In the round-up: Auto GP Formula Open, the new name of the Auto GP World Series which closed last year, will permit a range of cars including ex-F1 machinery to participate in its new all-Italian series next year.
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"It widens the possibility of participation in all the single-seater cars from 2 to 4 litres, in practice from F3 to F1, also including GP2, World Series, F3000, GP3 and Formula Masters."
Red Bull engine deal shows Renault's new approach - Abiteboul (Motorsport)
"I think that we lost a bit of our time and our resources in dealing with this relationship with Red Bull at all levels."
Haas backs Austin to survive plight (Autosport)
"It brings a lot of money into the city of Austin in taxes. Maybe the financial formula changes a little bit but I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to have an event like that."
An engineer's life: Gianluca Pisanello, Manor (ESPN)
"Because of the results we had achieved with one of the Toyota young drivers (I was invited) to join Toyota F1 where I stayed, going up the ladder from Track Engineering to Race Engineering. I stayed there from their first season to their last season, until they closed the project, and then I moved to ... what ended up being Caterham."
Vandoorne determined to avoid Magnussen's fate (F1i)
"Some get there quicker than others, it's always been like that in Formula One, but I still think I am quite young and have proven myself in the feeder series to Formula One and I think I deserve a chance to be there."
How tech is taking over your orgasm (C-net)
Former Red Bull, Minardi and Jordan driver Robert Doornbos has found an interesting new line of work.
Social media
An unusual #OnThisDay from 1990: Mika Hakkinen, a year before his full #F1 debut, tests for Benetton at Silverstone pic.twitter.com/CCezKaEKAZ
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Comment of the day
There were four particularly good suggestions for last weekend’s Caption Competition. Here’s the winner:

“Frank said he wanted to change it to Rexona because I already do enough for Sure.”
Neil (@Neilosjames)
Thanks to everyone who joined in especially runners-up JackySteeg, Philip and HZH.
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30 comments on “Series to pit F1 cars against GP2 and F3 machinery”
Comments are closed.
crowspite
25th January 2016, 0:19
Boss gp already already allows old f1, gp2, wsr, wsn, indycar and a1gp cars to compete on the same track. Unfortunately for me they haven’t had the uk on the calendar for a few years. But it does still visit more countries than a1gp will.
Aqib (@aqibqadeer)
25th January 2016, 0:37
I was looking at the cnet article and I was like great something tech and F1 two things I really like but then I read the article and I was like oh
Aqib (@aqibqadeer)
25th January 2016, 0:38
sounded better in my head sorry
faulty (@faulty)
25th January 2016, 2:50
Maybe only these types of relationships come to Bernie’s mind when people suggest F1 should have more online fan interaction.
favomodo (@favomodo)
25th January 2016, 8:07
At least Doornbos isn’t joining the club of old F1 drivers commenting on the sport like old grumpy men do… He definitely moved on!
I really liked the list of Top ten jobs for a retired F1 driver!
Leo B
25th January 2016, 12:10
Clearly you don’t watch Dutch pay-tv, where Doornbos’ “expert analysis” can be summed up as the combination of any of the words ‘great/super/amazing/fantastic/unbelievable/futureworldchampion’ and the name Verstappen. He’s pretty boring.
OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
25th January 2016, 2:18
I would love to see a race with the Ferrari of 2002, the Red Bull of 2011 and the Mercedes of last year, in a track which allows each car to exploit some of their main advantages, and add to that rock-hard tyres and no DRS, to see which one can win.
Mr. X
25th January 2016, 2:29
Each one of those cars was designed around specific tires.
Giving them tires out of those specs would be the worst thing for fair competition between them.
For instance merc is designed around the tires they tested in 2013 – no coincidence they are the gentlest of the group on them (Perez aside).
Giving them tires from say the 2007 season and they might be a back marker.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
25th January 2016, 5:36
@omarr-pepper I’m fairly sure the F2002 will beat the RB-7 followed by the W06. Also, the RB-6 is faster than the RB-7, and is widely considered the F1 car with the highest level of downforce ever, but the power to weight ratio and bhp of the F2002 will probably mean that it’ll win.
