Talk:2008 GP2 Series

flags

I notice the Valencia round has the European Union flag rather than the Spanish flag, while I realise the reason for this is because it is a support race for the European Grand Prix, but the European GP tag belongs purely to the F1 race, not to GP2, and the round should instead have the Spanish flag, indicating the nation the circuit exists in. --Falcadore (talk) 14:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I was inclined to disagree with you, but upon further investigation I changed my mind. The GP2 Series website refers to the August race as "Spain", so we should also. aldango (talk) 04:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The reason I have changed the Valencia flag from to and results table abbreviations from "ESP" to "EUR" is because the GP2 races there support the 2008 European Grand Prix. For the first draft of the calendar, marking the races as Spanish would have been acceptable, as they were stand-alone events at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, but since the change I think we should follow the precedent of exisiting GP2 Series and Formula 3000 support races. Using "ESP" for two different rounds in results tables, especially those in driver articles, could also be confusing. The problem with the official website is that it (at the moment) shows the circuit map for Valencia as the Circuit de Catalunya, which is obviously wrong. I am inclined to believe that the official website is rather like formula1.com, i.e. just because it is official does not make it the best source of information.-- Diniz(talk) 10:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

European Grand Prix is just a name, created only because of a clash with the Spanish Grand Prix. The nationalistic tags only exist because Formula 1 tags its races with nationalistic names. What a Formula 1 race calls itself has little to do with what GP2 does. Why are the flags there in the first place if not to indicate the location? If the Flags are only there because Formula 1 tells them to then why does the Valencia race in 2007 GP2 Series season have a Spanish flag? As there was no corresponding F1 race surely there should be no flag at all. Similarly the Nurburgring round should have a European flag as it was the European Grand Prix in 2007? If Formula 1 tells you that you live on Earth are you going to change your flag to the flag of the United Nations? What F1 calls its races for marketting purposes I find a silly reason to ignore both wikipedia precedent, and the location of national borders. --Falcadore (talk) 10:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It may only be a name, but since all of the GP2 races this year are support races for Formula One Grands Prix, this is how people will think of them. Perhaps the best solution would be to expand the GP2 calendar tables to create separate "Grand Prix supported" and "Location" columns? I'll make an example in my sandbox.-- Diniz(talk) 11:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

See here.-- Diniz(talk) 11:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems a bit heavy handed when the same effect could be easily accomplished with an asterisk and an annotation, or a sentence within the introductory paragraph of the article, an indeed is already partially covered by the note in the calendar section covering the relocation of the Valencia round. I must re-iterate my previous objections that the European flag is inappropriate for the title of the column, and is little more than copying Formula 1's naming convention, which is based around a race name (Grand Prix) that GP2 does not use.

Round	Location	Circuit	Date	Winning Driver	Winning Team
15	Valencia, Spain *support event of European Grand Prix	Valencia Street Circuit	August 23
16			August 24

This achieves the same effect, if you insist the table must carry the link to the grand prix, without significantly widening the table, for those utilising lower resolution monitors. And it would still clash with the precedent set by the 2005-2007 GP2 season tables who did not see fit to copy the F1 naming convention. --Falcadore (talk) 20:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I must respectfully disagree. GP2 and F1 are different series, but very closely linked. All but a handful of races have been F1 support races. The GP2 Series is widely regarded as the "official" feeder category for F1, as shown by its name, and I think that it is important to emphasise the connection. However, if other users disagree with me then I will respect the community decision, so I will notify WP:MOTOR so get some more opinions.-- Diniz(talk) 22:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit to the 2004 Formula 3000 season article until this issue is resolved.-- Diniz(talk) 22:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That's an unrelated issue as the column title 'Country' directly contradicts, hence the amendment I supplied. "Imola is not in San Marino and Europe is not a country, Formula 1 naming convention is not appropriate to the title of the column." --Falcadore (talk) 23:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it can justifiably be related to the same overall problem, so it's in our interest to hold fire until we can reach a solution. In addition, you also changed the flags in the other tables, which are not explicitly "country" or "location" columns.-- Diniz(talk) 13:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Dealing with self-identifying terms is applicable here. Its not up to us to say what the round name should be, only what it is. And the round at Valencia is named the European round.[1][2][3]

Valencia 2007 has a Spanish flag because it was a Spanish round. And yes, the Nurburgring round should have a European flag as it was the European round. See on the top right where the circuit map and round flag appear. Nurburgring has an EU flag.200520062007

As for adding "F1 Grand Prix supported" either as a column or with asterisks. I am against it. GP2 is a different championship. the best thing would be to just mention it in the article.

