So what drivers would they have run if Herck hadn't been there? Do you really think they'd have had Grosjean or Hulkenberg? And how has Ricci been inconvenienced? Withouth them he wouldn't be racing anything.

Considering Max Chilton's dad owns the team, I'll take that bet.

Is having the parent group called Capsicum and the MD's surname be Swallow, some sort of a joke?

There weren't that many entries, and GP2 doesn't need more teams dropping out - it was bad enough when Durango went bankrupt, and with Trident and Ocean at least already struggling to make it to the grid it would be lunacy to add a number of under resourced teams to the mix and hope they make it.

Especially since GP2 is exclusively a make or break level for F1, I don't want drivers ending up in a cheap seat only to find out the team is failing. It can be a spec series all it wants, but if your team is rubbish so will your results be.

I doubt Vergne will be in GP2 in 2011, I think he is more likely to do a full season of WSbR instead.

Ricciardo is more likely to be in GP2 than Vergne, but even then Red Bull don't seem to be keen to run young drivers in it anymore (cost, I presume). If Ricciardo was to do GP2, I think it would be more likely to be with Arden.

You'd expect Max Chilton to be a likely choice for Carlin really.

I think we might see Valtteri Bottas in GP2 next season

Who will run AirAsia?
The Mofaz team?

Michael Herck actually looked very promissing very early in his carreer, he was a very good karting driver: two times French karting champion and he scored a pole in the Monaco karting cup and in his first two seasons in autosport he scored 3 titles (Italian F. Renault, Austrian F3 and Spanish F. Junior, not exactly competitive classes but he did take those titles) but what followed was highly dissapointing. At the time i thought he was a driver who was still too young and inexperienced and that he jumped classes too fast, it would have been wiser for him to have stayed longer in F3 or to have done the European F. Renault or F. BMW championship I think. In the F. Renault World Series he just wasn't competitive and in GP2 it was the same story but it should be noted that David Price Racing was by far the worst team in GP2. Ever since the GP2 series started in 2005 they were the worst team. And they did have decent drivers over the years. Olivie Pla drove 3 seasons for them and I really rated him as a very good driver, it was really because of the team that he underperformed. Ryan Sharp wasn't that bad either (3rd in F3 Euroseries in 2003) but he seemed to go nowhere during his 2 years for DPR. When Herck's father took over the team the performance actually improved a bit, especially this year with 2 race wins for Giacomo Ricci (in Bahrein and Budapest). Michael Herck's performance also dramatically improved this year, he wasn't at the back of the field all the time anymore and even scored a pole position in Spa. A driver who can score a pole in GP2 isn't as bad as many people think in my opionion. In Valencia (6th) and Budapest (9th) he also managed to qualify in the top 10. But for sure I doubt he is good enough for F1 but he's propably a better driver as Sakon Yamamoto.

Personally I think that we could very well see drivers with a lot of money like Guido van der Garde (he's an agrressive driver but was dominated by his teammate this year, ex world champion karting and former World Series champion but very dissapointing in F3), Max Chilton (I don't think he's a good driver either, similar to Herck) or Michael Herck in F1 as early as next year if Hispania survives because they're gonna need cash and they can provide the cash just like Yamamoto is providing the cash for them right now. If it helps an F1 team survive then I don't mind drivers like Yamamoto or Chilton filling an F1 seat, F1 has always had to depend on rich paydrivers for small teams in the past, in sportscar racing it is actully very common: we wouldn't have sportscar championships without rich drivers and in a way we should be thankful to them for that. I prefer a field with lots of cars in F1, even if that means that some drivers who don't deserve to be there are driving in it, the more cars the better for me as a fan. I miss years like 1989 (39 cars!!!), that was great. I think F1 should allow any team who wants to give it a shot and let Darwin's rule determine which teams will make it and which teams go bankrupt, that's a natural selection then and it's much more honest than the way the FIA is handling selection of new teams right now.

