2018 European GP : Race Preview

From a circuit that has hosted FF1M races in every season to a circuit that has never hosted an FF1M race before and hasn’t been used at all since 2010. Located in Czechia, the Brno circuit will play host to the European Grand Prix and the final European race of the season before four flyaway races to cap off an interesting 2018 season. FF1M has visited Brno before but in a testing capacity where Lewis Hamilton and Rubens Barrichello shared fastest times across three days of mid-season testing. In terms of actual racing, this occurred in 2010 courtesy of the defunct FFR3.5 series where Felipe Massa dominated the double header.

The championship swings in Tornado’s favour

After Hockenheim, Alessandro Farina held a 22 point lead over Vaino Kimminen and Fernando Alonso. After the second low downforce race of the season three races later, this has now become a two point deficit to Kimminen with the Finn having scored 30 points compared to Farina’s six including a second consecutive win at Monza. Kimminen had been competitive all meeting as he converted a front row start into the lead during the first lap after Farina and Sebastian Vettel had an incident into Ascari. From there, Kimminen was completely unchallenged as he went on to win by nearly 10 seconds. Despite the incident, Farina somehow stayed in 2nd place but wasn’t able to stay with Kimminen, and in the closing stages, Farina was caught and passed by a resurgent Fernando Alonso, who had steadily made progress from 11th on the grid.

Having been too conservative in previous races, Shake ‘n’ Bake had finally turned their engines up to maximum race power which didn’t help Nolan Bryant too much as his engine failed on lap 8. In fact, Bryant could consider himself fortunate to be in the race at all as if the pre-qualifying system excluded the four slowest drivers instead of the team group system, he would’ve failed to qualify. Nevertheless, Alonso’s car ran reliably and Shake ‘n’ Bake outscored FJR for a second consecutive race to strengthen their grip on 3rd in the championship, but much of the attention will be on the top two as Tornado’s purple patch has put them in the lead of the teams championship and in Group A for Friday qualifying with the rest of the running order being as follows:

Qualifying Groups

Paddock News

• Mitchell have dropped Chuck Bucknum in favour of Kimi Raikkonen for this race and likely for the rest of the season. Raikkonen’s release was granted by Ajay Motorsports, and his place will be taken by Tse Genjo, the first Chinese driver to race in FF1M should he qualify for the race which Ajay have recently been struggling to do
• The silly season may have concluded, but there is still one seat remaining with Tornado choosing to trial the available Chuck Bucknum during first practice in the view of a potential race seat for 2019. Other current FF1M drivers fighting for the last 2019 seat include Mattia Alfonsi, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica, Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, and Mason Taylor
• Judd have brought their fourth and final free engine upgrade for this race with new ICE, ERS, and CE components.
• Megatron and Hart have brought their third engine upgrade of the season, with Megatron having new ICE, ERS and CE, whilst Hart have focused solely on the ICE for this upgrade.

A venture into the unknown

Brno is a circuit that shares characteristics with Mugello with its long corners that will favour those who have good aerodynamic grip and a good change of direction, but it lacks the long straight that Mugello has. In fact, the longest straight is only 650m from the final corner to the long Parabolica-style first corner and also from the exit of the first corner to turn 3, so overtaking may prove tricky. This could play into FJR’s hands with the JB-18 chassis’ hearty aerodynamic grip levels helping them to dominate the twisty Hungaroring, and a second win of the season could be on the cards if they play their set-up correctly. Conversely, Tildesley GP may struggle as their car’s main strength lies in their straight line speed due to their slippery TGP-18 chassis.

The main tyre manufacturers are unsure how their compounds are going to perform on the long corners of Brno with FJR’s chief tyre technician Scott Nogue-Ripp unhelpfully predicting that “the undercut may prove crucial to the race for some, but having good tyre life toward at the end of the race will also be important.”

Support Races

FF2M returns to action at Brno with Lando Norris starting to edge away from Daisuke Sekiya after the Japanese driver had a terrible time of it at Monza with no points. Alex Palou was able to win the feature race however and keep Willows Junior in touch of STV Racing while Jorge Diaz took his maiden win in the sprint race.

Coverage Details

Qualifying is available from 3:00pm for Paddock Club tier Patreons at https://www.patreon.com/cw/FF1M

The race itself will premiere from 4pm on Sunday with FJR’s James Brickles and Willows Racing’s Joseph Willows in the commentary box.

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