F1 Fanatic

Davide Valsecchi has become the 2012 GP2 champion after finishing ahead of Luiz Razia in the GP2 feature race at Singapore.

Max Chilton won the race after pole sitter Luca Fiippi made a disastrous start. Filippi later crashed out at the last corner, bringing out the safety car which the race ended under.

It was an anti-climactic end to a championship which had been closely-fought until Monza.

The question now is whether Valsecchi, having captured the GP2 title in his fifth year in the category, has done enough to justify gaining a place in F1 next year.

I just don’t see an opening for him to be honest. Perhaps if he had managed to keep up his performance more since Bahrain he would have turned a few heads but I fear he may have peaked.

I think its less a case of “Does he deserve a drive” and more a case of “Will a drive be available for him.” I don’t really see the mid-upper field teams taking a gamble with their lineups and I’m not sure who the lower end of the grid would want to bring him in without major sponsorship.

AS for “does he deserve a chance at F1?”
Yes. He won the GP2 championship. As far as I’m concerned he deserves a chance.

I think Razia will ultimately end up as a Red Bull reserve. Christian Horner, who runs the Arden GP2 team, said that Razia “deserves a drive”. Right now, Buemi is eyeing a Caterham drive. Petrov is probably leaving the sport due to a sponsorship drought and his successor will presuambly be Charles Pic. If Kovalainen is to swtich to Ferrari, McLaren, or Sauber, Buemi is an ideal replacement. His vacant reserve role would be filled by Razia, as I doubt any of the teams are interested in giving a full-time seat to either Valsecchi or Razia.

I don’t see how Valsecchi & Razia’s relatively long experience in GP2 is of an hindrance in their need to step up to the next level. Glock spent just over half the duration Valsecchi & Razia have spent before becoming GP2 champion, so did Maldonado, even though his sponsorship was an influence in him getting a seat at Williams & Grosjean was in & out of GP2 obviously due to his horrid half-season at Renault in 2009. If we’re discussing about the amount of years spent in GP2 then Van Der Garde should be no exception.

If anything, their experience should smoothen their step up to the next level of Motorsport rather than hinder it, whether it’s F1 or another single-seater series for them is questionable at this present but the gained knowledge of car setup, experience on tracks out of Europe (Bahrain, Malaysia & Singapore) & importantly for them personally, is the improvement & increased strength of them as drivers, it’s been better for them to improve in GP2 than jump to the next level & absolutely flop afterwards & lamenting in hindsight.

The championship concluded with the Singapore sprint race, won fairly easily from pole position by van der Garde.

DAMS wrapped up the teams’ title. Here’s the final top ten in the points standings:

1. Davide Valsecchi – 247
2. Luiz Razia – 222
3. Esteban Gutierrez – 176
4. Max Chilton – 169
5. James Calado – 160
6. Giedo van der Garde – 160
7. Fabio Leimer – 152
8. Marcus Ericsson – 124
9. Johnny Cecotto Jnr – 104
10. Felipe Nasr – 95

It’s a bit sad for the current crop of GP2 drivers that no-one deserves a drive, because all the competitors are supposedly mediocre. There could be a little bit of truth in that, but I find it too easy to write off the entire GP2 field as weak. It’s not as if the drivers who stayed and performed well (occasionally) in recent years (Van der Garde, Ericsson, Leimer) suddenly dominated the ‘weaklings’. I think Valsecchi drove a strong and intelligent season, and is no less deserving of a drive in F1 than some of the drivers in F1 today. Of course, he hasn’t shown himself to be that good to be snapped up by McLaren, Ferrari or Red Bull, so he will need to find some backing, which may not be that easy in Italy at the moment.

As for vacancies, I was surprised last winter by the number of last-minute driver changes, so perhaps we’ll see a few seats opening up again this year, too. Perhaps Glock will finally decide he has enough of running at the back and return to the US to drive Indycars. I’m not even sure Raikkonen will be driving in F1 next season. I haven’t seen him smile all year, and the last he labelled boring, just because he couldn’t find a way past a Mercedes. He’s also recently remarked that he’s not desperate to be in F1, and I’m sure his love for travelling hasn’t suddenly blossomed.