March 28, 2012
Published on tags: General
So a quick look back at the first month of racing this season at the GPVWC in the Superleague and Supercup with the aptly named "Who's Hot & Who's Not". Before we get letters of complaint (incidently you can send them to us on twitter @GPVWC) this is a light hearted series that doesn't judge anyone, just calls it as it sees it for the month. We will take a look at the guys that are bang in form and can do no wrong and we will offset them with the guys that have had month of racing about as memorable as listening to Nickelback whilst being water boarded.

Superleague

Hot

Midnight Motorsport

Two wins, three podiums and a 1-2 in the first two races this season for the Midnight Motorsport boys. Rumour has it they saved up all their R&D pennies for the majority of last season and smashed open the piggy bank for the start of the 2012 season, resulting in a monstrously fast car out of the box. Lukas Euler, a new face to the grid has taken it by storm with 2 poles, 2 fastest laps and 2 wins in what we call a Flawless Victory. Nick Rowland cemented Midnights cracking month with a brilliant 2nd place at China which sees his team sit atop the Constructors standings by 23 points after just 2 events. These guys are going to take some beating in the early events this season and its up to the rest of the teams to catch them but the Midnight blueprint to success might be one to look at for the teams a bit further down the grid this season.

Lee Morris

Funny start to the season for Morris, well funny in the sense that he appears to be bang on form but somehow has yet again found himself in a car that is down on performance relative to his title rivals, not that he's the only one given 12 other teams are down too. But for the explosive pace of the Midnight car Morris may well have been looking at a couple of wins but he has maximised his opportunities with a 2nd and a 3rd this month. Morris remains upbeat and convinced he will be in with a shout of the title come Singapore in November but he will need his Draig Racing team to back up his driving with some improvements sharpish if he wants to back up that claim before the Midnight boys are over the hills and far away.

Broadcast Team

I popped the Broadcast team in the Superleague category but it can easily be said for all 3 series so far this season. The broadcast has taken another step forward from last season in production quality and is now what I would call a major asset to the league. The various commentator combo's we get to sample from Formula Challenge up to Superleague has really made each broadcast unique and highly watchable, even if you happened to be racing and binned it after 1 lap. The best part is it will constantly improve as the season goes along as each commentator becomes more experienced and are joined by perhaps new faces and new content before each event.

Not

Constant Racing

By their own admission Constant Racing had a bad season last year finishing 9th out of 12 teams and this season has not started much better. The driving combo of the Stanton brothers have finished both of the opening events but still found themselves scoreless with a best result of 11th. This is the teams 4th season of running in the Superleague and they still only have a single podium to show for it. This isn't make or break time for the team, its a long season ahead but one begins to wonder does this team need to take a step back in order to take two steps forward.

Joe Consiglio

What!? A 3rd & a 5th constitutes a bad month for the double World Champion!? Well yes it does actually but only because Joe himself has high standards. It's not so much the results but the gap to the front which drops old JC himself into this category. An average of 1.3 seconds down on the pole times from the first two events represents a real change in fortunes for the Maltese racer, its usually him that inflicts those kind of margins on the rest of the field. It looks like his illustrious team will need to rally around in order to start to bridge the gap to the front, but this is a driver that won 7 straight races at the end of the 2011 season to take the title, if anyone is capable its this driver/team combo.

David Jundt

Hot off the heels of a season littered with podium finishes in 2011, Jundt has found himself pointless and off the pace of his former World Champion team mate in the first two races this season. To be fair to him he has found himself in a damaged car in both races so far but his qualifying pace is the reason he is some way back in the pack in the first place. I fully expect to see Jundt improve on his outright pace too but he has a tough season ahead of him given the quality that sits ahead of him so far if he cannot drag himself further up the grid for the starts.

Supercup

Hot

Torrent Motorsports

A new team on the GPVWC block for this year and boy after just 2 races they already look like a dominant force to be reckoned with. A win each for the highly talented Kaasa and Hellsten sees them already clear title favourites for both categories in the Supercup this season, Hellsten even found the time to start from the pit lane in China and still head home 4th just for laughs. The rest of the grid have some head scratching and real work to do in order to even get close to the stunning pace these two guys set this month, there have even been calls for DNA tests in order to establish the species that sits behind the Torrent Motorsports steering wheels but if I had to take a guess I would say Krogan.

Philip Cullen

This guy has had an equal number of comebacks as Michael Jackson but seeing as he is now dead there is a good chance that Cullen will now become the king of them. A messy season opener at Australia in which he brought home 6th and also a huge bodywork bill was soon bettered by a marvellous 2nd place at China, his first podium in GPVWC open wheelers and the first for his team Halcyon Racing. Cullen has looked fast from the off and most likely to be

mixing it up regularly for the final step on the podium along with a few others.

David Fidock

Another new face to the GPVWC this year David found himself on the front row in China after a Torrent car decided to embarrass itself on the warm-up lap. His race results of 5th and 7th perhaps don't tell the full story, his outright pace has been up there with the podium finishers. Another newish racer Alex Cooper has been equally as impressive and it would be a major shock not see either grace the podium regularly this season.

Not

Sam Millar

Contact after about 10 feet hampered Millar at the season opener and he eventually ended up retiring, this was then followed up with technical issues which kept him out of the Chinese GP so not the best of starts for the Scotsman. He has now competed in 26 Supercup races and retired from well over half of them, a record that despite fundamental pace he needs to improve on if he wants to finish well this season.

Dave Carr-Smith

By Carr-Smith's standards a double retirement start to the season is bit of a shocker. He has shown great pace this month in the free practice and qualification sessions but for whatever reason in the races he found himself in trouble and subsequently out of the running early on. Well capable of a quick bounce back next month he's probably waiting like a ninja ready to pounce at the Monaco GP.

Water Blue Racing

A team that finished 5th overall in the Supercup last season has found itself with just a single race start to its name in the first two races and even that ended up in retirement after just 7 laps. The team appears to be struggling to find a second driver to sit alongside Norwegian Tveit and it will need to find one quick before they fall out of touch with the rest of the grid.

So thats it for the month of March in the GPVWC Superleague and Supercup series, we shall see what April brings.