comfortable running on the 24-degree banking at the 1.5-mile circuit at speeds of over 200mph.

"It's different from anything I've tried," he said. "On my second run, after I broke the 200s, I was so excited. It was truly awesome."

Baldyfellow went on to describe his new car as "like, way cool", his KV team as "sweet", and "the whole oval experience" as "just seriously fresh, dude", before heading off to the beach, where he said he was hoping to "hang ten in a tube, man".

Which, we're reliably informed, isn't nearly as rude as it sounds.

¹Rubens Barrichello: Terribly nice Brazilian who has surely now shown Schumacher the way often enough to question the difference in their salaries

GP2 Pre-Season Testing Championship result declared at long last

2012-04-27T15:39:22Z

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A little later than anticipated, dotdotdotcomma is pleased to announce that Italian racer David Dry-Valley¹ has been crowned ANTARA™ GP2 Pre-Season Testing Championship World Champion, adding this impressive gong (or, more likely, certificate, thanks to a continuing lack of sponsors) to his 2009/10 GP2 Asia Series trophy and, er, nothing else.

Jerez (28 Feb - 1 Mar)
The opening rounds of the 2012 GP2 PSTC series at Jerez were - typically, we suppose - characterised by the domination of GP2 returnees, the rookies being represented by top Brit Lamborghini Gallardo² breaking into the top five (just) and Fabio Onedin-Line³ similarly scraping into the top ten.

2011 Monaco winner Dry-Valley dominated the scoresheets and the newssheets with 3 victories out of the five events - recording the fastèst times on each day, with Greedo van der Cantina⁴ and Sony Ericsson⁵ being the brace of race-winners who therefore failed to warrant a mention in RenaultSports' headlines.

Barcelona (6-8 Mar)
Cool temperatures must have been to blame for a topsy-turvy set of results for the first couple of days in Barcelona. Dry-Valley was thanking the deity of his choice that wins were shared among seemingly random participants - even Paris Chilton⁶ - as he was having difficulties troubling the scorers himself.

The final session was characterised by a number of hitherto underperforming drivers seeming to finally get into their stride, including 2011 British F3 Champion Felipe Not Massa⁷, who actually managed to score some points at last with an impressive fourth place, having presumably forgotten how to drive a single-seater after his experience at Daytona in January. The final win was taken by non-french sounding frenchman Tom Dick'n'Harry⁸ who hails from similarly non-french sounding Mulhouse, making him almost likeable in our book.

The next Juan-Fatboy Slimtoya⁹, Human League¹⁰ also took a win, but the hero of the Catalunya Circuit was the next Scorchio Perez¹¹, Electric Guitarist¹², whose two wins took him dangerously close to raining on Dry-Valley's parade.

Summary
An exciting season, largely dominated by Dry-Valley, but with Guitarist keeping the Italian honest. Thoroughly undeserving Carling¹³ driver Chilton takes third, his best championship placing in anything since T-Cars in 2006. Mr Consistency was Stefano Confetti¹⁴ - fifth placed, though equal on points with van der Cantina - he was the only driver in the top 9 not to place a win. In a generally strong field of 31 drivers, 25 scored points (over 80%). ANTARA™ are quite satisfied to note that after 4 races of the GP2 In-Series Racing Championship, the top three ANTARA™ drivers are all in the top five, if that makes sense, and we claim our five pounds.

ANTARA™ GP2 Pre-Season Testing Championship, final standings
1 Davide Valsecchi (39)
2 Esteban Gutierrez (38)
3 Max Chilton (33)
4 Giedo van der Garde (32+1)
5 Stefano Coletti (32)
6 Julian Leal (31)
7 Marcus Ericsson (30)
8 Tom Dillmann (28)
9 Fabrizio Crestani (26+1)
10 Stephane Richelmi (26)

If anyone has access to the complete World Series by Renault / Formula Renault 3.5 (whatever!) or Formula Ford UK pre-season testing results, please fax them to 1-800-ANTARA as soon as possible, thanks!

