PRE-SEASON BEGINS
The 3rd season of Formula FG began yet again at the Silverstone Circuit, where the engine unveiling also occurred.
Looking ahead for the season, the engines are definitely very strong this year, although miraculously Ferrari seem to have been the big losers. Having had no engine being used since S1, the Italian maker seemed to have been overdaunted by supplying 3 teams, meaning that their engine is lagging behind others. Mercedes didn't fare much better, although the engine is quite reliable. Cosworth proved to be the strongest T1 engine in HP and more than adequate in reliability as the maker marks 3 seasons of supplying the 2KF1 team.
BMW's ties with the Razor outfit were shown to be very strong as the German maker backed up their race winning S2 engine with an equally powerful and much more reliable S3 engine. With this onboard, the Razor team will no doubt be front runners this season after their highly successful foray at the end of last season. Honda too have given a strong engine to reigning Constructors Champions N-Tech, however they are slightly down on power and seem to have a small problem with reliability.
Looking lastly to T3 and there were good engines and not so good engines. Porsche return again this season, but weirdly not with either of their two partners from S2, JHR moving in instead. The engine looks to be weak, but then it did last season too and it secured a 1-2 in Australia... Bentley have provided a very strong engine to the former champions DTK. Very powerful but it seems that it is going to have a small problem in the reliability department. Lastly Playlife have again hit the jackpot in regards to a qualifying engine, maxing the powerplant fully for a one lap dash, while improvements have been made to the race side of the engine. That being said, the extra power means the engine is very, very fragile and frankly will be lucky to see the end of any GPs at this point in time.
Full Stats:
With all the engine fanfare out of the way, the focus then turned to seeing how those engines worked in their new cars.
Ben Utzer led the way in his new Apex machine, just ahead of his old boss and driving rookie Tobi Kederer. James McNamara had enough to slot the 2KF1 into the top 3, while Daniel Harvey completed the top 4 in the second DTK.
Behind came Nathan Cornes in his first foray into FFG, with fellow rookie Oorjit Mishra tailing him in the JHR. Stephan Bohner snuck to 7th for the champions with Joel Rautavaara, Takuma Ishikawa and Pablo Diehl in the new Ravenwest rounding out the 10.
Jamie Cocks was in his #1 and drove to 11th ahead of rookies Costello and Reed. Falcon struggled to 15th and 16th, Sigoulakis to 18th, Jawz managed 19th and 20th while Andy Black had to drive his car around in 21st ahead of Yamaguchi in the second JHR.
With this, the first race will be held next Thursday, the marketplace is
not open yet, but will be opened in the next 12-24 hours. I would like to have almost all contract values sent in, remember that the drivers are supposed to be agreeing with these.
Should any drivers have a problem with their contract, please PM with your full explanation of the situation.
