OCTOBER 19, 2007

GP2 shapes up for the future

The GP2 Series has announced that it will have the same 13 teams for the next five-year period, between 2008 and 2012. What was not announced is that the series has been taken over recently by CVC Capital Partners, which has added the championship to its Formula 1 empire.

The GP2 Series has announced that it will have the same 13 teams for the next five-year period, between 2008 and 2012. What was not announced is that the series has been taken over recently by CVC Capital Partners, which has added the championship to its Formula 1 empire. This formalises the link between F1 and GP2 which up to now has been much more casual. Whether it will help the news is another matter as GP2 was invented to keep costs down but ended up costing almost twice as much as Formula 3000. The interesting thing now will be to see whether or not the GP2 Asia Series will go ahead but with the recent deal between A1GP and Ferrari, there is probably less of a need for GP2 Asia, as A1GP will be more closely linked with the F1 world than has been the case. Our sources say that GP2 Asia is really struggling for teams because they need to find drivers with budgets and there are not enough of them out there.

The 13 teams that will be in GP2 from 2008-2012 are: Arden International, ART Grand Prix, BCN Competicion, Campos Grand Prix, DAMS, DPR, Durango, Fisichella Motorsport International, iSport International, Minardi Piquet Sports, Racing Engineering, Super Nova Racing and Trident Racing.