¹Davide Valsecchi: Italian driver, about whom we freely admit to knowing niente.
²James Calado: Young British driver
³Fabio Onidi: Milanese stalwart of FRenault and E3000/AutoGP
⁴Giedo van der Garde: Dutch F3 Euroseries race winner now looking like he'll break in to F1
⁵Marcus Ericsson: Hot young Swede - last ever FBMWUK champion.
⁶Max Chilton: Eminently punchable stokebroker-belt racer inexplicably still in motorsport when Adam Carroll isn't
⁷Felipe Nasr: Brazilian racing driver who tops our list of Road To F1 Sound-Alikes™.
⁸Tom Dillmann: Un homme francais qui n'ecoute pas comme un homme francais.
⁹Juan Pablo Montoya: The best Colombian high money can buy. Ask Tomas Enge.
¹⁰Julian Leal: Colombian racer with an Italian licence.
¹¹Sergio Perez: Mexican racer
¹²Esteban Gutierrez: Monterrey Steve - the youngest Mexican to win an international racing series, even if it was only FBMW.
¹³Carlin: Top team in BritishF3 for as long as anyone can remember, now looking for world domination (at least the Renault series) too following a 2nd place in WS by Nissan in 2003
¹⁴Stefano Coletti: Driver from Monte Carlo famous for fracturing his spine - twice - at Spa.

Clos to race for Addax in Bahrain

2012-04-18T13:48:00Z

Dani Clos will race with the Addax team in the GP2 Series race in Bahrain this weekend.

The Spaniard, who is the Hotflush Racing Team¹'s reserve driver for the 2012 Formula One season, will replace Josef Ciga at the team.

"We thought long and hard about this," said a spokesman for the team, "and in the end we decided it was Clos but no Ciga."

¹Hispania Racing Team: F1 outfit, known briefly as Campos Meta, with an unfortunately comical abbreviated name

Kiwi takes GP3 Pre-Season Testing Crown

2012-04-18T12:02:02Z

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Mild Sevens¹ has been crowned ANTARA™ GP3 Pre-Season Testing Champion of 2012, building on his 2010 and 2011 Toyota Racing Series titles. The Kiwi racer pulled off four wins on his way to the championship, one each at Estoril and Barcelona and two at Silverstone, including both the first and last races of the season.

Antonio Felix the Cat² took second with two wins, and early championship leader To Ellinahandbasket³ was second runner-up, only building on his early form with a remarkable run of third places.

British representation in the championship was disappointing, with top Brits Wibbler⁴ and Always Grumble⁵ failing to trouble the scorers until Silverstone, where they only caused minor inconvenience if we're honest.

It's no wonder that interest in GP3 isn't particularly high, although it really is quite interesting that lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum egestas euismod turpis, in molestie arcu feugiat non. Duis non odio nunc. Vivamus consequat tellus id dui faucibus ut egestas sapien pharetra. Quisque bibendum posuere sollicitudin. Curabitur pretium auctor feugiat. Cras consectetur diam non urna cursus ullamcorper. Etiam auctor lacinia risus, in placerat mi rutrum non. Mauris pellentesque lorem lectus, vel tempus metus. Etiam tincidunt interdum nibh id pretium with a large piece of gateau!

Anyway, here are the final standings.

ANTARA™ GP3 Pre-Season Testing Championship 2012 Final Standings
1 Mitch Evans (40)
2 Antonio Felix da Costa (37)
3 Tio Ellinas (36)
4 Matias Laine (35)
5 Daniel Abt (34)
= Aaro Vainio
7 Conor Daly (29)
8 David Fumanelli (24)
= Tamas Pal Kiss
= Marlon Stockinger

¹Mitch Evans: Kiwi racer, reputedly the youngest ever international grand prix winner
²António Maria de Mello Breyner Félix da Costa: They don't fuck about with names in Portugal, do they?
³Tio Ellinas: The world's fastèst Cypriot.
⁴Will Buller: Four wheels good, four legs bad: son of Olympic equestrians.
⁵Alex Brundle: Son of Martin, hoping to emulate his father's achievement of getting to race an F1 car, omitting the part about flying one upside-down into a gravel trap.

ANTARA™ Formula Palmer Two champion finally declared

2012-04-13T12:38:15Z

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ANTARA™, the governing body of pre-season testing championships, has been able to declare the champion of its 2012 Formula Palmer Two series over a fortnight after what turned out to be the only official event for the series, some would say calling into question the whole meaning of the word "series".

