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March 25, 2024
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February 8, 2024
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October 22, 2022
We got confirmation last week that the W Series, as had been rumoured, has run out of money and will cancel the final three races of the season, one at COTA this weekend and the season ending double-header in Mexico next weekend, while crowning Jamie Chadwick champion for the third time in as many seasons.
And while nothing has been confirmed, and I certainly could be wrong, I think the W Series is dead and buried, and Chadwick will be the series first, last and only champion.
From the beginning the W Series was doomed to fail, it was a flawed concept from the start. If the series' raison d'etre was to develop the next female F1 driver, and yet no driver could even move up to F3, including their 2 time champion, then the series was failing almost from the beginning.
Young drivers, from sixteen to twenty two or twenty three, need to compete against the best and strongest competition possible and the W Series did not provide that. In fact, by limiting the series to women only, it could never provide that.
And while the concept may have been flawed from the outset, the W Series did itself no favours in the way it operated over 4 years, and began burying itself almost from the outset.
The first nail in the W Series coffin was the complete cancellation of the 2020 season, to the best of my recollection the only "major" series to do so. Not a good look for sponsors, investors or potential young drivers to see the series not even attempting to run a few races, while virtually all other series managed at least a partial schedule.
The second nail also came in 2020, and that was 2019 Series champion Jamie Chadwick getting thrashed in the 2020 Formula Regional European Championship (a regional F3 series with cars almost identical to the W Series), while her 3 Prema team mates dominated the series, finishing first, second and third in the championship while winning 16 of 23 races between them. The best Chadwick could manage was a third place finish in the season opener, while finishing 9th in points, behind 2 drivers that each did less than half the season. Rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, this set the bar for the W Series, and it wasn't very high.
The third nail in the W Series coffin was Chadwick winning the series again in 2021. If the 2019 & 2021 series champ can't do better than ninth in a regional F3 series while driving for the championship winning team, F3 team owners have to ask themselves, what does that say about the rest of the W Series field? Again, rightly or wrongly, fair or not, these are the questions FIA F3 teams are going to ask when considering their driver line ups.
F3 teams are very much a business and they need funded drivers to come to their team. In order to attract funded drivers, their advertising is podiums, race wins and championships. Not many drivers want to sign up for teams that finish 5th and 6th all the time, so signing championship caliber drivers is essential for all teams. They aren’t in existence to charitably hand out seats to mid-pack drivers to make us all feel good.
The fourth nail in the W Series coffin was the decision to fly away to several venues as F1 support races this year. Even Formula Two sticks to Europe and the Middle East, never setting foot in North America or the far east. To spend all that money and effort to run single 30 minute races is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen a development series do. Utterly insane. To me, this says, despite claims to the contrary, the W Series really see themselves as an end and not a means to an end. They want to be a WTA or an LPGA, not an FIA Formula 3.
As an example, this season's FIA F3 Championship had 9 Rounds compared to the W Series original schedule of 8. The difference, however, is that the FIA F3 series has 18 races in total, compared to the W Series, which would only do a total of only 10, 8 fewer races than F3. The European Formula Regional Series has 10 rounds and 20 races. I’m really not sure how anyone associated with the W Series ever thought that so few races in a development series was going to produce an F1 driver.
To my mind, the series administration decided they would rather hang around with the beautiful people in Miami and Singapore, than freeze in a deserted Oulton Park or Thruxton and actually develop race car drivers. There is a reason all developmental series have limited travel and race up to 3 times per weekend. Apparently the lessons of dozens of developmental series all around the world somehow don’t apply to the W Series.
I can tell you from experience, there is nothing glamorous about running or participating in development series, but that work has to be put in for young drivers to grow and develop. There is no shortcut.
This year’s grid & schedule in particular proved, at least to me, that the W Series was not interested in being a development series, but wanted to be something bigger.
While the fly away schedule was bad enough, this year’s grid hardly looked like a training ground for up and coming drivers, and more so an end-of-career path for drivers not going any further.
Let's take a look at driver selection. Our own Megan Gilkes, who participated in the first season of the W Series, winning a non-points round, participated in the pre season test in Spain, where she told me she turned top 10 lap times. Megan is 21 years old and should be the kind of driver the W Series is looking for. But Gilkes wasn’t invited to take part in this year's series, and instead competed in the GB4 series, where she scored two wins, with one round still to run at the time of writing. (Personal thought, Megan’s career was much better off running in GB4 than the W Series, so hopefully she can take a positive away from all of this).
Of the 19 drivers listed on the W Series website, 8 are 25 years of age or older.
So why does a series that claims to be creating the next female Formula One driver have a 30 year old driver who has never finished better than 6th, while turning away a 21 year old with a win in the series?
A lot of poor decision making by a group of people who, you would think, should have known better.
