JANUARY 10, 2005

British driver in GP2

Ryan Sharp is the first British driver to sign up for the new GP2 series. The 25-year-old from Aberdeen will be joining David Price Racing in 2005 and will be overseen by longtime engineer/manager Andy Miller. Sharp finished second in last year's Formula Renault V6 Eurocup behind Italian Giorgio Mondini.

"We had our eye on Ryan for a while and could see then what great potential he has," Price said. "I was very keen to have a British driver in the team."

Sharp says that his longtime goal remains to be in Formula 1.

GP2 is now beginning to get a field although many drivers are struggling to find the money to compete as budgets have increased to around $1.5m compared to around $1m last year. BCN has signed Venezuelan Ernesto Viso and is talking to Nico Rosberg but we hear that even he is looking for cash. Campos Motorsport has signed deals with Sergio Hernandez and Juan Cruz Alvarez while DAMS has Jose Maria Lopez and Fairuz Fauzy. HiTech Piquet Racing will run Nelson Piquet Jr and Xandinho Negrao while Racing Engineering seems to have a deal with Borja Garcia.

The only other confirmed driver at the moment is Scott Speed with the iSport team.

There is currently no word from Coloni, Durango nor Super Nova Racing. Arden International will announce its drivers later this week with Finland's Heikki Kovalainen expected to lead the team. The new ART team from France has yet to make any announcement but we expect to see Alexandre Premat in one of the cars.