GP2 Series
Jolyon Palmer, Felipe Nasr and Stoffel Vandoorne
While the conflict between F1’s championship contenders took until late August to truly unravel, the championship feeder GP2’s leading drivers have had enough of each other by July.
And, in hindsight, it seems it was always going to be that way, ever since it was confirmed that Felipe Nasr was staying on with Carlin, while Jolyon Palmer was joining DAMS.
They were two pre-season favorites in two top squads, both with ample experience in GP2 and both clearly unwilling to settle for anything but a title.
But, in many ways, they were very different. While Nasr was a star in everything he raced, Palmer had a much thornier road to GP2. Nasr had an F1 test driver role in place ? Palmer had nothing of the sort. Finally, where Jolyon was a very outspoken racer, Felipe seemed a lot more reserved.
To top it all off, they were teammates at Carlin in 2013, a season in which the British squad missed out on the teams’ title on victory countback. For most of that year, Nasr was number one, but two feature race wins for Palmer later on allowed him to close in. And, of course, there was Spa, where Nasr took Palmer out into turn one.
By Hungary 2014, Nasr had won three races to Palmer’s two, but the Brit’s famous consistency meant that he led quite handily on points.
Hungary marked Nasr’s first pole in GP2. But, in race one, he was overtaken by Palmer and criticized his rival’s move. They found each other fighting in the sprint race as well and, again, Palmer muscled his way through Nasr, much to the Brazilian’s anger.
On the podium, it escalated. Palmer accused Nasr was ?crying?, lots of passive-aggressive statements were thrown around and both drivers were frequently interviewed about the incident. When Nasr won at Spa, he made sure to mention that he could win without ?pushing people off?.
The fight made for some fantastic publicity for GP2. But there was a catch ? due to Palmer’s uncanny ability to bank points with every race, the ?title fight? was becoming more and more of a stretch with each round. And, in the end, it fizzled out, with Palmer wrapping up the crown three races early at Sochi.
Moreover, Nasr was then overtaken for runner-up by an on-form Stoffel Vandoorne, who was left playing catch-up after a slow start to his rookie season. Vandoorne might not have had many run-ins with either Palmer or Nasr off-track, but was impossible to ignore by the end of the year as he took a record four consecutive pole positions.
In a perfect world, all three would have an F1 deal right now. But Nasr was the one to have the last laugh, signing with Sauber, with Vandoorne eying another GP2 year and Palmer’s F1 chances in limbo. However, despite the fact none of them look set to be competing against each other next year, Palmer refused to bury the hatchet, stating: ?It is disheartening to see drivers I have beaten on the track so easily get a seat in F1.?
Valentin Khorounzhiy