If there is a W Series in the future, there needs to be great change in the way it operates.
First, they need to create a schedule that is at least 10 rounds, plus regular testing, and all of them should all be local in the UK, with maybe two or three on the continent. Each weekend needs to have at least 2 races, and probably should have 3. Young drivers need to race, not lounge around F1 hospitality suites in exotic locales. Again, developing Formula One drivers is not glamorous work.
I think they also need to have a couple of “guest” cars to be driven by outsiders, so the top runners in the series have a better benchmark to compare themselves with. They should invite top drivers from FIA F3 and FREC to compete each round to create greater competition at the sharp end of the grid. They may not need to be at every race, but at least 2 or 3 rounds each season. If they insist on keeping it women only, then get Christina Neilson or Sophia Flörsch or Taylor Hagler or Samantha Tan into the guest cars.
And for no other reason other than to reiterate just how dumb it was, I’ll say it again, flying off to do a single 30 minute race overseas just so you can say you’re part of the F1 show is probably the dumbest thing I have ever seen a racing series do.
The current driver selection process is also flawed, as evidenced by this year’s driver line up. The top 5 or 6 finishing drivers should have the option of returning for a second season (but only 2 seasons, max, the W Series shouldn’t be a career for any driver). I think having a few experienced drivers in the field each season will create greater competition amongst the top drivers, and only allowing a second season, maximum, will not plug up the advancement process for the younger drivers.
The rest of the places on the grid should be filled by top finishing drivers from select karting or F1600 championships across Europe, North America and Asia. No favoritism, no feeling sorry for drivers, just the fastest young women that are ready to make the move from karts to cars.
The only other serious option for the W Series is scrapping the current concept altogether and creating an Iron Dames type of team. Regardless, if it is to continue, the W Series needs to make massive changes, what we’ve seen so far has been a sporting and commercial failure.
As for the only champion in W Series history, I think Chadwick is a good driver whose career was badly stunted by the W Series. She faced next to no competition and as a result hasn’t progressed to where she should be at this point in her career.
Chadwick has had at least one, and maybe two Indy Lights tests with Andretti (as of writing one test has been completed and a second test is rumoured). I think this is the best route for her to go. It’s incredibly difficult to find the absolute edge of performance again when you’ve gotten used to only needing 8 or 9 tenths to win races. I’d love to see her with Andretti in a 2 season deal for Lights, as season one will be spent learning the cars and the tracks, with season two giving us a much better idea of how competitive she can be.
Only time will tell what the future holds for the W Series.
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February 6, 2024
It seems one of the biggest controversies of the split/post split Indy Car era has returned, with Roger Penske saying guaranteed starting positions for full season teams are back on the table, according to a story in the Indy Star yesterday. (Read the story here -> https://bit.ly/49oHb0m)
Let's get a couple of things out of the way right off the top. There is a difference between liking and understanding. For example, I don't like pit lane speed limits, but I understand them. I don't like cost caps in Formula One, but I understand them. I don't like 30 minute breaks for lightning strikes, but I understand them.
So, just for the for the record, I don't like this idea, but I understand why they are looking at it, why it will likely come to fruition, probably in the next year or two, and I won't be overly upset about it.
In a day and age where the 2nd tier NASCAR series just signed a TV contract worth 5 times the current Indy Car contract, you can't afford the slightest chance of alienating any significant, season long team or sponsor.
A lot of people on Twitter are pontificating a definitive answer about sponsor retention after missing the 500, but the fact is, they don't know.
They aren't in sponsor meetings and have no idea what sponsors are saying to the teams in those meetings.
They have no idea what role missing the Indy 500 plays in a sponsor renewing when their contract it up a year or two later, or if value of the renewal is less because of the 500 miss.
They don't know if teams are teams approaching new sponsors in the year(s) after they miss the race and are being turned down because they missed the biggest event on the calendar.
Nobody knows except the teams and the sponsors, no matter how much they try to insist otherwise.
There was a time when tradition dictated that only Indy Cars raced at the Speedway, and they only raced once a year. Now NASCAR, IMSA and SRO race there, as have F1 and MotoGP in the past. And Indy Car not only races there multiple times a season, they race there twice in the month of May alone. Indy Car is still standing.
Tradition dictated that the entire month of May was dedicated to the Indy 500, and now there is only 2 weeks of practice and qualifying. Indy Car is still standing.
Tradition dictated that the fastest driver on "Pole Day" was the pole sitter for the race, but that all changed in 2014 with the introduction of a 2 day qualifying shoot-out, with the pole sitter decided on the second day. Indy Car is still standing.
