The hard life of a GP2 rookie

[Go_For_Pole]

So seperate thread to continue the discussion about the hard time that GP2 rookies have due to the testing restrictions of the series. Should something change?

[Olive]

Didn't do Hamilton any harm!

If you're good enough, you'll get the hang of it. It's not meant to be easy.

[Russfeld]

They all were rookies once in their careers, so I don't see how it favours or hurts anyone.

[chunterer]

No guys hang on a minute, Alex K mentioned this quite rightly in the main Valencia thread and Go_For_Pole felt it would be worthy of debate on its own.

I think the point is meant to be that due to the testing restrictions (which by and large are a good thing) during the season, if a team loses a driver suddenly through injury or budget problems, then any newcomer coming in to that seat faces a real uphilll struggle to get competitive quickly.

Is this possibly because the cars have been more difficult to set up/drive this season due to the aero and wing changes that I thought were quite minimal originally?

The contrasts are rookies like Buemi in Monaco who didn't seem to have a problem to the likes of Albuquerque, Niemela, Risatti who struggled for quite a while to begin with. Even Pla and Hernandez, who supposedly know the cars struggled when they came back in. Is it simply down to outright talent, should drivers be 'vetted' more strictly?

Surely for such a big time series, drivers coming in short notice ought to be allowed time to acclamtise before their first race, especially rookies, even it was just for safety reasons??

It's all very well coming into your first race with an off seasons mileage under your belt, but what if you're called up short notice and have no way of getting a feel for your equipment and team before the first practice session?

It don't look good on driver or team. The team's got to run someone, so they might as well be able to run someonje who knows what they're doing surely?

Go_For_Pole, Alex K am I on the right lines?

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by Olive

Didn't do Hamilton any harm!

Maybe it had to do something with a certain simulator he had in his disposal?

The thing is, as seasons go by more and more veterans are staying which makes it ever more difficult for rookies to shine.

Plus there is always a safety problem when a team selects a rookie as a replacement for their injured driver.

[Go_For_Pole]

Taking it a bit further, let's take Martinez for example. He got flamed here on his first appearance yet he proved after some mileage that he is as good as anyone. And all these from an audience that knows a thing or two about their racing. Imagine what it must be like for the team to endure two months of pain with their sponsors or backers for selecting a kid that they know is talented but can not show his potential due to regulations. Isn't that a totally unnecessary commercial suicide? Isn't that going to lead to more conservative replacements, in other words less chances for rookies?

[Jackman]

It's not the lack of testing that causes problems for the drivers, it's the layout of the race weekend: they've got half an hour of free practice and then half an hour of qualifying and then you're into the first race. I've spoken to plenty of drivers who've been able to work out what to do with the physical aspect of driving the car fairly easily, but it's the lack of sessions that causes them problems.

So what do you want to do about that: tell F1 to get off track so some random Spanish bloke in GP2 can get up to speed?

Proper testing is advantageous to the teams more than the drivers, because they get track time to work on their set ups: leaving aside the astonomical cost of hiring an entire track, marshals, safety crews, etc just to give one bloke some time in the car so he can learn what to do without time constraints, the biggest problem is that the track time would be hugely advantageous: if the series let teams with a new driver take 2 days testing on his own (assuming there was someone to pay for it, and time in a busy calendar to do it), you would actually see a lot of teams fire a driver just to get the advantage of track time alone.

[Alex K]

Hey Jack I didn't mean teams should get advantage of it, it's just young bokes coming in to the sport, they have never sat in Dallara Renault, have, as you pointed, only half an hour of a free practice, where you need to set the car up for the quali session. They have no time to get the feel of the car, let alone setting car up to the track.

