I really don't know why we bother™
The Analysis of Testing in Advance of Racing Association (ANTARA™) is pleased to announce that it is now in possession of all* the results of the Pre-Season Testing Championships for the 2013 pre-season.
ANTARA™ have, of course, previously announced a number of 2013 Pre-Season Testing Champions.
In mid-March we learned that Who Is Hamilton?HAMILTON, LEWIS
Throughout the difficult 2007 season, McLaren insisted that Lewis was always given exactly the same equipment as his team-mate Fernando Alonso. Born in the picturesque English hamlet of Stevenage in 1985, Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton was named after the American sprinter Carl Lewis and the legendary British easy listening DJ David Hamilton. He has since moved to Switzerland and attempted to distance himself from association with David Hamilton. Hamilton famously approached McLaren boss Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards in 1995 and told him that he wanted to race for him one day. Dennis told the ten-year-old Hamilton to call him in a few years and thus was a mutually rewarding relationship forged. Some of the more disreputable members of the dotdotdotcomma staff have since adopted a similar strategy in approaching girls in clubs, although they have yet to demonstrate a level of success anything like Hamilton managed. On his way to F1, Hamilton picked up titles in karting, Formula Renault UK, the F3 Euroseries and GP2, after which he picked up Nicole Scherzinger, who was apparently already a well-known singer with girl band Pussycat Dolls, but who first came to the attention of the dotdotdotcomma editorial team for wearing a really smashing dress during the title-deciding race at Brazil in 2008 and then jumping about in it quite a lot. Hamilton's time in F1 has been far from dull and he has shown almost as much ill-conceived misjudgement as he has jaw-dropping ability. The audacious overtaking moves and lightning pace have been accompanied by pit-lane crashes and overly optimistic first-lap lunges, as well as more than his fair share of FIA wrist-slaps. The decision to strip him of his win at Spa in 2008, seemingly for being too good at overtaking Kimi Raikkonen, still baffles those of us who don't wear Ferrari T-shirts. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper just about pipped team-mate Nicky Iceberg to the F1 Pre-Season Testing title on a technicality, and that the duo's MoreHadesMERCEDES-BENZ
Mercedes-Benz is a German motor vehicle manufacturer improbably named after Buffy the Vampire Slayer stars Mercedes McNab and Julie Benz, who played dumpy failed vampirette Harmony and fiendlishly sexy uber-vamp Darla respectively. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper team therefore took the constructor's title. Three races into the F1 post-pre-season season, naturally, pre-season champion Hamilton is in an impressive fourth place, while his team-mate has only finished one race. The championship proper, meanwhile, is being led by some German bloke who barely troubled the pre-season scorers. Ho hum.
A few days later it was announced that Lamborghini Gallardo had convincingly secured the GP2 pre-season title. By a strange coincidence we now learn that after three races, he too is in fourth place in the actual championship, but at least the GP2 table is headed by pre-season vice-champion Stefano Confetti.
In early April we cheerfully reported WibblerBULLER, WILL
Will Buller, also known as William, is the son of Olympic equestrians, but prefers for himself horsepower of an altogether different kind. Born in Ulster, he lives in Oxfordshire. He won the Macau Grand Prix in 2009, in Formula BMW anyway. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper's domination of the F3 European pre-season testing championship, and are now rewarded with the news that Will is lying seventh in the championship proper, and that testing vice-runner-up Rifiuti Mercato is topping that particular table at the moment.
But now, ANTARA™ is proud to announce that the 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 (aka World Series) Pre-Season Testing Championship has been won by Antonio Felix the Cat, who narrowly beat Stoffler Valance-Diffuser by a fifth win. Most excitingly for ANTARA™, after two races (at Monza), the top three finishers pre-seasonwise, Murray, make up the top three in the actual series (albeit in a different order), the thrid driver (or second, depending on how you look at these things) being Magnus Magnussen.
The GP3 pre-season title has also been decided, with To Ellinahandbasket taking the crown. Ellinhandbasket took victory thanks to one extra second place over Freddie Prinze Jr, and we shall have to wait until mid-May before we begin to see exactly how irrelevant that result will be for the actual championship.
Formula Renault 3.5 Pre-Season Testing Championship: FINAL STANDINGS
1 Antonio da Costa 40.531
2 Stoffel Vandoorne 40.430
3 Kevin Magnussen 38.231
4 Will Stevens 32.101
5 Marco Sorensen 32.012
6 Nico Muller 28.010
7 Daniil Move 23.002
8 Oliver Webb 22.010
9 Norman Nato 22.000
10 Sam Bird 21.001B
GP3 Pre-Season Testing Championship: FINAL STANDINGS
1 Tio Ellinas 39.323
2 Carlos Sainz Jr 39.311
3 David Fumanelli 36.202
4 Daniil Kvyat 34.030
5 Kevin Korjus 32.110
6 Conor Daly 32.101
7 Facu Regalia 32.030
8 Alex Fontana 32.012F
9 Jack Harvey 32.012H
10 Nick Cassidy 31.101
* Well, all they could be bothered with, anyway.
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