FP2's organisers, the increasingly inaccurately-named MotorSportVision, had been keeping a second testing date in reserve for mid-April at their bleak, windswept Snetterton venue, but then decided not to bother, without actually telling anybody or anything. Hence, the results from its Silverstone date at the end of March stand.

Perhaps it was just because there was only one event and so everyone was still finding their feet a bit, but only three drivers showed any consistency at all at Silverstone, and one of those (mentioning no names, James Coleslaw¹) was only consistent in not scoring any points at all.

Italian-sounding British-Indian Luciano Backatcha² marred his record of third places by doubling the position to sixth in race 3, the same race in which porn-sponsored German Markus Pommers-Law³ similarly doubled his usual first place to a second.

The only other race winner was Alex Font-Verdana⁴, and the only other driver to tread on the podium more than once was Transylvanian F2 third-year Moules Marinieres⁵, who recorded two number twos.

All of which shenanigans mean that Markus Pommers-Law is hereby officially crowned as ANTARA™ 2012 FIA Formula Palmer Two Pre-Season Testing Champion, and we'll get a photo of him as soon as we can get our rogue Pictures Editor away from his sponsors' website.

ANTARA™ 2012 FIA Formula Palmer Two Pre-Season Testing Championship Final Standings
1 Markus Pommer (39)
2 Luciano Bacheta (29)
3 Mihai Marinescu (25)
4 Christopher Zanella (21)
5 Alex Fontana (20)
6 Kourosh Khani (14)
= Dean Stoneman
8 Daniel McKenzie (13)
9 Hector's House (12)
10 Dino Zamparelli (10)

¹James Cole: 2009 British FFord champion
²Luciano Bacheta: Italian-sounding British-Indian 2006 T-Cars champion
³Markus Pommel: German driver whose only claims to fame are being good in testing, and being sponsored by a porn webcam site.
⁴Alex Fontana: 2011 European F3 Open champion
⁵Mihai Marinescu: Driver from Transylvania. Mwa-ha-ha-haaaah.

FRUK off!

2012-04-04T15:17:11Z

Renault UK and Renault Sport Technologies report that they have taken the difficult decision not to run the Lotus Cortina Formula Renault UK Championship this season due to a lack of interest.

With six cars registered, organisers gallically decided to "suspend" this year's championship with the intention of diverting all efforts towards returning the championship to full health in 2013. Good luck with that.

It is anticipated that the six drivers who could actually be arsed to register for the UK championship will be offered the opportunity to race their Formula Renault 2.0 cars across the English Channel in the so-called "Northern European Cup" series (a largely German series with occasional forays into neighbouring states - we're saying nothing).

Formula Renault UK has run continuously since 1989 when it was introduced by the British Automobile Racing Club. Renault UK came on board in 1990 and the championship flourished producing a number of world champions including Kimberli Clarkkinen¹, Who Is Hamilton?² and Andy Phreeow³.

dotdotdotcomma has mixed feelings about the absence of FRUK from the national racing calendar. On the one hand, it does mean that there are significantly fewer opportunities to see close and action-packed single-seater racing at British tracks this year, but on the other hand, we don't have to go and sit in a field full of anorak-clad touring car geeks for another year.

On a positive note, it does mean that Cake Menace⁴ can now be crowned the undisputed ANTARA™ Lotus Cortina Formula Renault UK Champion of 2010, and all that now remains for the ANTARA™ Formula Renault team is to decide whether they can be bothered to administer championships for FR BARC, FR NECup and, indeed, the World Series.

Watch this space.

¹Kimi Raikkonen: The current Flying Finn™
²Lewis Hamilton: The most successful F1 rookie, like, ever. Comes from Stevenage. Lives in Switzerland. Nuff sed.
³Andy Priaulx: WTCC Champion and tin-tops' answer to Michael Schumacher, if you believe Autosport. My own answer to Michael Schumacher is 'Fick dich!', but there you go
⁴Jake Dennis: No relation of Ron, it says 'ere, the nun-eating racer was the 2011 InterSteps champion. Wait, sorry. Nuneaton. Oops.