Lotus and ART have hooked up.

http://www.skiddmark.com/2010/09/21/lotus-...or-gp2-and-gp3/

That's very surprising as I would have expected Team Air Asia to become the Lotus Junior GP2 team.

He may make it to GP2 next year, but he really didn't live up to expectations in F3 Euro this year (even with a diminished field).

WTF? Lotus Cars is spurning Tony Fernandes' new GP2 operation?

Team Air Asia will be... Lotus ART is in the same vein as the Lotus backing of Taku's KV Racing IndyCar in the US... This is through Dany Bahar and Gino Rosato, who are taking Lotus Group and giving it a bit of an overhaul. Tony Fernandes is a 'licensee' of Lotus, but not the official Lotus group representative in F1.

I'm expecting the Air Asia cars to be red-and-white (like ART's old colours), and then ART-Lotus to be Green and Yellow.. like Lotus Racing/Team Lotus... very confusing!!!

Bottas and Alex Sims haven't really progressed this year in F3 Euro, but then again their ART team has been overshadowed by Volkswagen pouring some money into the Signature team... If ART ran VW engines we might've seen a different story...

So ART get to run 4 cars? Even if two are via franchise? I can't see the other teams liking that...

They are two entirely separate entities, as I understand it. ART has a partnership with Lotus Cars. Tony Fernandes will launch a separate GP2 team, affiliated with Team Lotus but not with Lotus Cars. It is odd to me that Lotus Cars and Fernandes would seemingly be working to undermine one another in GP2, though.

Four? I understood it simply a Lotus Cars branding (with other "expertise" Lotus Cars might have in running a GP2 team, and ART is lacking ) in the two ART-fielded Dallara-Renaults, Air Asia being a completely different project (perhaps with Team Lotus branding), so this should get hilarious. Oh the-- it already is!

They are listed as new teams though, replacing Durango and DPR.

No, they're separate entites. Lotus are just lending their name to ART, kind of like the way they do for Takuma Sato's KV Racing Technology entry in Indycar. Tony Fernandes clearly has big things planned for the Lotus name, and by getting in tight with someone like ART, it creates a conduit from GP2 into Formula 1. Lotus are no doubt hoping to scoop up fresh talent by the end of 2011, by which time they're probably expecting to be racing with the established teams. In the meantime, Team Air Aisa will mean another two GP2 seats connected to Lotus, which means they get more choice of the talent coming through the junior ranks. You have to admit, getting ahead of the curve like that is certain brand of genuis. Makes you wonder why the likes of Ferrari and McLaren didn't jump on the idea years ago.

But we have existing ART and new Lotus/ART. How does ART not benefit if they run both their teams? Unless its just ART loaning the name to Lotus, which is meaningless since they're running as Lotus. If it is an ART tie-up and the Frenchies are running/maintaining the cars, I don't see how that is fair.

It is not ART loaning their name to Lotus. It's the other way around. By sponsoring ART in GP2 and in GP3, Lotus have created a conduit from the lower formulae to the upper echelons. ART will obviously get massive benefits out of that because joining them will be the fastest way into Formula 1. It's a huge addition to their already-considerable reputation. Manor were attempting the same thing, but didn't get the GP2 slot.

Well, not really, no. Because it doesn't make getting into Lotus any easier and it's not exactly a high value seat anyways. Winning GP2 is really good for your career regardless of what team you drove for or what their affiliation is.

But none of that has anything to do with the issue. Who is running the Lotus GP2 team. It's not simply Lotus re-branding ART, as they are an existing team. Lotus GP2 is a new team, so who's running it. If its a satelite/secondary group of ART, I can't see how that's an acceptable situation. There's no way you can garuntee non-collusion,

Where do you see existing ART and new Lotus/ART?



There is a rift between Lotus/Proton and Fernandes. I find it silly that they let Fernandes initially use Lotus name, but now that Lotus Racing has gained some stability and credibility in F1, they're instantly challenging it with their ICS aero kit, and this GP2/ART thingy.

