GP2 Manager - 2005: Silverstone Free Practice & Qualification Results PG36 - Searching for a new manager!

I'm changing livery as we speak, I'm not content with the livery atm

Magny Cours Free Practice Results
Todays Practice Results saw iSport International drivers Gary Paffett and Giorgio Pantano claim positions 1 and 3, with Heikki Kovalainen (Sauber GP2 - 2nd) seperating the two. Milos Pavlovic, who is going to drive his first complete race weekend for Red Bull Racing Jr. (LR BMW Racing in 2006), finished 20th. His teammate Alexander Wurz on the other hand finished 5th, 0.270 seconds ahead. DSR Lotus meanwhile continues their way up by finishing 7th (M. Gene) and 8th (A. Prémat), only 0.061 seconds difference.





Setup Reward:
1. Campos Racing + 0.030
2. iSport International +0.035
3. DSR Lotus +0.061

4. ART Williams +0.081
5. Racing Engineering +0.085
6. Super Nova Racing +0.102

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GPG Nations Cup: #39 Romania

Wanna become a manager of a Formula 1 team? Take your chance and start in the GP2-Series!

Red Bull Racing Junior

Brilliant again from Wurz, hopefully he can keep this up going into qualifying, as this is a track with limited passing places. No pressure on Pavlovic, but if he performs brilliantly for the rest of the season, we will try and sign him for next year.

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GPGSL
Christel VXR: S12 onwards | Wins: 3 | Poles: 3 | Fastest Laps: 2

Not happy at all with those results. I'm expecting an improvement in qualifying.

DSR Lotus statement

We're happy to be close to the top. It seems we're fighting for points in France. All the team hopes for a good quali and point finish

Magny Cours Qualifying
After finishing 1st and 3rd in Free Practice, iSport International drivers again managed to finish on the same places. Surprisingly this time Giorgio Pantano was the faster one and is going to start tomorrows race from pole position. Heikki Kovalainen, who seperated the two iSport drivers in practice only managed 20th this time while Kamui Kobayashi, who did not participate in the Free Practice, is starting from 2nd tomorrow. Nico Rosberg, who is leading the championship point equal with Gary Paffett, "only" managed 5th.





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GPG Nations Cup: #39 Romania

Wanna become a manager of a Formula 1 team? Take your chance and start in the GP2-Series!

Coloni Motorsports

After a bad practice, Monfardini qualifying 14th isn't as bad as it could've been. Both drivers will have to really push if we're to get anywhere near the points though.

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Joseph Gilson :: Southern Cross Racing :: Race Driver

Red Bull Racing Junior

So tight in the midfield pack, but confident that Wurz can hopefully pick up some points from there.

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GPGSL
Christel VXR: S12 onwards | Wins: 3 | Poles: 3 | Fastest Laps: 2

iSport International statement

We are delighted with the performance shown by our 2 drivers. Pantano and Paffett are expected to do a good race, in order to keep our championship chances alive, both in drivers and constructors.

Racing Engineering Press Release
That's a bit more like it.
Such a close field makes these grids really fiercely contested, and we're thrilled to be on the front row.
Disappointed not to have had both cars in the top 10, especially after Lopez beat Kobayashi in practice (which he did compete in unless the practice standings were wrong?), but when one-tenth of a second covers 10 drivers from 8th to 18th, we can't be too sad about our pace. Let's hope for an exciting couple of races over the weekend.

DSR Lotus statement

It's nice to be the best Ferrari team, but 10 and 12 is not where we are willing to be. We hope for good 2 races and if we are lucky we can grab some more points. DSR Lotus team are really optimistic for the two races ahead...

ART Williams has no clue

I'm really speechless. No improvement at all from the practice to the qualifying. When we wanna fight for the title, we're not allowed to bring such bad results. At least Ide might have a chance to sneak in 8th or better in the first race to have a good position for the sprint race. But still...I'm disappointed.


GPGSL : Team Owner of 'Maverick Track Performance' (MTP)

BCN

Disappointed that we've wnt from our best qualifying result to our worst. Doesn't really make sense

Sauber GP2

a very bad result

Decent result, hopefully we can challenge for the top spot in the race.

