UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 Asia: Preview

The series starts next weekend

The brand new GP2 Asia Championship launches with its first race in the United Arab Emirates held at the Dubai Autodome next weekend.

The idea behind this new championship was to develop new talent from the Asian continent which has produced only a very small percentage of Formula One drivers in recent years.

For the purposes of the championship an Asian driver is classed as: A driver whose passport does not come from Western Europe or the Americas (North and South.) For the avoidance of doubt, Turkey and Russia will not be included in the list of "European" countries.

The rules originally stated that each one of the thirteen teams must have at least one driver from Asia, however this rule was later dropped as with less than a month to go before the start of the season teams were struggling to find Asian drivers with a budget big enough to fund themselves in the five race series.

With the alteration of the rule teams can race with two non-Asian drivers but one of them must be nominated as a “ghost-driver” and he will be unable to earn any prize money for the team.

I will now give a run down of the drivers who are racing for each team in the Championship and their performances during their 2007 season. The thirteen teams racing are the same as those who compete in the regular GP2 championship, with the exception of Racing Engineering who are replaced by Meritus Racing.

Arden International have recruited Pakistani driver Adam Khan who was a regular for his nation in A1GP during the first series but was out of regular racing action in 2007. His team-mate will be Sebastien Buemi who joins Arden from a part season with ART.

Former two-time GP2 Champions ART Grand Prix have, in my opinion, the strongest line-up of any team competing. They are lead by the Formula Three Euroseries Champion Romain Grosjean, who appeared on the 2007 “Stars of Tomorrow” list and is the new Renault F1 test driver. His partner is Stephen Jelly who finished third in British Formula Three in 2007.

BCN have signed Milos Pavlovic who was third in the World Series by Renault championship in 2007 and will become the first Serbian to race in GP2, he team-mate will be Jason Tachini who moves to the team following a pointless season with FMS.

Campos Grand Prix are lead by Vitaly Petrov who drove for the team in the regular championship in 2007 eventually ending the season in thirteenth place and as a Russian classifies as an Asian driver. His team-mate is Brazilian Diego Nunes who finished second in the 2007 Formula 3000 Euroseries.

DAMS teams consists of Kamui Kobayashi who was fourth in the Formula Three Euroseries and Belgian Jerome D'Ambrosio who is the reigning International Formula Master champion.

David Price Racing have signed Indian driver Armaan Ebrahim who finished second in the Formula Renault Asian championship in 2007 and is a regular with A1GP team India. He will be partnered by Andy Soucek who stays with DPR after finishing sixteenth for the team in 2007.

Durango has recruited Alberto Valerio from British Formula Three after he was eighth in the Championship. He is joined by Davide Valsecchi who was sixteenth in World Series by Renault in 2007

FMS have given a second chance in GP2 to Adrian Vallés who competed in the series in 2006. In 2007 he was a test driver for the Spyker F1 team. His team mate will be Romanian driver Michael Herck who moves from the Formula Three Euroseries despite not scoring a single point in 2007.

iSport have another very good team. Karun Chandhok has joined from Durango after fourteenth in 2007 and Bruno Senna who joins from Arden after ending 2007 in eighth. With the same two drivers racing in both the Asian and regular series the consistency could make 2008 another great year for iSport.

The brand new Meritus Racing, taking the place of Racing Engineering haves signed Japanese driver Hiroki Yoshimoto who has been out of racing since leaving rival GP2 team BCN after 2006. Joining him is Luca Fillippi who was fourth in the GP2 championship in 2007 and is joining ART for the regular season in 2008.

Minardi Piquet Sports have signed Marcello Puglisi from International Formula Master after he ended the season fifth. His team mate also comes from International Formula Master, he is Marco Bonanomi and in 2007 he finished fifteenth.

Super Nova International have brought Christian Bakkerud from GP2 rivals DPR despite not scoring any points in 2007 have having several poor races due to a long-standing back injury. Returning to GP2 having spent the regular season in 2006 at Super Nova is Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy. He has spent 2007 racing in the World Series by Renault where he ended the season in eleventh place.

The final team is Trident who has brought Latvian Harald Schlegelmilch from the Formula Three Euroseries where he finished fourteenth. Joining his is Chinese driver Ho-Pin Tung. Tung has GP2 experience from 2007 when he finished twenty-third in the championship with BCN.

Time for predictions, the majority of drivers have little to no experience at any of the track that will be used which means that there is no advantage for anybody making predictions almost impossible.

It is hard to look beyond ART and iSport when looking for a potential champion; Grosjean, Chandhok and Senna are three of the best drivers that will make up the grid and with the best cars they should end the season as the top three in the championship.

However there could be a few surprises from unknown drivers or teams. Looking at the testing results Meritus don’t look to bad with Luca Fillippi at the wheel and he could be a contender and race winner before he joins ART for the regular season. Another name rising to the top of the time sheets during this weekends test session was Marco Bonanomi driving for Minardi Piquet Sports after he was in the top eight on both days.

Adrian Valles of FMS is another driver who has been very impressive in testing, third on day one and second on day two. Andy Soucek did well on day one ending up second but was unable to set a time on day two.

Then there are teams such as Super Nova, Campos, Arden and DAMS who are not strong enough to mount a challenge for the title but have enough quality in their drivers to be in contention for points and podiums and possibility even a race win.

I have to give my prediction to Grosjean, from the test session the ART car looks to be the best as he topped both days and embarrassed team-mate Stephen Jelly in the process. iSport may have the best team of drivers and they will be able to work as a team in an attempt to beat Grosjean but he is the best driver on the grid and victory will be his.

With only ten races I would not be surprised to see six or seven different race winners. This is an unknown concept for the teams and the majority of the drivers and given the competitiveness of GP2 a race winning car one weekend could be a backmarker the next.

Written: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:30:21