What I wrote in Ricardo Tormo thread was, that GP2 Series should be in the possesion of test-car, which AFAIK is, and give newcomer some time at (say) Paul Ricard to get the feel of the car, so he would be prepair for his first free practice. Ofc driver driver pays for this test. You can say, it's like rookie invitation test, but many of them need this "adavantage." There is no time, during half an hour session to proper prepair for qualifing and races, and most of'em are under close eye of a sponsor, and as we all know GP2 is not cheap series.

I think, Niemela's and Albuquerque's and many more drivers first races, or first few races would be much better if they could get sufficient track time before first outing.

Hey Jack I didn't mean teams should get advantage of it, it's just young bokes coming in to the sport, they have never sat in Dallara Renault, have, as you pointed, only half an hour of a free practice, where you need to set the car up for the quali session. They have no time to get the feel of the car, let alone setting car up to the track.

What I wrote in Ricardo Tormo thread was, that GP2 Series should be in the possesion of test-car, which AFAIK is, and give newcomer some time at (say) Paul Ricard to get the feel of the car, so he would be prepair for his first free practice. Ofc driver driver pays for this test. You can say, it's like rookie invitation test, but many of them need this "adavantage." There is no time, during half an hour session to proper prepair for qualifing and races, and most of'em are under close eye of a sponsor, and as we all know GP2 is not cheap series.

I think, Niemela's and Albuquerque's and many more drivers first races, or first few races would be much better if they could get sufficient track time before first outing.

[Jackman]

I know what you're saying (you said it twice, after all), but I'm not sure there's an easy solution: to do what you suggest would be monstrously expensive and largely impractical, as someone would have to pay for the crew, the car, the track, the medical facilities, etc, and I think you really undervalue the cost of all of that.

Not to mention that most of these 'temporary replacement' deals come together at the last moment, so when would you have the time to do it? Ricard is in use almost every day as it is, and I can't see Toyota or Renault dropping a day at the track just so Niemela feels a bit better in a GP2 car. Even if there was more than a day between doing the deal and turning up at the track for the race, which is not too likely.

It's tough for the rookies, but that's GP2: if it was easy then anyone could do it, and who wants the feeder series to F1 to be easy? The good drivers come to grips with it eventually, the great ones come to terms with it immediately, and that's the way it should be.

[Mekola]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Surely for such a big time series, drivers coming in short notice ought to be allowed time to acclamtise before their first race, especially rookies, even it was just for safety reasons??

Well, the case of Viso at his rocambolesque debut at Magny-Cours, mostly in a case of a driver with previous experience, should be considered as a result of the lack of any previous testing before entering or re-entering GP2 after the season started.
IMHO is needed some previous testing, at least one stint at circuits unused by GP2 during the season, for drivers with no experience or experienced who didn't touch the car some months ago, in order to climatize better for the series. I remember the case of drivers of lower F3000 formulas who were allowed to do that in the past (a stint in a circuit unused in the season).

[Mekola]

BTW, could be a good racing simulator a sollution for this???

[Alex K]

or an hour of extra free practice for every driver during race weekend with total of sixty to ninety minutes of free practice before quali.

[JohnMiller]

Would add a lot to the budget though.

[strider]

Originally Posted by Alex K

or an hour of extra free practice for every driver during race weekend with total of sixty to ninety minutes of free practice before quali.

Apart from the budget factor, there just isn't enough spare time an a GP timetable to accomodate this. It's the price you pay for playing most of the time at the same meetings as the big boys.

30 minutes should be enough free practice for any driver at this level to learn a circuit. The trouble is that by the time the session has been interrupted by incidents, accidents and red flags, no-one gets 30 minutes.

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by Jackman

It's tough for the rookies, but that's GP2: if it was easy then anyone could do it, and who wants the feeder series to F1 to be easy? The good drivers come to grips with it eventually, the great ones come to terms with it immediately, and that's the way it should be.

So suppose you are the team owner, your star gets injured and you want to hire a rookie. Are you going to give him that sort of speech before he signs the contract? I would think not.