Changes in 2006?
I couldn´t help but notice that many of you are a unhappy with the way performances turn out at the moment, so I thought about changing things up for 2006 onwards. Note that these are only first thoughts, and everything can be changed. Let´s start with an idea pycku had a while ago: introducing more than one chassis manufacturer, as well as making it possible to buy older chassis. At first I didn´t like the idea, as the original idea of GP2-Series is meant to show the drivers performance, but somehow I like that idea by now... So here´s a first draft of the official rules:

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Chassis
Each team must choose between one of the following chassis. Note that the rules for chassis differ from season to season, so older chassis are in nearly all cases worse than their respective newer versions. Still, it may occur, that an older chassis of one manufacturer might be better than a newer version of another manufacturer.

Chassis Name - Cost
Dallara GP2/05 - £1.5m
Dallara GP2/06 - £3m
Lola DP106 - £2.5m
Panoz GF06 - £2m

If you are really satisfied with your chassis at the end of a season you might want to use it for the next season as well instead of buying a complete new one. This will cost you only £1m (to fit the chassis with the few changes in regulations). Still, the older your chassis gets, the more will it wear out after each race. If you are using a chassis over many seasons the wear out rate will rise more and more so anywhen you might want to build them completely new only using your old ones as a base. This will cost you £2m for every season you used the chassis, but the good thing is, the wear out rate will get back to where it was in the beginning.

You can furthermore decide to sell your livery. This will give you the chance to gain a bit more money while it gives other teams the chance to get a (hopefully) good chassis. If you decide to do so, you need to send a PM to me, stating how many teams you would like to supply:
1 team costs £2m
2 teams cost £3.5m
3 teams cost £5m
and how much your chassis should cost. The costs for building the chassis for sale will be subtracted from your budget before the chassis gets on the market, so it is not ensured you make profit. After sending these two things, I will add your chassis to the available chassis. Buying a chassis of another teams works the same way as a normal chassis: Send a PM to me. I will then make an announcement and adjust your budget (and the one of the team you are buying from).
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The different chassis will differ more from each other than engines, so the differences between teams will get higher as well. I´m thinking of a difference of maximal 25, but this is completely up to your wishes!. The engine differences will be changed a bit as well, so the teams performances next year will differ way more from each other than this year. (The engine difference will still be decided by me.) Coming from the introduction of chassis, the test rules need to be changed as well:

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Testing

Test sessions will be held throughout the season and will cost you £250k per session. You have multiple choices if you compete in a test session:

-> Work on your chassis
-> Performance: You will test some new parts your engineers have developed. There is a chance, that your engineers developed some parts that are not improving your car but worsen it! After the test session you have to decide if you want to use the new parts or not. Testing new parts will cost you £250k again.
-> Reliability: The engineers will work hard to improve your chassis reliability. Your drivers will not participate in the test session but only drive in the simulator, so you will not see any times of them. On the other side, the result will not depend on the track conditions, and the results will differ from good to perfect, so there will be an improvement of reliability for sure. Improving your reliability costs £750k. Note that after each race your chassis will wear out a bit, depending on it´s age (see chassis).

If you work on your chassis, only you will benefit from it.

-> Work on engine
-> By sending data to your engine manufacturer they can improve the engine and send out a newer model to all customers after the test session. Note that sending data to your engine manufacturer will cost you another £250k and you´ll have to decide if you want them to concentrate on performance or reliability. By the way engine manufacturers like to resign with teams which are sending in data regularly.

-> Don´t work on anything
-> This will logically cost you nothing extra. So why even participating? Because your drivers gain experience...

Please be aware that from 2006 onwards there will only be one test day per test session again, and that pre-season tests cost money as well! Additionaly note that engine improvements are in most cases worth more than chassis improvements.
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I think this were all the thoughts that flew around in my head... What do you think? If you like the idea, then we might want to introduce it as fast as possible.

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GPG Nations Cup: #39 Romania

Wanna become a manager of a Formula 1 team? Take your chance and start in the GP2-Series!

I don't wanna be the party pooper again, but I'm not convinced by this chassis implementation.

1. It makes things even more complicated and more expensive. And it will destroy any possible collaboration between teams when it comes to engine improvement, because many people will focus on their chassis instead of the engine (even if the increase is better for engine development...but it's better for all). That is, to make a difference, people are forced to work for themselves.

2. It brings only another variable in the game which can't be really estimated whether it's worth or not to throw more money out for another chassis or not. Based on the fact, that Reve-san and Twigster are the only people who really know the performance differences of such things, while the team managers are forced to think 'the more expensive the better', this turns more and more away from a manager and into a gamble, to more such variances you bring in. And when suddenly an older chassis can even be better than a new one...the gamble feature is perfect.