Kiss joins Atech for 2012

2012-04-04T13:39:39Z

Hungarian driver Tamas Pal Kiss will join Atech CRS GP for the 2012 GP3 season.

The team had been looking for an all-new line-up for 2012 and Kiss now joins Atech as a team-mate for Ethan Tonguesandwich, after both Steve Tonsilhockey and Bill Quickgropebehindthebikesheds were dropped at the end of 2011.

Tinkerbell charms ANTARA™ F3 crown

2012-04-04T12:07:21Z

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A handful of sunny days in late March at Silverstone and Oulton Park have wrapped up a pretty exciting Pre-Season Testing Championship season for the Cooper Tires [sp. see me] British Formula 3 Global International World Series Championship.

The series was brought to an exciting crescendo as a result of several young talents blossoming in its later stages, but it was ultimately long-term consistency that secured the title for Harry Tinkerbell¹, after a fairly shaky start. He may have been equalled in his four visits to the top step of the podium, by Jazzman Jaffa², but his six visits to the next step down, along with an apparent season ticket for the upper half of the top ten (also known as the top five), secured the title for the Devonian driver.

After a previous best result of second in the wet at Snetterton, it looked for a brief while at Silverstone like George And Lynn³ was going to make a late break for the championship with a run of three Buckinghamshire wins. But he wasn't able to continue his form when the ANTARA™ circus moved to Cheshire last week. In the end, his late surge was not quite enough even to secure third place, thanks to greater consistency from fellow triple winners Jacques Harvilleneuve⁴ and Oh When The Saints⁵.

Hannes van Asseldonk (no MANTA™ alias necessary) never really built on his brace of Snetterton victories, which is a shame, because we wanted to use his name a lot more.

Boy's Own Supplement
In the Class Formerly Known As The Scholarship Class, things have been fairly straightforward, thanks to a basic lack of entries. Australian Spike Milligoddard⁶ is the only driver who has really been serious about taking part, to such an extent that he scored real ANTARA™ points in the big league. Relative latecomer JoyDivision Padayachee⁷ hasn't.

¹Harry Tincknell: Devonian racer whose Wikipedia page really needs updating.
²Jazeman Jaafar: Petronas sponsored Malaysian wunderkind
³Alex Lynn: 2011 FRenault UK champion with record 12 wins. Likes Michael Schumacher. Uh-oh...,
⁴Jack Harvey: Lincoln-green racer who claims 10 drivers' championship titles in his 18 years, neglecting to mention they're all obscure karting titles.
⁵Carlos Sainz Jr: Red Bull and rally driving dad-backed driver.
⁶Spike Goddard: Australian racer about whom we freely admit to knowing absolutely puckoon.
⁷Duvashen Padayachee: Forklift-sponsored Antipodean driver.

Bristol to undergo changes

2012-03-29T14:03:53Z

Bristol Motor Speedway will undergo configuration changes before it hosts its next round of the NAFFCAR¹ Sprint Cup, track bosses have announced.

The speedway comprises two oval tracks and officials say that they will both be receiving attention over the coming months, although they point out that the area inside the circuits will not be altered this year, following a largely negative response to previous developments of that part of the facility.

"We're going to give both Bristols a much rounder profile and a lot more exposure," said track owner Bruton Smith, "which is what the fans repeatedly tell us they want to see. We're not going to touch the central area, though. It's a sensitive region and we've had a lot of vocal reaction when we've gone near it in the past, so we'll be leaving that area untouched until we get to phase two."

The announcement is thought to be at least partly in response to the major revamp recently completed at the rival Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina, where the redevelopment of a similar twin-oval layout has seen a massive rise in crowd numbers following the circuit's "Check out our new Charlies" publicity campaign.

¹NASCAR: Fast, dull, oval-based American saloon car Mickey Mouse racing series

Austin to drive Audi at Brands

2012-03-28T14:50:43Z

Bostin' Rob Austin¹ has confirmed that he will drive one of his own team's Audi A4s in this weekend's British Touring Car Championship season-opener at Brands Hatch.

Well, you would, wouldn't you?

¹Rob Austin: Brit who won the occasional race, smoked the occasional fag and drank the occasional whisky during his time in British F3, before becoming a tin-top team-owner to give himself more time for smoking and drinking.