2012 GP2 driver market (113 posts)

Topic tags: GP2
  • Profile picture of Keith Collantine Keith Collantine said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    @jholland That’s a real shame for Mehri – wonder if he tried to get an FR3.5 seat?

  • Profile picture of Joel Holland Joel Holland said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    @keithcollantine He’s made noises about taking the DTM route with Mercedes. He tested towards the end of last year as a prize for winning Euro Series and they do have a reputation for taking care of young drivers. Be a shame for him to leave single-seaters at such an early stage, but then people said the same about di Resta.

  • Profile picture of Prisoner Monkeys Prisoner Monkeys said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    Haryanto to Carlin is a strange move. Marussia’s backing obviously makes it possible, but the team seems to exist solely to give Max Chilton a drive in GP2 and maybe get him into Formula 1 – it’s Piquet Sports all over again.

    Still, I’ll keep a close eye on Haryanto. He’s young, he looks pretty promising, and it’s always nice to see talent emerge from a nation with no prior representation.

  • Profile picture of plutoniumhunter plutoniumhunter said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    Giedo van der Garde to Caterham. http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/275037/van-der-garde-joins-caterham-gp2-team/

  • Profile picture of Bradley Downton Bradley Downton said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    Although the, van der Garde – Caterham move makes complete sense, he’s gone back on his comment of ‘If I don’t get into Formula 1 this year, I’m not spending another year in GP2′

  • Profile picture of Joel Holland Joel Holland said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    @bradley13 Van der Garde said at the beginning of 2010 ‘this will be my last year in GP2 (for sure), so I guess it’s best to take what he says with a pinch of salt. Also he’s not really in F1, he’s just paying lots of money to wear the Caterham kit and drive the car a few times. It would have been cool if he’d got the HRT seat, just to see how he measured up to de la Rosa.

  • Profile picture of Bradley Downton Bradley Downton said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    I suppose, I do like van der Garde though, and while he’s not shown his talent as much as he could, he has been unlucky as well and I do feel he deserves a shot in F1. Even so, Im kind of glad he didn’t go to HRT, i think it would have done him more harm than good.

  • Profile picture of Joel Holland Joel Holland said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    @bradley13 I’m not knocking him, he’s decent enough. That said two years at Addax with no wins is a worrying stat. His team-mates in that time, Perez and Pic, both have a bit more in the locker in that sense. And he’s nearly 27, so not exactly young in F1 terms… but I’d quite like to see him do well.

    Ultimately if he’d gone in at HRT and not beaten de la Rosa – an excellent development driver but certainly not the fastest man in the world – you’d have to question his place in F1. You look at how Ricciardo jumped in the HRT and ended up out-doing Liuzzi – that’s what a genuine talent is going to do. It would have been interesting to see how Giedo coped in a similar situation. As it is we have Karthikeyan.

  • Profile picture of Bradley Downton Bradley Downton said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    I see your point, however I feel, as a driver starting out in F1, a year as a test diver will serve him well, at least better than being thrown straight into a crummy HRT car.

  • Profile picture of Prisoner Monkeys Prisoner Monkeys said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    Didn’t he nearly make it into Formula 1 a few years ago, but got caught up in controversy when he signed contracts with both Spyker and Force India?

  • Profile picture of Joel Holland Joel Holland said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    He signed a contract with Super Aguri and then tried to get out of it as Spyker were offering him the same thing. I think he did get out of it too, but the roles was as test driver. Was all a bit messy.

    He’s funded by his father-in-law, Marcel Boekhoorn, who is the richest man in the Netherlands, or something.

  • Profile picture of Prisoner Monkeys Prisoner Monkeys said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    Ah, right. I knew it was something like that. Whatever the case, it probably made team principals averse to signing him up in the future.

    Anyway, with Marussia backing Carlin, they will have a new livery:

    http://f1.imgci.com/PICTURES/CMS/13500/13550.jpg

    Looks like a cross between their F1 design and the Sauber C31.

  • Profile picture of Keith Collantine Keith Collantine said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    Rodolfo Gonzalez confirmed at Caterham alongside van der Garde:

  • Profile picture of Keith Collantine Keith Collantine said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    You can tell testing is about to start, another driver’s sorted their drive for this year, this time it’s Luiz Razia to Arden:

    http://www.gp2series.com/News-Room/News/2012/02_February/Luiz-Razia-completes-Arden-GP2-driver-line-up-season-/

  • Profile picture of Joel Holland Joel Holland said 1 year, 2 months ago:

    The sub-F1 logjam has been illustrated pretty well today: van der Garde, Razia (both entering their fourth seasons in GP2) and Gonzalez (third season) all confirmed.

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