Autosport features:
2014 Season Preview - Team by Team Rundown
DGNgineering
#1: Mark Dagnall
#2: Nathan Scott
Chris Dagnall took the Jones team when Sammy decided to promptly end his adventure at the end of the 2012 season, and it paid off. At that moment it had become the fastest growing team in the series, but noone would imagine they would have such a success in their first full season. Starting mainly as a father & son operation, the team has flourished now into a fully professional outfit ready to win. They have two young guns and the improved chassis should allow them to keep the trophies coming in, that is, if the car reaches the end of the races.
Gillet Ecurie Nationale Belge
#3: Aurelien Moll
#4: Thomas de Bock
Although they were fast last year, the Gillet drivers never looked to have enough pace to win a race when the favourites runned up front, but they kept the finishes coming in, specially in the first part of the season, and there was a moment when they looked good enough to fight for the championship. Although this never came, they should still be aiming for the podium this year. How often they can get there will define their season.
Holden F1RWRS Racing Team
#5: Rhys Davies
#6: Ashley Watkinson
There´s not much new coming from this Australian outfit. In 2013 their regularity saved their season, but they didn´t impress anyone during the second stint and in the final part they looked a little bit lost with the driver changes. However, their experienced driver line up is back and if they keep coming the finishes, this should grant them a good number of points.
Castrol Jones Racing
#7: Sammy Jones
#8: Daniel Melrose
That Sammy Jones is a great team owner is no surprise to anyone. Seeing what his former team did last year, and then finishing 4th in the constructors championship and winning their first race is something to remark. If Sammy Jones can keep his promise of improving year by year, and Daniel Melrose takes his job seriously, it could mean the green and white cars will win more than once again.
ArrowTech ART
#9: Daniel Martins
#10: TBA
Where this team will fare is a mistery. They have a new engine and potential investors who´ll want to take the team to the top, but all the public scandals involving staff members, drivers and the figure of Prince Falik can make the outfit a bomb ready to explode. If they can keep their regularity, points finishes would be welcome, but it couldn´t be enough given the expectations the owners have.
Sunshine Infiniti
#11: Shinobu Katayama
#12: Kay Lon
When Katayama won her home Grand Prix in 2013, the team members started to see the light out of the tunnel. Frequently running at the very top (even ahead of the Dagnalls), ongoing car failures meant the team had to face Pre-Qualify for half of the season. This meant an extra motivation for the team, fighting back against reliability problems to score a couple of podiums in the second half of the season. The arrival of Kay Lon, and the extra work the team is putting towards reliability should pay off.
American Racing Conglomerate
#14: Colin Pratchett
#15: Jesus Plaza
Even though nothing was expected from this team, they showed that they were totally prepared to confront a full season in F1RWRS. Qualifying frequently in the first part of the season against very strong cars, this gave the young Plaza confidence enough to score a podium, and only bad luck prevented him to win his first race in Zandvoort. Pratchett answered with two extra podiums in the 2nd half of the season. Keeping their driver line up is a good sign that the team is prepared to become solid enough to assault higher stakes in the future.
Garry Rogers Motorsport
#16: Frank Zimmer
#17: Poppy Whitechapel
A mid-season surprise, this Australian team started the best way possible scoring a podium in their first outing and escaping qualifying altogether. Even though they couldn´t keep that level during their first months, they now look solid enough to battle in the midfield and get to the podium when the atrition is high.
Pemberton Prospec Racing
#18: Dave Simpson
#19: Gary Cameron
A former winning team with experienced drivers, last season was arguably their worst since Prospec started in F1RWRS. Although they were very regular, the cars were usually fighting to avoid the last places along with the Kamahas and MRTs. Although not much has been going on during their winter, they must realize that another season like that will put the team into serious difficulties and, probably, having to face PreQualifying.
Foxdale Auto Racing Team
#20: Douglas Mann
#21: Jack Christopherson
There´s a couple of reasons to be really excited about Foxdale this season. They had the fastest car in 2013. Although they´ve chosen to change the engine to the new Renault Rs01, the manufacturer is serious enough to guarantee them a more reliable unit, which should result in more finishes as well. On top of that, we´ll see the long awaited debut of Jack Christopherson. Hopefully their next barbecue will be to celebrate another win.
