Posts Tagged ‘Alonso’
Motorsports Mondial - January 3, 2012
Pic of the Day
Photo. BBC
Charles Pic. F1 Driver in 2012
The 2011 Formula 1 season saw no French Grand Prix and no Gallic drivers on the grid. Fast forward to 2012. The season opener in Albert Park will see no less than three drivers representing the land of birth of Grand Prix racing.
Romain Grosjean is back in F1 courtesy of Gravity Management and his staunch supporter Eric Boullier. The Swiss-born racer stamped his authority in the GP2 Championship last season against some seasoned and young talented drivers.
Jean-Eric Vergne has made a strong case for a seat in the top tier after destroying the competition in the 2010 British F3 Championship, and last year came close to winning the Formula Renault 3.5 Championship, losing out to Canadian Robert Wickens in the season finale. In Abu Dhabi, Vergne was noticeably quick in the Young Driver Test at the wheel of Red Bull’s world championship winning machinery.
Charles Pic completes the French trio. Born in Montélimar on February 15, 1990 Pic got his start in motorsports when he was presented a kart for his 12th birthday by his godfather and ex-GP racer, Eric Bernard.
In 2005, he was 3rd in the European Championship (Junior ICA), 2nd in the Italian Championship and won the prestigious Andrea Margutti Trophy, named in the memory of Giancarlo Fisichella’s boyhood friend and fellow kart-racer.
This level of success gave him the confidence to step into single-seaters. Pic continued his race and pole winning ways in the 2006 French Formula Campus Championship. A pair of race wins and pole positions would help him to third place in the championship.
The 2007 Formula Renault Euro Cup saw Pic take his first International victory at the Nurburgring. He finished the season in a very impressive third position with five podiums and two pole positions. In the French version of the same series he would finish 4th and was the second best rookie.
The next two seasons Pic campaigned in Formula Renault 3.5 with Simon Abadie’s Toulouse-based Tech 1 Racing. In the 2008 season Pic claimed two victories, Le Mans and Monaco, and four additional podium finishes helped him to claim sixth in the championship, ahead of Esteban Guerrieri and Robert Wickens.
In 2009, Pic improved on his championship standings and finished third with a pair of victories, Britain and Germany.
Photo. GP2 Series
The shifting of sands of time in the Middle East saw last year’s season finale of GP2 Asia
series take place at Imola. Here Pic powers his way for the Barwa Addax team at
Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.
His next step was GP2, the official feeder series to F1. He endured a tough season with Christian Horner’s Arden International in 2010 despite winning the season opener in Barcelona. It would be another ten races before he would be on the podium again after finishing third in Germany in the feature race.
Pic finished 10th in the championship. Not satisfied with the performance he switched to Barwa Addax for his second season of GP2 in 2011.
Again he was victorious in the Barcelona feature race. In the next round at Monte Carlo, Pic was eighth in the feature which gave him pole for the sprint race as the grid is reversed for the top eight for the sprint race. He triumphed over Josef Kral and Romain Grosjean.
Three second place finishes, Germany, Hungary and Italy, helped him to fourth place in the championship. He was only two points behind second place man Luca Filippi. Champion Grosjean collected 89 points.
Pic said at the time of his F1 announcement, “I’m very happy but this is just the beginning. I know that a lot of hard work is ahead of me to reward this chance.”
In 1996, Olivier Panis won the Monaco Grand Prix which to this day has remained the last French victory in Formula 1. The Lyon-born racer would love to see Charles Pic become the next French driver to win a Grand Prix.
Panis is now part of Pic’s management team. The 2012 season starts with the Australian Grand Prix on March 18th. The Marussia F1 Team will be powered by Cosworth engines and dreams of its two drivers; Timo Glock and Charles Pic.
– Nasir Hameed
Greetings and New Year’s regards.
Motorsports Mondial - December 27, 2011
Photo: renaultsport
Renault Sport Technologies, a breeding ground for F1 drivers
Scuderia Toro Rosso have named Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne as their drivers for the 2012 season, the first time two Formula Renault 3.5 Series rivals will be driving side by side for the same Formula One team. In taking the step up from the Formula Renault 3.5 Series to motor racing’s blue riband class, the Australian and the Frenchman are following the trail blazed by Robert Kubica, Sebastien Vettel and Jaime Alguersuari. Their promotion takes the number of drivers in the 2012 Formula One field who have earned their spurs in the World Series by Renault’s leading class to five, with world champion Vettel, Pastor Maldonado and Charles Pic the other members of that esteemed quintet.
The driver development programme put in place by Renault Sport Technologies continues to go from strength to strength, with the recent arrivals of Charles Pic, Romain Grosjean, Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo in Formula One cementing World Series by Renault’s reputation as the springboard for reaching motor racing’s top table. All four made their breakthroughs in Formula Renault 2.0, with Pic, Ricciardo and Vergne graduating to Formula Renault 3.5 Series, and Grosjean catching the eye in his Lotus Renault GP F1 demo drives for World Series by Renault, while also helping to bring the New Formula Renault 3.5 development programme to a successful conclusion.
The Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 3.5 single-seaters are both designed to prepare drivers for the rigours of Formula One. Learning the ropes in Formula Renault 2.0 national championships and then Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, budding young drivers also have the opportunity to shine in Formula Renault 3.5 Series and earn a place on the big stage. Out of the 21 drivers with confirmed places on the Formula One grid in 2012, no fewer than 12 have earned their spurs in a Renault Sport Technologies car. Among them is Felipe Massa, the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 champion in 2000, the same year that Kimi Raikkonen caused a sensation by securing an F1 drive on the strength of his Formula Renault 2.0 UK title win, a crown lifted three years later by Lewis Hamilton. For his part, Kamui Kobayashi took the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 crown in 2005, while Grosjean is himself a former winner of the French Formula Renault 2.0 championship.
Pic, Ricciardo and Vergne have also performed with distinction at the wheel of a Formula Renault 2.0, with Vergne taking the French title in 2008 and the Australian topping the Formula Renault 2.0 WEC standings that same year. Making the switch straight from Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 to Formula Renault 3.5 Series, meanwhile, Pic secured a stunning first win in the class on the streets of Monaco in 2008. Continuing their ascents, Ricciardo and Vergne then enjoyed a season apiece in England, Ricciardo lifting the British International F3 title in 2009 and Vergne succeeding him as champion a year later. Their next destination was Formula Renault 3.5 Series. The 2010 runner-up, the Australian has successfully combined his Formula Renault 3.5 Series and Formula One duties with HRT this year, while Vergne, who finished second in the 2011 Formula Renault 3.5 Series, earned his 2012 Formula One slot after impressing in testing.
The trio’s promotion to Formula One is richly deserved and puts Renault Sport Technologies’ development programme firmly in the spotlight. A selection of other drivers, among them Robert Wickens, are also in with a chance of joining them next season, and their progress will be monitored closely by all World Series by Renault stakeholders, who will continue with their task of nurturing the champions of tomorrow. In lining up for the 2012 Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 3.5 Series championships, those future stars will have no shortage of role models to emulate, with Pic, Ricciardo and Vergne the latest to show that anything is possible with enough hard work, dedication and the support of a programme tailored to helping drivers reach the peak.
Merry Christmas! - December 24, 2011
Everyone at F1weekly wishes you a Merry Christmas!
Motorsports Mondial - December 23, 2011
Photo: renaultsports
Megane Trophy cranks up the power for 2012
Created in 2005 and overhauled four years later, the Megane Trophy is reinventing itself for 2012, by packing an extra 40bhp beneath the bonnet. Developed by Renault Sport Technologies, the new improved 400-bhp saloon car will be taking centre stage again in the Eurocup Megane Trophy, as part of the World Series by Renault, and will also be branching out into the newly created Megane Trophy Endurance Challenge, courtesy of a highly adaptable endurance kit.
An integral part of the World Series by Renault story, the Eurocup Megane Trophy has proved popular with fans since its introduction in 2005, with tightly packed fields and exciting racing the hallmarks of this high-performance saloon-car class. And there promises to be even more action in 2012, thanks to the fitting of a newly developed V6 3.5 24v rear-mid engine producing 400bhp (40bhp more than before), giving the Megane Trophy even more performance.
One thing that’s staying unchanged next season is the Eurocup Megane Trophy format. Race weekends will start on the Friday with two hour-long sessions of collective testing, while both race days will feature one qualifying session and a race apiece, which all adds up to three hours and 50 minutes of Eurocup Megane Trophy action at every meeting.
There are seven Eurocup Megane Trophy meetings on the World Series by Renault card for 2012. Running from May through to October, the season will reach a high point in mid-July, when the class decamps to the all-new Moscow Raceway for its Russian debut.
Prize money for the Eurocup Megane Trophy season stands at more than €182,000, nearly all of which is pocketed by the top three drivers in the overall standings, with the champion collecting €100,000, the runner-up €50,000 and the third-placed driver €25,000. Like Nick Catsburg and Stefano Comini, the last two champion drivers, the winner of the 2012 Eurocup Megane Trophy will be rewarded with a day’s testing with Nissan Motorsport International (Nismo). Catsburg performed so well in his March 2011 testing session that he earned a drive with the Japanese constructor in this season’s FIA GT1 World Championship. There are also rewards to be had for amateur competitors in the Gentlemen Drivers championship, a genuine ‘contest within a contest’.
Harnessing the versatility of the Megane Trophy, Renault Sport Technologies has also set up the Megane Trophy Endurance Challenge, which gives drivers and teams the chance to test themselves in a different setting to World Series by Renault thanks to an endurance kit featuring a 100-litre tank and central-locking nut wheels. The challenge comprises three prestigious endurance events: the Gulf 12 Hours, held in Abu Dhabi; the Nürburgring Nordschleife Endurance Meeting (to be confirmed); and the 6 Hours of Vallelunga. Megane Trophy drivers and teams will be competing in a category all of their own, with special prize money on offer. Three drivers are allowed per car and teams will have access to technical support from Renault Sport Technologies and its partners at all three events.
2012 Eurocup Megane Trophy calendar
- 5-6 May: Motorland Aragon, Spain
- 2-3 June: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
- 30 June-1 July: the Nürburgring, Germany
- 14-15 July: Moscow Raceway, Russia*
- 15-16 September: Hungaroring, Hungary
– 29-30 September: Paul Ricard HTTT, France
- 20-21 October: Barcelona, Spain
*Pending approval by the FIA