So, my suggestion is:

Leave things as they are, in theory. Maybe increase SLIGHTLY the driver performances and give more value to engine tests to get a slightly bigger difference between teams over the season.
Of course some managers set some standards for their team and are disappointed when these standards are not reached. But that's part of the game and no reason to roll up the complete league.


GPGSL : Team Owner of 'Maverick Track Performance' (MTP)

JohnMaverick schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't wanna be the party pooper again, but I'm
> not convinced by this chassis implementation.
>
> 1. It makes things even more complicated and more
> expensive. And it will destroy any possible
> collaboration between teams when it comes to
> engine improvement, because many people will focus
> on their chassis instead of the engine (even if
> the increase is better for engine
> development...but it's better for all). That is,
> to make a difference, people are forced to work
> for themselves.

About the money: What if I raise the money every team gets after the season by 1-2m? That should solve this problem.
Okay, I can´t argue with the fact that people will work on their own. But in the end, that´s the same way as in Formula 1 and to be honest that´s where most of you want to go. And working on engines reliability is still interesting I think...

> 2. It brings only another variable in the game
> which can't be really estimated whether it's worth
> or not to throw more money out for another chassis
> or not. Based on the fact, that Reve-san and
> Twigster are the only people who really know the
> performance differences of such things, while the
> team managers are forced to think 'the more
> expensive the better', this turns more and more
> away from a manager and into a gamble, to more
> such variances you bring in. And when suddenly an
> older chassis can even be better than a new
> one...the gamble feature is perfect.

Hm.. So what if I submit some test results using the same driver. What I mean is: Pedro de la Rose (for example) drives 12 laps in all chassis and the results will get submitted. This let´s you compare the chassis a bit and makes things easier to decide. I could as well let two drivers test... Or you all get a chance to test the chassis you want to without having to pay anything. That would be two unofficial test sessions, so you can test two chassis you want to and compare their times. Additionally all other teams will use different chassis, so you will be able to compare all chassis pretty good.

If you want me to, I can furthermore submit results of the above mentioned method for the 3 new engines on a track you raced on already...

> So, my suggestion is:
>
> Leave things as they are, in theory. Maybe
> increase SLIGHTLY the driver performances and give
> more value to engine tests to get a slightly
> bigger difference between teams over the season.
> Of course some managers set some standards for
> their team and are disappointed when these
> standards are not reached. But that's part of the
> game and no reason to roll up the complete league.

So much work for nothing

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GPG Nations Cup: #39 Romania

Wanna become a manager of a Formula 1 team? Take your chance and start in the GP2-Series!

Well, I still have doubts. To get a real difference in time, the chassis must have a massive difference in performance. But then, on the other hand, if a test session reveals the strengths of one chassis and the weaknesses of another, who seriously buys the weak one? I mean, you can dig your own grave if you do this, cause it will result in your team being at the end of the field for the whole season. Then better save some money at the drivers and buy the better chassis, as most of us know that the car performance is much more important than the driver performance. But then again, where is the sense in having several chassis if only the best one gives you even a chance to win a GP? Or in return: Where would be the sense in having several chassis if they were very close to each other in performance?


GPGSL : Team Owner of 'Maverick Track Performance' (MTP)

I'm for some changes, but let them be from 2007 onwards.

What I mean is that most of the teams spent some part of their budget for engines and maybe they already decided how much to spent on drivers and how much to save for testing. So what I mean is that if there is some major changes in rules - it should be from 2007 or at least all teams should agree (which is not possible even in theory given that we are missing 1 manager).

I like the idea of having more than 1 chassis and engine manufacturers - it's not very realistic, but still adds some more features. But keeping prices relatively close and cheap may result in all teams having the most expensive chassis, so that it wouldn't change much the game. The wear of the chassis is a little bit confusing, but I think I can accept it if all agree with that.

And to be honest I didn't get the idea of selling liveries - are we meant to sell the livery (the painting of the car) or the chassis itself? And how can we sell our chassis to other teams, given that we receive the chassis from 3rd company (Dallara/Lola/Panoz)?!

Also about different chassis - does that mean different 3d models of the car? I'm asking because I've started working on my 2006 livery, so if there are changes for 2006 maybe I should stop working on this.

About testing - I personally support the idea of developing only engines, so that chassis remain the same during the season. Maybe we should think about an option to concentrate on driver skills during testing instead. That way these managers who like the idea of individual developing (apart from other teams using same engine/chassis) will get what they want and also we will keep the good from the test system we have now. I think that way we'll keep the GP2 series a little closer to the real world, too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2011 11:50PM by pycku.