On a sidenote the way the schedule was it showed 20 rounds when actually its 10 rounds with 2 races for each round so I edited the table. Chris Ssk _talk 00:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Where does it say the GP2 Nürburgring races are a "European GP" or a "European race"? AFAIK, there are no country identifiers for F2, F3000 and GP2 races, unless those are actual GPs with a history that's independent from F1 (such as the now gone Danish GP). And since all races are F1 support events now, the point is moot, because the "Country" GP name format refers to the F1 race only. So the Nürburgring round is neither the German round nor the European round, it's the Nürburgring round. Likewise, the Valencia round is the Valencia round. Country flags refer to location, not event name. --Pc13 (talk) 07:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

According to official calendar, its the European Grand Prix (like F1) and located in Valencia, Spain. Your Schedule table indicate the location and not the event, maybe you should invert it. - Rollof1 (talk) 08:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That's why I would suggest using both, to avoid confusion and ambiguity. It should be remembered that although the GP2 races support the GP, they're not the GP itself.-- Diniz(talk) 13:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)The column says location, not associated Grand Prix, not event. It says location, which implies geography. The EU flag does not conform to that column description. Likewise it does not conform to the example set by the 2005-06 and 07 season pages. The issue is does the article change to conform to the EU flag, or does the flag change to conform to the column title and to established precent within GP2 article history. Look at the article from the perspective of someone reading who does not have an intimate knowledge, or even a passing knowledge of motor racing. To have the EU flag tagged next to Valencia, Spain looks wrong, becuase well, it says Spain. The other races have country flags why not this one? Having the EU flag constitutes jargon, because it has to be explained to a casual reader, the link to the European Grand Prix. We know the EU flag symoblises the European Grand Prix because we're motor racing people and that knowledge is built in to us, but 'Joe Average' does not know that. Any short form of language or symbology, that has to be explained for the layperson is essentially jargon. And jargon is against Wikipedia policy if possible. At the very least using the EU flag requires an additional notation. Wikipedia is not a webspace for motor racing fans exclusively. So do we have the jargon flag, or the flag that conforms to precedent, and the column title? --Falcadore (talk) 09:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

My view, for what it's worth: as far as I know, Falcadore is correct to say that the 'European Grand Prix' properly refers only to the F1 race. The GP2 website seems to avoid giving names to the individual rounds - certain F3000 or GP races have in the past had official names (Pau Grand Prix, for example), but that doesn't apply to any of the rounds this year. The GP2 official calendar does list the Valencia race as 'Europe', as Chris points out, which suggests they think of it as the 'European' race.

I think Falcadore's point about the column heading is the key point here. It is currently given as 'location', so it should really be 'Valencia, Spain', not 'Valencia, Europe'. The F1 articles use the the official name of the Grand Prix instead. We could switch to that approach instead, in which case the European flag would be the right one to use. It seems to be that either approach would be clear, even to those new to the topic.

At present I would opt for keeping the current layout (i.e. 'Location' and 'Spain'), only because there doesn't seem to be any official name for each of the rounds which we could use as a heading for the column (they're not 'Grands Prix' for example). 4u1e (talk) 10:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, would that be " Valencia, Spain" or " Valencia, Spain"?-- Diniz(talk) 13:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Gah! This is complicated :) I meant the former (Spanish flag) rather than the latter (EU flag). But I don't think it makes a huge difference either way, provided that the column has the appropriate heading. The race is listed as 'Spain' in some places on the GP2 website, and 'Europe' in others. Shrug. 4u1e (talk) 15:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Since there is this ambiguity, that's why I would choose to have two columns (as in my sandbox link above), just to make the situation crystal clear and to avoid a future argument on this subject.-- Diniz(talk) 13:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is there still a European flag up? aldango (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

There's still a discussion going on the section below.-- Diniz(talk) 21:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I should learn to read ahead. Thanks. aldango (talk) 21:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