Tradition dictated that there were a set of rules drawn up for the race and anyone could build a car and an engine to that set of rules, show up and race it. Now, there is a spec chassis and you have to lease an engine from one of only two approved companies. To me, this is a far greater breach of tradition than guaranteeing 25 or 26 starting spots and having only 7 or 8 spots open to however many cars show up. Indy Car is still standing.
A quick count on Wikipedia shows in the last 10 Indy 500's, there have been 5 years, half the races of the last 10 years, where there has only been 33 cars, so no bumping at all. Twice there have only been 34 cars with one bump, twice 35 cars and two bumps and only once with 36 cars, leaving 3 cars to bump.
It's a far cry from the record 109 entries we saw in 1982 when bumping really meant something. Spec cars and a limited number of engine leases available are quickly turning bump day into a self ending tradition.
To me, these numbers don't justify the slightest possibility of losing a full season entry.
It's also worth noting that the two series Indy Car sees itself competing against, NASCAR and F1, both have a type of franchise or charter system in place, both series are much stronger than Indy Car and their teams have risen in value from essentially nothing to tens of millions for a NASCAR charter and approaching a billion dollars for the top F1 teams.
Meanwhile, an Indy Car team is basically worth the value of it's equipment at auction.
Indy Cars used to be built in small garages all around the country, usually by people that had day jobs. Now, you need a multi million dollar investment in a shop and equipment, and at least a couple of dozen full time specialists to even think of fielding an Indy Car team.
The more money you need to spend, the more guarantees you need on that investment. If guaranteeing that your team makes the biggest race of the season means that you guarantee that team also competes in all the races on the calendar, I think that's probably a positive change for the long term interest in the series, whether we like it or not.
Bumping isn't being eliminated all together and Indy Car isn't becoming a closed shop like Formula One.
Indy Car is not in great shape right now. A case could be made that it has slipped to the fourth most relevant motorsport series in North America. NASCAR has been number one since the split, I think case could be made that international corporations and younger audiences see Formula One as far more relevant and important to them than Indy Car, and riding the success of the new GTP formula I think IMSA is now a serious competitor to Indy Car, having been able to draw a dozen manufacturers to their series, while Indy Car is stuck on two.
If teams feel they need this guarantee to justify their continued investment in Indy Car, or to expand it, then I think it only makes sense, love it or hate, to follow through with it and move on to growing the series outside of the 500.
Love it or hate, I think it's coming.
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June 15 2021
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This will be another abbreviated version this week, as we have our first race outing to get ready for with the VARAC race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park opening the season.
World Superbike at Misano
Jonathan Rea has looked pretty dominant in the opening rounds of the 2021 World Superbike Championship, but at Misano he looked beatable, taking a pair of 3rd place finishes, while local hero Michael Ruben Rinaldi on his Ducati took the win in race 1, followed by a 2nd place in race 2. That moved Rinaldi up to 5th in the championship points. Meanwhile, Toprak Razgatlioglu did the opposite of Rinaldi by taking 2nd in race 1 and winning race 2. Those results moved Razgatlioglu up to 2nd in the points, just 20 points behind Rea.
NASCAR
All 3 series were in action at Texas for the All-Star race, and I will admit, this is not my favorite event, or my favorite track. I didn't catch much of the Xfinity race, as the red flags caused the Indy Car race to go long, and flipping back and forth wasn't doing much, so I ended up on the Indy Car race, waiting out the red flags. There was another top 20 for Alex Labbe, so another decent finish.
Kyle Larson is proving to be the most dominant driver this season, taking the All-Star win, his third in a row, and the fifth in a row for Hendrick.
IMSA
It was a great day for Roman DeAngelis and the Heart of Racing Aston Martin team in the GTD class. The team originally finished second, but was moved to first after the winning Audi was penalized for a pit lane violation. IMSA for some reason has yet to update the GTD point standings, but the Heart of Racing Team went into Detroit in second place, trailing the Bill Auberlen/Robby Foley BMW by 7 points, and with the new IMSA scoring system, there is 385 points on offer between the race and qualifying. With the BMW qualifying in fourth, one place behind the Aston Martin, and finishing eighth in the race, if my math is correct then De Angelis and team mate Ross Gunn should leave Detroit with a 115 point lead over the BMW. On a quick glance of the finishing orders, I'm also assuming that the BMW stays in second place, but I'm not doing all the GTD math to figure it out. Hopefully IMSA will update the points at some point in the near future.
Mikael Grenier was the only other Canadian running at the finish in the SunEnergy 1 Racing Mercedes coming home in seventh.
It was a tough day for the other two Canadians in the race, Jeff Kingsley in the Compass Racing McLaren and Daniel Morad in the Alegra Motorsports Mercedes, were both out early, due to contact, finishing ninth and tenth respectively.
