Grand Prix Rejects

ROTY votes:

3: Plus One Kingfisher Racing
2: Peak Aeroracing Engineering
1: Tassie Racing

Southern US GP Entry:

Simpson Motorsports
#9: Dave Simpson
#10: Rick Simpson

I forgot about my ROTY votes.

3rd - Voeckler GPE
Somehow, the works Renault team managed to be the worst Renault team. Having gone from title contenders in 2016 and 2017, the French team suddenly found themselves pottering around in the midfield, fighting with Jones and their gutless powerplant while fellow Renault teams Fusion and Kjellerup streaked away out front. De Bock had a horrendous title defence, while Greenlaw was unlucky. Without that Renault powerplant, who knows how far back they may have ended up.


2nd - Aurelien Moll
As the world collapsed around them, the one central pillar of Gillet that was supposed to keep them standing, that would continue to give them hope to drive forward and try to recover back the glory days of the early 2010s. Aurelien Moll, the veteran, multiple race winner and championship runner up in 2013, who has been with them from the start, and even happily sat on the bench while the team employed two pay-drivers in its darkest days of 2017. Moll was supposed to lead them out of darkness and into the light.

He kept them there instead.

All that Moll achieved in 2018 was holding back the younger, hungrier, and faster Shane Walsh from qualifying for races, and giving them a fighting chance to get back into points. It's funny how times change, that Moll will likely say goodbye to the sport at the same time as long time team-mate and friend Thomas De Bock also bids au revoir to ARWS. His generation has come to a close.


1st - Tassie Racing
Their first decision was a blinder. Their driving lineup. Akira Yamamura and Tomo Kazama. A talented rookie coupled with a former junior champion on the comeback trail - a race winner in the series already, no less. The first impressions were good.

Tassie was a lesson to never forget the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover". Behind its beautifully crafted hardback cover was a short story with zero structure or sense. Alarm bells immediately went into overdrive when they announced the acquisition of Gillet's chassis programme, the very same that saw the Belgian squad finish 18th in the championship a year before. A bizarre decision.

And so its talented lineup was left a boat. Not just any boat, but a novelty paddle boat with a hole in the floor. Yamamura and Kazama pushed and pushed and pushed, peddling their equipment as hard as it would go. Akira once managed to drag the Tassie into a race, only for it to fall apart early on.

When a boat has a hole in its hull, and water is pouring in, that boat has a finite duration before its inevitable sinking. Kazama noticed the impeding fate of the Tassie ship, and jumped off in Britain.

No-one with a shred of credibility was willing to set foot on the Tassie boat at this point. Therefore, it was left to the hopelessly underqualified Hans Einhrin to make a vain attempt at plugging the hole. He managed instead to exacerbate the problem, being so hopelessly slow he was banned from racing in the series.

Instead of admitting defeat and attempting to rescue any shred of dignity they may have still been clutching on to, they pushed on. Hiroto Tojo came in. With it came money. Results were not part of the package - they never are with Tojo.

Germany was the end of the road. The Tassie ship completely submereged, Yamamura swam for land and came upon Kamaha, a hidden oasis in comparison to the nightmarish hellscape of Tassie. Podiums followed. Kazama soon found refuge of her own, with Fusion. A podium followed.

In a sense, there is no particular moral to this story. Don't buy a chassis from a backmarker? Fusion finished only one place ahead of Gillet, and are now champions. Don't base your team in Australia? Simpson are doing just fine. I suppose it is a case of an entire organisation being defined by a single, fatal mistake. Its entire future was written only weeks into its existence with a single, all important, and fundamentally flawed, decision.

Tread lightly in ARWS. Every decision might be your last.

Oh, and of course: ROTY votes.

3. Peak Aeroracing
2. Gillet
1. Tassie (and I admit, I put Tojo merely as a spacefiller there.)

RotY:

3)Peak
2)Gillet
1)Tassie

Dishonorable mention for the cursed USD#35 car :p

Final 24 hours for ROTY vote!

Alright, US Southern Grand Prix entry list has been updated.

Edit: Nevermind, we are full

Please check whether everything is correct with your entry (certain driver permission issues nonwithstanding).

I'd like to have the missing drivers by Thursday, thank you very much.

Klon wrote:Please check whether everything is correct with your entry (certain driver permission issues nonwithstanding).

I'd like to have the missing drivers by Thursday, thank you very much.

In a late change, Benoit Voeckler will step in to the #2 VGPE in place of Mineiro.

Shane Walsh will be driving the second Gillet alongside Alex Dorval.

Just waiting to hear back from DanielPT regarding Daniel Martins

ROTY votes

Honorable(?) mentions -

Tassie - They were slow, disorganised and off the pace but they gave Kamaha, Yamamura.
Mark Dagnall - Should have challenged more, one win and lots of retirements due to accidents and overdriving makes not for a happy year.
Fredo Mestolio - Although it could be kicking a man when he is down, after crashing hard into Greenlaw and missing most of the last part of the season. He had a race winning car and apart from one podium, he seemed to happy to challenge for 4th most of the time.

3 - ARWS commission
Need to take a close look at themselves regarding punishments, although they handed out a record number of bans, they really need to take a look at harsher punishments. After Terry Hawkins dangerous driving at Japan, in which he recovered twice, driving up the road the wrong way for a little while and sticking his car across the track then going on to win, he was given a race ban for the following race. Which was effectively the same as telling Hawkin, "Ah you won the championship? Oh don't worry about the next race, just go on an early holiday and enjoy yourself.". An effective punishment would have been to disqualify or give him a time penalty so he would have scored no or less points and would have had to work hard for the title. The ARWS commission also gave him a free pass when he passed the pitlane, clattered over the kerb and broke his wing on the corner before the start finish straight and rather then doing another lap to get to the pitlane entrance, he just cut across the grass and snuck in. In most forms of motorsport this would have earned the driver a penalty or even a disqualification or a race ban but he was not even given a official warning.

2 - Thomas De Bock
Although the car can be blamed for much of his performance, the former champion looked tired as he was beaten by his team mate Dan Greenlaw, who took the first podium of the team and the teams only win, which De Bock should have fought harder to take. His bad driving gave him so race bans and he has left to look at F1 or Indycar for the next season. Although he should really hang up his helmet.

1 - Alexey Buyvolov
Last year 3rd in the championship, this year on paper should have scored a podium and have beaten by Journeyman driver Jean-Luc Schiller, however it was the latter who got a podium and scored more points. Making the Russian look poor at best.

SuperAguri wrote:

Autosport wrote:Shinobu Katayama debuts in her own anime series

Last night the first episode of "Super Shinobu - Racer villian fighter" debuted on Animax last night. The anime stars Shinobu Katayama as she races and battle crime, organised by the evil Aless Andro. Although the plot was far fetched as episode one saw Shinoibu win the Japanese GP in a Venturi and then battle Aless's henchmen as they tried to steal all the ARWS cups so that Aless Andro could make the ultimate android driver. Finally defeating them with the champagne cork from the bottle of the winner champagne in a 20 minute episode, it is none the less colourful and enjoyable.



Still from the anime as Shinobu celebrates after defeating Aless's goons.

Ron Mignolet wrote:Dissapointing. I expected more ecchi.

Wouter Lamberigts wrote:The opening theme song was good though.

V8fan12 wrote:Just waiting to hear back from DanielPT regarding Daniel Martins

As he still has not done so, his place in the NC race was taken by Zaituni Dileita.

NC Race Results

A proper report will be added later.