Team Air Asia is Tony Fernandes' GP2 team. It's separate to ART. In the case of ART, it's simply Lotus lending their name to the whole thing, kind of like the way Takuma Sato is sponsored by Lotus in Indycar. It's (probably) very hands-off. There's no collaboration because Team Air Asia is a lower-tier team than ART. ART can't ask Air Asia to run interference for them because they have no power over Air Asia.

And I dispute the notion that Lotus is not a high-value seat. Very few drivers land high-value seats straight out of GP2. Lewis Hamilton was groomed by McLaren for years, and Vitaly Petrov lucked into the Renault because Renault weren't actually expecting to be where they are until this time next year. If a GP2 driver is going to step up into Formula 1, it's likely they'll be with Lotus, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Virgin or Hispania than a top-flight drive.

But if the ART deal is between Lotus Motorsport and the GP2 team is the Fernandes operation, there won't actually be any link between ART and F1.

Indeed.

Such link was not even claimed in the article.

That's what some people say, that the Merc cars aren't so good on straights. Luckily Bottas put a very dominant display in Oschersleben.

Clearly. How confusing for the public. Perhaps someone should make an effort to fix this Group Lotus/Lotus Racing grey area.

Has anyone got a GP2 Asia schedule?

It hasn't been released yet. It'll probably be another case of two races at Abu Dhabi and Bahrain the week after the young driver and Pirelli tests and the week before the Bahrain Grand Prix.

GP2 Asia won't be at Abu Dhabi (well, at least not at the same time as the GP weekend!), since the GP2 main series final round is there this year.

I don't think that's reason enough to not hold it there. Just have it at a later date.

There are two big problems with GP2 Asia: firstly, it doesn't really have a series to support. GP2 follows Formula 1, but GP2 Asia is generally stand-alone. GP2 ends with the European season, so maybe GP2 Asia should start from Singapore, so through Japan, Korea, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, then follow the winter hiatus and resume racing at Bahrain, Melbourne, Sepang, Shangahi and move Istanbul to the GP2 Asia series since it comes before Spain in 2011. If it's too much to expect them to be able to follow Formula 1 everywhere, then don't race at Singapore or Istanbul to give them a bit of a break. But since the 13 teams that compete in GP2 now compete in GP2 Asia (no real word on what happens to Meritus), it shouldn't be that much of a problem.

The second challenge is that GP2 Asia is really a feeder series for GP2. It lets drivers that the teams wouldn't normally take have a go at racing to display their talent and maybe get picked up for the full series, but this instantly demotes them to a lesser level. If this could be re-wired so that GP2 and GP2 Asia were on par with European drivers in GP2 and non-European drivers in GP2 Asia, there would be more competition across the two feeder series.

It will just be a warm-up championship for the main series now, due to using the same car. It will petty much be the same drivers in both series, because from a seat-time perspective you can't afford not to do the Asian series. However GP2 as a whole has become a lot less affordable because of it.

does GP2 Asia support a lot of the Asian GP races anyway. Or has done in the past.

As said all it will be for this season is for the teams to work out how to setup the car during an extended test session. From that the top drivers will know which teams to sign for

Mark Glendenning's Top Ten GP2 drivers of 2010:

1. Sam Bird
2. Pastor Maldonado
3. Jules Bianchi
4. Sergio Pérez
5. Dani Clos
6. Oliver Turvey
7. Christian Vietoris
8. Charles Pic
9. Jérôme d'Ambrosio
10. Davide Valsecchi

He was brilliant to watch and my favourite during the year but come on.

Bird and Bianchi 3rd ahead of Perez? No thanks.

Perez impressed me the most this year followed by the not crashing as much Maldonado.

I can agree with those 10 drivers being in top 10 (GvdG would be only I could consider apart from those) but can't agree about the order.