Sumedh
25th January 2016, 5:56
Actually, the qualifying superiority of RedBull 2011 was heavily based on how they had interpreted the DRS rules which allowed unlimited use of DRS in qualifying. So, Red Bull ran very heavy downforce setup helping them immensely in races and the unlimited use in qualifyng of DRS meant that they had very high speeds in qualifying too. And hence, came about the winning formula of getting a 3 second lead on the first two laps (when no one had DRS and Red Bull downforce was very high) and maintaining the gap from there.
Since, your condition mentions that there should not be any DRS, I don’t think RedBull 2011 would be that formidable against the other two. The RedBull 2010 would I think a better competitor to the other two cars you mentioned.
Mr. X
25th January 2016, 2:31
Gotta love Renault giving some respect to their CUSTOMER team that delivered them 8 championships.
Only took 2 years but the last paragraph of the article is very refreshing and encouraging.
Admitting your mistakes is the first step, so good luck to them building on this fresh approach.
Nase (@)
25th January 2016, 10:34
I get the feeling that your screen might be bottom-up, based on your interpretation of certain aspects.
kpcart
25th January 2016, 14:26
I’m with you, the last paragraph was telling, it should have been at the top of the article
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
25th January 2016, 3:04
Nice caption.
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
25th January 2016, 12:53
Yup hilarious caption @Neilosjames
well played sir!
Nase (@)
25th January 2016, 13:41
@fullcoursecaution @neilosjames
I’m afraid I don’t get it … could you explain it to me while speaking very slowly?
SatchelCharge (@satchelcharge)
25th January 2016, 14:23
The explanation, for sure, is very simple
MattDS
25th January 2016, 14:24
@nase something with Massa being known for using “for sure” all the time ;)
Neil (@neilosjames)
25th January 2016, 17:42
@nase Massa’s known for saying ‘for sure’ a lot, and Rexona (on his collar) is known as Sure in some countries. They swapped it a few times during the season (Sure at Silverstone, for example).
Nase (@)
27th January 2016, 20:04
@neilosjames @ MattDS
That makes an awful lot of sense. Thank you! :)
ColdFly F1 (@)
25th January 2016, 6:07
Today the most popular ‘job’ for retired F1 drivers must be father of an F1 driver!
BasCB (@bascb)
25th January 2016, 7:10
Funny with Robert heading the company seeing from the Czech Republic (where a dildo used to be called a “robert”) :-)
Maybe Ecclestone can call him, he did say that he had issues getting one up himself …
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
25th January 2016, 7:46
@bascb
A have a few friends who I’m sure will be delighted to learn this!
BasCB (@bascb)
25th January 2016, 8:28
:-)
GeeMac (@geemac)
25th January 2016, 8:21
Amazed this made it through the spam filter!
Arnold Triyudho Wardono (@ernietheracefan)
25th January 2016, 9:03
His joystick is too old for that.. :p
WilliamB (@william-brierty)
25th January 2016, 7:57
The inner-child in me will of course force me to watch this new Auto GP Formula Open concept, but is an F1 car vs a GP2 car not an somewhat inherently obvious outcome? Well, unless it is Taki Inoue in a Caterham CT05 vs Vandoorne in the GP2 car…
BasCB (@bascb)
25th January 2016, 8:34
nice piece on Pisanello, that was a good read.
WilliamB (@william-brierty)
25th January 2016, 10:09
BREAKING NEWS:
It is nice to see a) that Red Bull are continuing their relationship with Pierre Gasly, a driver I have always rated, and b) with Giovinazzi and Gasly, Prema Powerteam are clearly committed to being competitive out of the blocks.
HK (@me4me)
25th January 2016, 11:22
@william-brierty, Indeed nice to see that another talented rookie gets a chance to shine. Also Red Bull need to keep their young driver program going. Potentially a 2017 seat could be available at Toro Rosso. I’m not convinced Gasly is ready though, he really has to prove himself this year in GP2.