GP3 2014 round two: Red Bull Ring
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Round two of the GP3 series season gets underway, the series’s first visit to the Red Bull Ring. In terms of driver changes, Ivan Taranov has lost his seat at Hilmer, and will be replaced by compatriot Nikolay Martsenko, who was forced to cut short his Formula Renault 3.5 campaign after a promising start, seemingly due to a lack of funds.
Hilmer seem to be strapped for cash at the moment as another driver change has seen female racer Beitske Visser lose her seat to Riccardo Agostini for this round and others depending on performance of his results.
I personally think Beitske was just a last-minute call-up for Hilmer for Barcelona. It would have been tough for her to do a double campaign in two of the more expensive junior single seater categories.
True.. and I imagine Agostini is more cash strapped now, but that’s a total guess. Martsenko is also driving his best but got hit by the Russian sanctions..
I’m surprised this [expensive] series still has a 27 car grid, especially considering WSR could well have less than 20 by the next race.
Perhaps the tie to GP2\F1 is considered a better investment by the drivers’ sponsors?
GP3 is about £500,000 p.a., and I thought World Series was a little more. But I also thought that World Series was a lot cheaper than GP2, which is over a million, and with a lot more track time.. so it’s interesting that GP2 is still going strong, perhaps the connection to F1 is indeed swinging the momentum back in that direction, now that GP3 is established?
More powerful car and significantly more track time in WSR (no issues with F1 limitations), which is partly why I said GP3 is overpriced. On the other hand, if the full field remains, the cost is only likely to increase…
I personally feel like Martsenko should still be in WSR and Visser should have been running GP3 which is a much shorter step up from her previous series.
Also, I expect a huge weekend for Jann Mardenborough coming off a great effort at Le Mans.
Mardenborough still needs to find that consistency, it seems. He was far too scrappy on the first lap today, chasing the previous mistake rather than holding on to what he has. In a series where overtaking is so tough, losing multiple places on the first lap is suicide. He just needs to find a comfortable 9/10ths and a way to drive every corner that doesn’t risk losing more time than there is to gain, something most drivers have time to work on in their formative years but not those who start on Playstation with a reset button.
His Le Mans performances do of course show that this is something he can clearly do on a far greater scale and stage than a GP3 race, so it’s just a case of adapting to the unique challenges of single-seater racing.
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