"Season results", "Results at a glance" and "Complete GP2 Series/Formula 3000 results" tables

At the moment, the discussion is just about the flags used in the calendar/schedule table (I think!), but we should remember than flags and/or country abbreviations are used in these tables as well, including driver articles. For example, when I created some of the F3000 season articles (1995-2004), the seasons up to 1999 use circuit abbreviations and country flags because the F3000 races then were not F1 support races. From 1999 onwards, the articles use the WP:F1 abbreviations and GP country flags, as from this season all of the F3000 races were F1 support races. I have a long-term project to add a "Complete Formula 3000" results table to all F3000 driver articles, so should the decision made above affect the season results and individual driver article tables, or just the calendar/schedule table?-- Diniz(talk) 13:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't think a decision has been reached yet. Pau Grand Prix is probably a good test case, does it use the French flag ('location') or, I don't know, the coat of arms of Pau? The former would probably be more informative. 4u1e (talk) 15:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, at the moment the 1998 Formula 3000 season article (the last time the GP de Pau was an F3000 race) gives a French flag in the tables added by Doma-w and a French flag and the abbreviation "PAU" in the (colour-coded) table I added. Since every single F3000 race from 1999 to 2004 was an F1 support race, there aren't any exceptions as there have been with the GP2 Series.-- Diniz(talk) 13:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Any exceptions since 1998. And the tables are contradictorily labelled as 'Country' rather than 'associated F1 race'. It's this sort of 'trivial' each way bet that I was attempting to clean up. --Falcadore (talk) 20:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No, every F3000 race from 1999 onwards was an F1 support race. For how the race abbreviations are currently used, you may wish to take a look at the skeleton table in my reference page.-- Diniz(talk) 14:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Ahem I meant to imply that F3000 is indeed older than 1999 but that's not important. My primary concern as mentioned is the contradiction in labelling and flags. While I have a preference that the flag should indicate the location of the circuits as to renaming the table label I just want it fixed not left in the present situation which is ambiguous and jargonistic at best, implying the reader should already know about the links with Formula One, and wrong at worst. --Falcadore (talk) 01:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood you there. I would still prefer the relevant calendar tables in the post-1998 F3000 and GP2 Series to be expanded to avoid confusion if possible, but I guess that keeping the headings consistent is most important. Perhaps a note at the bottom of the table along the lines of "All of the races in the championship are support races to the 2008 Formula One season Grands Prix indicated by the country in which they took place, except the round in Valencia which supported the 2008 European Grand Prix", although I'm sure that the wording could be improved.-- Diniz(talk) 22:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

A note saying, "I'm sorry I know its wrong but here is why...". No. Correct either the flag or the label, then add a note explaining the link to the EU GP. The explanation should explain the exception to the norm, not show why the norm is different to the exception, that's just backwards. --Falcadore (talk) 03:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant that the note should be put in after the relevant change is made, i.e. Spanish flag for the Valencian round. I didn't express that clearly above.-- Diniz(talk) 13:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of any further comments, I've changed the flag to Spain and added a note at the bottom of the table about the fact that all the rounds of the championship are F1 support races.-- Diniz(talk) 13:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Full-width tables

Is there any particular reason why many of the tables in this article are full-width? They are all based on earlier F3000/GP2 and Formula One tables, and none of them are full width. I would further argue that the non-full width tables look better and are easier to read (see example)) --Jimmy Magnusson (talk) 08:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Table revision

Would like the know what is the purpose of the new calendar table? How exactly is it an impressive improvement? --Falcadore (talk) 09:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I came across this page looking at the recent changes of my Malaysian fella and saw this his last edits... I think that the current table without the pole and fastest lap is nice, but it won't be easy to make HIM understand that ;) However I have a question: do you feel the flags near the teams are strictly necessary? I mean, it's not a that useful information since I think it's a little information to know in which country is a team based, especially if it's a team from a feeder series of a major motorsport... I'd like to know what you think! Asendoh (talk) 17:12, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh it's him again. Fine I'll just revert. - No I don't personally believe flags for teams to be neccessary - especially the double flag for Piquet Sport - I think Alan Docking Racing is getting two flags elsewhere (A1GP?) as well. --Falcadore (talk) 01:09, 14 November 2008 (UTC)