Race Incident » GP2 Asia

The teams for GP2 2011-2013 have been announced

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:12:06 +0000

The GP2 Series works in three-year cycles and next year marks the beginning of a new one. That means the team situation has been reassessed by the GP2 Series organisors. The lineup consist of thirteen teams and they will have to run both in the main series and in GP2 Asia this time around.

Here are the teams for the 2011-2013 GP2 Series championship:

Arden International, Netherlands
ART Grand Prix, France
Barwa Addax Team, Spain
Carlin, Great Britain
Dams, France
iSport International, Great Britain
Ocean Racing Technology, Portugal
Racing Engineering, Spain
Rapax, Italy
Scuderia Coloni, Italy
Super Nova Racing, Great Britain
Team Air Asia, Malaysia
Trident Racing, Italy

There are two new teams in the lineup; Carlin and Team Air Asia. Carlin have run single seaters in most junior formulas very successfully in recent years and there have even been rumours of possible entry to Formula 1. Team Air Asia is closely linked to the Lotus Formula 1 team and is owned by Lotus team principal Tony Fernandes.

When two new teams join, obviously some have to go. There was a vacant spot left by the italian team Durango, who left the series in 2009. The remaining spot will be from the withdrawal of DPR.

The status of GP2 Asia

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:03:25 +0000

Patrick at Motorsport Ramblings wrote an interesting article last week about the poor status of the GP2 Asia series. A series that mostly acts like training grounds for the main championship and is not the high profile championship the organizers hoped it would be.

Go on click the link, it’s a good read.

Is it really a championship in it’s own right or is it merely a glorified series of test sessions for the GP2 series proper?

Racing as testing.

Davide Rigon joins Trident Racing

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:41:32 +0000

According to Italiaracing.net the 22 year-old Italian Davide Rigon is set to join the GP2 Asia championship where he will take over the seat at Trident Racing left by Spaniard Adrian Valles.

Rigon was the champion in 2008 Superleague Formula where he raced the Zakspeed Panoz DP09B for the Beijing Guoan football team. In 2007 he became the Euroseries 3000 champion and also claimed the Italian Formula 3000 championship title (the two championships shared a couple of events). Rigon’s single seater career started in 2003 when he raced in the German Formula BMW championship for Team Lauderbach Motorsport.

Rigon has proved himself to be quick in fast single seaters so it will be interesting to see how he copes with the GP2 machinery.

Davide Valsecchi set to join the Renault Driver Development programme

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:42:44 +0000

Italiaracing are reporting that Davide Valsecchi is set to join the Renault Driver Development programme at the end of January. The 21 year old Italian is currently racing in the GP2 Asia series for Durango and was a recent race winner in Shanghai.

Valsecchi joins Lucas Di Grassi, Romain Grosjean and Charles Pic in the programme which aims to bring drivers into the ING Renault Formula 1 Team.

Race Incident’s Weekend Roundup #1

admin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:08:14 +0000

We’ve come far into the winter season now (at least in the Northern parts of the world) and most championships have come to an end already. There are still racing going on though and here are a few of the race winners from this weekend.

Formula BMW World Final – Mexico City
1. Alexander Rossi – USA
2. Michael Christensen – Denmark
3. Esteban Gutierrez – Mexico

V8 Brasil – Sao Paolo
1. Thiago Camilo – Brazil
2. Ricardo Sperafico – Brazil
3. Ingo Hoffman – Brazil
Ricardo Mauricio 2008 champion.

GP2 Asia – Dubai
1. Kamui Kobayashi – Japan
2. Davide Valsecchi – Italy
3. Roldan Rodriguez – Spain
Race 2 cancelled.

Speedcar Series – Dubai
1. Vitantonio Liuzzi – Italy
2. Heinz-Harald Frentzen – Germany
3. Gianni Morbidelli – Italy
Race 2 cancelled.

V8 Supercars – Oran Park
1. Jamie Whincup – Australia
2. Craig Lowndes – Australia
3. Russell Ingall – Australia

1. Garth Tander – Australia
2. Russell Ingall – Australia
3. Steven Richards – Australia

1. Rick Kelly – Australia
2. Garth Tander – Australia
3. Craig Lowndes – Australia

Jamie Whincup 2008 champion.

V8 Development Series – Oran Park
1. Dean Canto – Australia
2. Jack Perkins – Australia
3. Jonathon Webb – Australia

1. Jack Perkins – Australia
2. Tim Slade – Australia
3. Dean Canto – Australia

Steve Owen 2008 champion.

Formula Ford Australia – Oran Park
Race 1 cancelled.

1. Paul Laskazeski – Australia
2. Daniel Erickson – Australia
3. Chaz Mosters – Australia

1. Daniel Erickson – Australia
2. Paul Laskazeski – Australia
3. Kristian Lindbom – Australia

Paul Laskazeski 2008 champion.

Flooding cancels GP2 Asia and Speedcar races

admin — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:23:05 +0000

Heavy storms at the Dubai Autodrome that led to excessive flooding made it impossible to run the GP2 Asia Sprint race and the second race of the Speedcar series. After track inspections by the race directors it was decided that it would be impossible to run the races safely with the huge amount of water on the circuit.

The series organisers will now have to decide what effects the cancellation will have on the championship.

Track manager Richard Birch says, “This is some of the worst flooding I have encountered at the
circuit. A couple of years ago we had a similar situation but were fortunate that the rains did not affect a major event as it has done this weekend. It is a shame as there was a very good crowd yesterday and we were expecting a big crowd again today as the weekend falls conveniently during the holiday period.
However nothing could be done about the rain that has unfortunately stopped play.”

Crestani and Buurman at Ocean Racing

admin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:56:27 +0000

Ocean Racing Technology has signed Fabrizio Crestani and Yelmer Buurman for the Dubai round of the GP2 Asia series. Crestani comes directly from a high with a double-win weekend in the season finale of the Euroseries 3000 championship in Magione. This will be the GP2 debut for the 20 year old Italian although he has tested for several teams during the season.

Yelmer Buurman ran recently in the new Superleague series and managed to score a win for PSV Eindhoven at Nürburgring. This year he raced in both the main GP2 series as well as the GP2 Asia series, scoring podiums in both, for Trust Team Arden.

Tiago Monteiro buys BCN GP2 team

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:03:45 +0000

Former Formula 1 racer and current World Touring Car Driver Tiago Monteiro has confirmed that he has purchased the Spanish GP2 team BCN Competicion together with businessman Jose Manuel Guedes. The team will be renamed Ocean Racing Technology.

BCN currently runs Luca Filippi and Hiroki Yoshimoto in the GP2 Asia series and Ocean Racing Technology will continue in the series but are in negotiations with drivers and test drivers out for the 2009 main GP2 season.

“The management of a race team is fascinating because not only do you need to have a good knowledge of what can happen on track but you also need to have some skills in the business. The GP2 Series is the ideal platform because it is very close to Formula 1. Its popularity and competitiveness is on the rise. After careful consideration we think this project could be a springboard that is perfectly adapted to our ambition of promoting Portuguese motorsport beyond its frontiers.”

According to Monteiro there is no obligation that there must be Portugese drivers in the team and that the most important step for the team is to “make the right choices”. The team will have its home base at the new Algarve Autodrome.