Kamaha Motorsport
#22: Barii Mori
#23: Nicolas Steele
After two discrete seasons, this should be a make-it-or-fail season for Barii Mori. Without the talent of Kay Lon, they only made a handful of points finishes last season and were usually fighting to qualify the car to avoid the last row of the grid. There´s two reasons to be optimistic though: The new Yamaha unit promises a lot in terms of power, and the demise of Flying Fish means they will be able to enter the Qualifying once again. If the Japanese engineers keep up their words, we could see a very different face from this Japanese team.
Virgin Melrose Racing Team BMW
#24: Nathanael Spencer
#25: Phillippe Nicolas
With such a bad car, some people (us, for example) are still thinking about how MRT avoided Pre-Qualifying the whole 2013 season. Unfortunately, this won´t be possible this time, but the organisation has performed a great reestructuration (resulting in abandoning their plans of a two team operation, and focusing solely in MRT), and BMW is a very powerful and reliable company, capable of asuming the disaster of the P88 engine. The P89 engine has been built around the same architecture the unit mounted by Dagnall, and, along a revolutionary chassis, they should be back at the very front. PreQualifying shouldn´t be a problem for two experienced drivers and a big team.
Red Bull Team Phoenix Audi
#26: Phoenix McAllister
#27: The Stig
After a mediocre season, this Spanish outfit has put everything into upgrading their engine and hiring the misterious British driver The Stig, whose identity is still unknown. It seems this year they have all the ingredients to turn heads again. They will be a team to watch, at least on Friday Mornings.
Trueba Racing Team
#28: Giovanni Roda
#29: Fredo Mestolio
The 2013 Monaco Grand Prix PreQ session hurt so much this team that they weren´t able to overcome it for the rest of the season. Only a brilliant performance by James Davies in Japan allowed the Italian outfit to enjoy a race start. Adding the trauma Tristan Jung left in the team when he escaped with loads of money, explains why this small Italian outfit can only look into the future. With no major updates, they´ll have to face PreQ again with the reliable Giovanni Roda and Fredo Mestolio, whose ability is a mistery after having to drive the horrendous CR. If his talent is as big as his new manager Chris Dagnall believes, then it should mean a couple of race starts for Trueba.
Tropico GP powered by CR Motorsport
#30: Darren Older Jr
#31: Miko Fakkinen
Probably led by the worst decision ever taken in the recent history of Motorsport Racing, the CR team performed a laughable season last year. Even though investing great ammounts of money into what was described as "an interesting flowerpot", the car kept all year at the bottom of timesheets and desperating their drivers. They´ve done a great effort to grab a new chassis and engine this year, as well as the arrival of yet another Pay Driver. Despite the new ownership, it would be a surprise if they manage to qualify for a race.
Dofasco Lukoil Racing
#32: Tomislaw Tajner
#33: Yu Hiang Hao
Born from the ashes of SOTL, it would be a surprise if the Polish outfit qualify the car regularly to the races.
Mitie Aviation Racing
#34: Matthias Valsattis
#35: Alexey Pchelintsev
An already experienced racing outfit with two very young drivers, it will be interesting to see if this British team can get their car to the races.
Acuri Autosport
#36: Andrea Acuri
#37: Ron Mignolet
Although a new team, it has created an enormous interest following their partnership with Renault and being rejected by F1 Driver Adrian Sutil. It will be interesting to see if Ron Mignolet can show something else than an ability to produce excellent waffles.
Shonan DMS Racing
#38: Hagane Shizuka
#39: Francois Albertini
Whether Hagane Shizuka can definitely grow as a driver capable of evolving within a new team or whether he´s throwing his F1RWRS career out of the window is something that remains to be seen. This outfit should be fighting to pass PreQualifying along with the rest of new teams.
Mecha Grand Prix
#40: Saeed Al Faisal
#41: James Davies
The last team to join the pack, they will probably fight to pass PreQ from time to time. Their Pay Driver vs. Experience approach should pay its dividends.