[Jackman]

Probably not, but I'd also realise there is nothing I can do about it other than get someone with some experience or take the short term losses.

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by Jackman

... I'd also realise there is nothing I can do about it other than get someone with some experience or take the short term losses.

Precisely! Which means that you either suffer financially by giving a free ride or if you do not have financial security you end up with a mediocre driver that can afford (financially and career-wise) a few races at the back end of the grid. Now that, apart from being potentially not safe, is not very GP2esque, is it?

[Russfeld]

If you wanted to do it, the best way would be WSR or Formula Master style where the car is allowed X hours/minutes extra engine time on the ECU outside of official testing. So if Super Nova needed a last minute replacement they could drag their car over to Snetterton for 45 minutes of shakedown for their new guy.

[Mekola]

BTW, didn't Nelsinho an extra test with a WSR car at Hungaroring before he won there in GP2 last year??? If he did that way...

[Jackman]

No he didn't: apart from anything else he'd already raced there the year before, so there wasn't any need. Not to mention that there was no time to do any extra tests anyway...

And there's the rub: even if a young driver had an unlimited budget to hire a track and all that needs to go along with it for a test, when would they fit this test in? The season doesn't exactly leave a lot of time between events, particularly if you take into account sponsor appearances, fitness training, time with the team, etc.

Not to mention that the cars are almost always in the back of a truck on the way to the next track, of course: I asked one of the teams how much time the cars spend back at base during a normal season, and it works out at about a combined time of a week. Which doesn't really leave much scope for a run to Ricard for a test...

[Alex K]

What I thought, not knowing money figures, that if Formula Palmer Audi can arrange test for a their rookie driver on their circuit, why GP2 Series not do the same. Ofc, they do only 2 hour session for rookie driver to get them used to the car. If BF3 teams can do it at Pembrey... I know costs are smaller, but...

Got your explain Jackman, but it's still not right IMO knowing how much they need to pay for one race.

[Chaos81]

Originally Posted by strider

Apart from the budget factor, there just isn't enough spare time an a GP timetable to accomodate this.

Depening on the race, I disagree with you there.


For instance, at Istanbul, F1 practice on Friday didn't start until 10 local, and on Saturday not until 11 local. That's plenty of time before each session to get some practice in. Even if it's only thirty mintues each day, that can make a big difference. The same thing happened at Monza.

I will agree that at some tracks you just couldn't do it, Spa for instance was pretty much full this year, but on the tracks that it's possible, why not go ahead and do it.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Chaos81

Depening on the race, I disagree with you there.

For instance, at Istanbul, F1 practice on Friday didn't start until 10 local, and on Saturday not until 11 local. That's plenty of time before each session to get some practice in.

Yes of course but would Bernie and co be bothered to alter the F1 weekend schedules just so drivers in a support series can have more track time? Unlikely.

Solution really is a brief acclamatisation/shake down type test elsewhere (driver will just have to learn the circuit for race/s he's going to do when gets there).

[Jackman]

Originally Posted by Alex K

Got your explain Jackman, but it's still not right IMO knowing how much they need to pay for one race.

Except that I don't think you do: it would probably cost more to pay for all the costs associated with the test than to do a one-off race with most teams.

[Russfeld]

Originally Posted by Jackman

No he didn't: apart from anything else he'd already raced there the year before, so there wasn't any need. Not to mention that there was no time to do any extra tests anyway...

And there's the rub: even if a young driver had an unlimited budget to hire a track and all that needs to go along with it for a test, when would they fit this test in? The season doesn't exactly leave a lot of time between events, particularly if you take into account sponsor appearances, fitness training, time with the team, etc.

Not to mention that the cars are almost always in the back of a truck on the way to the next track, of course: I asked one of the teams how much time the cars spend back at base during a normal season, and it works out at about a combined time of a week. Which doesn't really leave much scope for a run to Ricard for a test...

Everyone else seems to manage it, I'm sure even GP2 teams could.