[Rigi]

so, driver changes for this weekend.

Marco Sorensen takes over for Tio Ellinas at MP Motorsport. Should be an interesting one.
Tweet from GP2 Official

Also Facu Regalia has lost his drive, Hilmer haven’t announced a replacement yet.
Tweet from Facu Regalia

[R.J. O’Connell]

Sorensen for Ellinas is interesting – Marco did well enough last year to earn a reserve role at Lotus, but he hasn’t been up to snuff this year and I really think Ellinas deserves to stay in GP2 on merit.

Regalia quitting Hilmer is a curious move. The team is underperforming compared to last year, when Frijns, Lancaster, and Quaife-Hobbs all won races for them. Maybe this is where Ellinas ends up, or maybe Conor Daly will move up from the black hole of Lazarus. Nikolay Martsenko is also an option since he is also a former FR3.5 driver, but if he didn’t have the funds to continue there, well.

[Rigi]

ellinas is probably the best bet. i’d hope for dalys sake that he’d move up, but i think he’s staying with lazarus for now, as he spent the two weeks between austria and silverstone in italy with the team. martsenko could also be possible, or perhaps one of their other gp3 drivers like mason for example.

btw, don’t think i’ll be missing regalia too much. he didn’t do anything outstanding really.

[Nick]

MP Motorsport is really trying hard to show they’re just a vehicle for Daniel de Jong, aren’t they? People might complain about teams from non-EU countries doing this in the feeder series, but honestly, MP Motorsport is just as bad.

Sorensen has really been dropping the ball this year in FR3.5, so not expecting much from him, especially when he mentions how ‘difficult’ it will be with the limited time he’ll have in the car.

It’s getting quite late for Hilmer, although, I do remember Frijns and Lancaster being told on Thursdays they’d race. Maybe we need to check their Twitter accounts more closely tomorrow.. ;)

[R.J. O’Connell]

Funny that you mention Jon Lancaster:

Guess who's back…

— Jon Lancaster (@JonLracing) July 3, 2014

[Rigi]

oh god, why lancaster? why not other talented people? lancaster is just another one of those experienced gp2 drivers, whose single-seater career should’ve been finshed by now. hopefully it’s only for the british grand prix, because it’s his home race.

[Iestyn Davies]

Lancaster does well to get so many chances, considering he has literally no money.. Regalia was always going to need at least a season to get up to speed in GP2. Good call on the twitter spot!

Ellinas is in a similar boat to Lancaster, but has Manor’s backing, so drives when no one will pay for the seat.. I imagine Sorensen’s team want to try and give him a different opportunity in GP2. He needs to get his mojo back, that’s for sure. I would say that Stanaway is looking more impressive than him in FR3.5 atm, possibly even Stockinger as well. Maybe the F1 role is taking away his focus.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see de Jong in F1 if MP can get anywhere near it.. which is a shame, considering we have the talents of Frijns, Vandoorne, de Vries and Verstappen all trying to get in pretty soon. Not to mention, Van der Garde is still around; Albers has just come back as a manager…

[R.J. O’Connell]

With a grand total of 3 points in as many seasons, the closest De Jong will get to F1 will be if he picks up 2014 for his Xbox or Playstation.

[Craig Woollard]

http://www.hilmer-motorsport.com/en/news/55-gp2/436-statement-of-hilmer-motorsport.html Hilmer have since posted a statement.

In rating the results of the season so far, it also has to be taken into account that in three out of four main races the driver wasn’t able to finish the race because of driving mistakes and that he had to retire prematurely. The reasons for these retirements are neither the fault of the team or technical problems. Facu Regalia’s objections about a lack of engine power are from our point of view baseless accusations.

Ouch.

[Araqiel]

Yeah, the tweet from Regalia about lack of funds doesn’t tally with his complaints about the team’s performance and his engine, nor the team’s assertion that he has a contract for the whole season. If Hilmer’s engines are duff though then Daniel Abt would surely feel cursed, having spent all last year convinced his ART was noticeably down on power compared to Calado’s. It might explain how he seems to be unable to avoid impeding so many drivers in qualifying though.

[Iestyn Davies]

This is a very strange situation. So who has left whom? It would appear Regalia has been sacked, although at the same time, he is refusing to continue and the team appear to want to keep him to the contract. I thought that Campos had signed him as they had some sort of deal/backing going together or just felt like they had a talent on their hands. If it’s the latter, then I can see why they sacked him.

Surely the telemetry would show if any engines are down on power? I think it’s more likely that those two drivers are just taking a while to adapt to GP2, like their previous records would indicate they would need before being competitive.

[R.J. O’Connell]

Marciello on pole! :D

[Iestyn Davies]

Once again, the talents come to the fore, Sorensen impresses, so perhaps he would be better served being in GP2 this year than FR3.5, while at the back are the usual few and Izawa, who has probably never driven Silverstone before.

[R.J. O’Connell]

And Sorensen isn’t even doing that well in FR3.5! Was hoping for a much better qualifying performance from Rossi. And Markelov may have jumped to GP2 well too early.

[Iestyn Davies]

Markelov – Indeed, GP3 would have been a better step first, like Kirchhofer.

Rossi – Caterham seem to struggle at times, but Rossi still needs to beat Haryanto consistently.

[Author]

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