The two corvettes showed up for what was really an exhibition run on home soil, since there were no other GTLM cars in the field. The class originally wasn't scheduled to race this weekend, they were supposed to be in France for Le Mans, but with that race put off until later in the summer, IMSA decided to extend the invitation to all GTLM cars, and only Corvette took them up on it. For the record, the #4 Corvette of Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy took the class win over the #3 of Antonia Garcia and Jordan Taylor.
Overall, the Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi took the win, with Kevin Magnussen scoring his first win in almost a decade, along with team mate Renger van der Zande. Felipe Nasr & Pipo Derani took second in another Cadillac, with Ricky Taylor & Filipe Albuquerque rounding out the podium in the #10 Acura.
Indy Car Double Header At Detroit
First, we'll start off with the Indy Lights races which, being televised on RevTV we were actually able to see. It was a tough weekend for Devlin DeFrancesco, crashing early in the first qualifying put him on the back foot on a track he's never raced at. The weekend was mostly damage control, managing to make up places early in both races, finishing seventh in the opening race and fifth in the second race on Sunday. Currently DeFrancesco sits in fifth place, with 130 points, 61 behind championship leader Linus Lundqvist. Next up for the Lights is Road America.
As always, Indy Lights coverage will be available on REV TV with race one on Saturday at 4:05pm and race two Sunday at 9:50am
And now for Indy Car...
Race one on Saturday started out very disappointingly, with NBC cutting to the race late because of overtime in the field lacrosse game, meaning we missed the start.
The race itself wasn't bad for a street race, with Marcus Ericsson taking his first win, after heart break for Will Power, leading the race, and seemingly in control with 5 laps to go, when the red flag came out. Power's car was unable to restart, after we heard radio from Power begging for cooling fans brought to his car.
According to an interview with Power after the race (which we didn't get to see, so thank you Twitter...) Indy Car said they couldn't use any cooling fans until all cars were stopped in pit lane. As it turns out, the cooling fans, or lack there of, weren't the problem. Penske released a statement today saying there was a shut down/start up issue with the car that put the ECU into “boot mode” and needed a Chevy tech to plug into the engine in to reboot the start up process, so in the end, the heat and fans played no part in the failure to re-start. A good article from Racer.com here give an explanation.
As for race 2, I don't know, and I don't care anything about it. First, NBC decided tennis was more important that Indy Car, so the race got shunted from the regular NBC stations to CNBC, which we don't get here in Canada, at least not the version of CNBC that carried the race. I no longer get CNBC, but did check either last year or the year before (I've lost all sense of time since “retirement” and the lockdowns) when the race was moved to CNBC and the version we got was not carrying the race, so if this has changed, someone can let me know.
Then of course, Rogers had to outdo themselves by moving the race to Sportsnet World, without any notice. When I put the Tune-In Alerts together on Friday, it was listed as being on Sportsnet 360 at noon, but when I re-checked the guide at noon on Sunday, the programming had been changed. And of course, Sportsnet had a hockey game on all 4 channels from 1987 for the majority of the race, and more wrestling on SN360.
Sporstnet is a joke right now, and if Indy Car doesn't sort this situation out with the next contract, then Indy Car may be lost in Canada, and, sadly, the Honda Indy Toronto maybe lost along with it. I'm not going into much more here, I will have a rant about the whole Sportsnet situation later this week.
Pirelli Reports On Tire Failures
Pirelli has released the results of their investigation into the tire failures of Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin, and the Twitter army of sim racers won't be happy. In a strangely worded release, Pirelli said, essentially, there was an inner sidewall failure of the tires that was not a result of a manufacturing defect. Red Bull Racing promptly released a statement that said “We did everything Pirelli told us to”
The best article I've read on this so far is from RaceFans and you should check it out here. Read between the lines, and you will see exactly what Pirelli thinks Red Bull and Aston Martin were doing with their tires.
I don't claim to be at the level of any of the technical specialists in F1, but I have raced for a few years, and my entire working life has been in the automotive industry, including a lot of years diagnosing tire “failures” for warranty claims, and from the beginning I have thought there was ZERO chance that this was defective tires. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when first talking about this, that only 2 tires failing, and only during the race, and both being the lesser loaded of the tires to blow just doesn't add up to defective tires to me. And we all know that F1 teams would never try to bend the rules (cough, cough flexible rear wings cough, cough) and figure out how to get around the FIA's inspections to gain an advantage. It's also interesting that the blowouts happened to the 2 teams that, arguably, had the biggest increase in performance from the previous race.
The good news for us is we will be at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park this weekend for some in-person racing. We will be creating some content for our Rising Star Jonathan Woolridge for his first Toyo Tires F1600 race, and of course with our luck, Kyle Steckly is also out for his first race at Flamboro this weekend as well. Good luck to both drivers, we'll update you on their race weekends next week.
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