"The Blown Diffuser"
Pre season Special
Welcome to Season 4 issue #1 of the Blown Diffuser.
Our Formula Renault reporter and former winner of the Halfords Staff Christmas Go Karting Trophy, Martin O'Brundle has been treading the pits and the paddock at the pre season tests at Circuit of the Americas and last week at Hockenheim.
We asked him to throw a slide rule over the teams, the drivers and anything else he could get close to.
Part 1 The Top End:
Well the first thing to report is that its looks to be very tight at the top. The Formula Renault rewards raw skill as well as practice and in my observation there are seven drivers who can challenge for wins.
The Finnish driver
@Aleksi Kivelä was the stand out performer throughout the pre season. He was fastest in 4 of the 6 sessions. In the remaining 2 he was +.131 and .271 sec. He is deservedly ranked #1 with an average gap to pole in all 6 sessions of 0.050sec.
Aleksi won the Virtual world endurance championships last year in the Nissan GTR GT1, he won Laguna Seca GT3 1 hr, and won the GT3 Bathurst 1.5 hrs. He is just getting to know the Formula Renault which is a bit scary to think about.
German driver
@Dino Paolini is the returning Champion from last season and was almost unbeatable in the 2010 car. Dino could only make COTA and the Super pole skewed his results a bit. Ignoring that, he was #2 on race pace and is a skilled racer on track. If you beat Dino you have had a very good day. Dino also races in FSR Championship.
A little less is known about fellow German
@Georg Winter. He races in FSR Pro and has had a P8 in that series. He showed stunning quali pace at COTA but his race was compromised by a parc ferme surprise. Prior to his car getting cooked he was mixing it at the front. Georg is skilled at set up and has race wins to his credit on the engineering side. His pace makes him one to watch.
Englishman
@Oscar Hardwick is one to watch closely. Oscar comes from the “no points handed out on Saturday “ school of thought. He has good quali pace but with a race win against Aleksi Kivela at Hockenheim where he lapped .081 sec from best lap and a podium at COTA with fastest race lap Oscar has laid down his marker that he races harder than he qualifies. He works well in traffic and under pressure. Oscar is a multiple race winner at RD in many cars.
@Daniel Bida put in a race lap .026 sec off the fastest in race 1 at COTA. Little else is known at this stage as his management have refused to recognise this reporters Halfords staff parking pass credentials. However if he has this race pace he can podium. He has also formed a strong team but more about that later.
@James Sadler is another FSR driver who is staying sharp in the off season here in Formula Renault. James best race lap at COTA was .120 sec from the fastest which means he has the race pace to mix it at the pointy end.
Swedish driver
@David Gronvalls is a man of few words who lets his driving do the talking. He might have slipped under the radar for some but this reporter saw him take the race win and fastest lap in COTA He may have had some issues in race 2 or he may have decided to play the long game. David is used to winning and comfortable at the front.
Synopsis, race wins might come from any of these guys. Which is exciting dont you think?
Over the next issues we will review the mid field and the #2 drivers.
Now to
The Silly Season.
We are led to believe by our contacts within the halls of RD that no sooner had the RD Admin team created the auto pairings that we had the team management knocking on the doors.
What we know for sure so far:
Oscar Hardwick has been mentoring
@Jeff Lasecki so it made sense for them to sell
@Calum McLure for 10 WCC points and swap Jeff into the team.
Now I raced with Calum last year in this league and from what I hear about the way they approached this deal I don’t think Oscar knows he has pace. This deal will be a great one for Jeff but could possibly have created a WCC winning team in pairing Calum with Dino Paolini. Certainly when first seeing the auto pairing and seeing Calum with Oscar my first thought was “are they kidding”. Now he is with Dino. My money says they are the ones to watch. A lot of talent and only 10 points on the wrong side of the ledger.
The next deal was the biggest so far.
@Dewald Nel ranked #10 swapped in Daniel Bida who is officially ranked #5 to replace
@James Bolton #13 ranked driver. Dewald and Daniel planned to be team mates all along which is fair enough. This creates in theory the strongest team and the only one with two drivers from the top half of the rankings table. But at what cost? What did it cost the team to have a driver 8 rankings above the auto pairing? 55 WCC points.
James takes that with him to join David O'Reilly the #18 ranked driver. Creating a team with 2 drivers from the bottom half of the table. When asked how he felt David said “well it was an emotional roller coaster, I was looking forward to working with a very quick driver and learning a thing or two and then he was gone. Still the hurt was soothed a bit by the fact that we have 11 points a round before we even start the car.”
Some would say that David will need them.
We will sign off for now. Destination Spa Francorchamps in the Wallonia region of the beautiful Ardennes. We will be staying in Bastogne and taking in the delights of the local Chocolatiers, Boulangers, a few mussels and most likely a visit to the stunning race car museum at Stavelot.
see you for edition #2
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![Luca [OT]](/data/avatars/s/3235/3235113.jpg?1697196734){kind=avatar}
