SIG STAYS AHEAD
Pre season officially began with the performance unveiling at Silverstone with the big winners being Ford/Cosworth, Peugeot and the unused Porsche. Indeed, that the two most powerful engines have both moved into the Tier 2 bracket this season is a sign of the risk values around compared to the other engines in T2. BMW perhaps surprisingly offered a weak engine for the first time, Toyota faring slightly better but Audi fell behind the most. Peugeot made the most of it's first FFG contract with defending champions Apex with a strong engine, while Cosworth rewarded it's long term customer 2KF1 with a very strong engine, near on par with the S3 BMW. Moving away from the T2 offerings, the T1 engines were very consistent, most holding around 782-783 HP. Honda was one, it's S4 engines aren't the strongest around, but are the most reliable on the grid. Mercedes will supply the best T1 engine to Falcon this season, the Hungarian team into it's fourth season with the German manufacturer. Lastly we make it to the T3 engines, where Playlife and Bentley both turned up as well even with no customers. Newcomers TAG Heuer will provide fellow newcomers DCT with an even engine, albeit a bit unreliable. But they weren't going to complain, that was left for JHR and Mugen-Honda, the Japanese tuner going solo this season and paying the price. Average in qualifying while a long way behind in race, the engine is also liable to explode. It could well be a long season for the British team.
After the engines, the tyres were unveiled, and a much simpler outcome was viewed. In short, Goodyear was the only manufacturer on the grid to provide a performance increase, a qualifying tyre. Continental and Hankook showed off some durable and speedy race tyres, much to the dismay of half the over half the grid.
With those done, the new cars took to the Silverstone Circuit for the first laps of the new season. It was Manolis Sigoulakis in the new 2KF1 that would take the fastest time, continuing from his pole at Interlagos last season. Daniel Harvey wrestled his DTK to the front of the grid in a great showing, with Donald Brugman continuing his fine form ahead of the defending champion Nathan Cornes in his new Ravenwest. Omer Said led the returnees in 5th with Pablo Diehl's first outing for Falcon resulted in 6th. Josh Noack was 7th for the new DCT team, with James McNamara in 8th in the second 2KF1, Stephan Bohner made it 8 different cars in the top 9 and last season runner up Joel Rautavaara was 10th for Apex. Rookies in Season 4, Sasha Jednak was 11th with Matteo Heymans in 15th and Mane Goddard in 16th.
Marketplace will open tomorrow. I had this up all day but I've had some family issues, lets just say that the two actual Finns in the immediate family aren't doing so well right now. We'll get the show underway a bit more then. Also, I'm fairly certain something went wrong with the session, but it counts for nothing so meh.
(send me contracts pls)