GP2 champion Leimer to test Lotus next week

2014 F1 season

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Reigning GP2 champion Fabio Leimer will test a Lotus Formula One car at Paul Ricard on Tuesday.

The test has been arranged by Pirelli as Leimer’s prize for winning the championship last year.

The 25-year-old Swiss driver will drive a 2012-specification Lotus E20 at the French circuit, running on demonstration tyres. Pirelli plan for him to cover at least 300 kilometres of running.

Leimer beat Sam Bird to the GP2 title last year but failed to gain a place at an F1 team. He will drive for Rebellion Racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours next month.

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Image © Pirelli/LAT

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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11 comments on “GP2 champion Leimer to test Lotus next week”

  1. Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
    22nd May 2014, 10:26

    Maldonado, your replacement has arrived!

    1. does limer bring in more money than crashdonado?

      1. soon he will. looks like Venezuela is stopping popping money

  2. I think that one of the main reason to why Leimer can’t even seem to get close to a seat in F1 is because his GP2 championship came quite late (in his 4th season). Comparatively speaking, Hamilton, Rosberg and Hulkenberg won their GP2 championship in their first season. Then again, it took Grosjean 4 years to win a GP2 championship yet he didn’t turn out too badly (despite the slow career start).

    1. The only GP2 drivers, from memory, to have made it to F1 from GP2 after their fourth season are Maldonado, van der Garde, and Ericsson and di Grassi. All those drivers had money behind them, so it’s quite weird that Leimer couldn’t get adrive, if he does have that money.

    2. While you are technically right, 2 of those seasons were only halves- one because, while still in contention for the title (against Hulkenberg no less), he was parachuted into the Renault alongside Alonso. The other half was after winning other things that year, and joining the DAMS team who never had a whole lot of success until Grosjean took the title the following year.

  3. Interesting, Maldonado’s funding is in doubt and suddenly Lotus go testing with a Swiss GP2 champion who has been rumoured to have a nice budget of around 14 million euros around him.

    Coincidence or not?

    1. Even though it is a gift from Pirelli, it still is an interesting turn of events.

  4. I personally hope Leimer gets an F1 drive with Lotus next season as Maldonados replacement; I thoroughly believe Leimer is a quality driver and deserves an F1 drive.

    1. money talks! sadly money talks…

  5. since i live in the lovely country of switzerland, i have some more details from swiss media on him trying to get to f1. apparently leimer’s main backer (Bautro, constructing company) offered sauber 10-15 million (not sure which currency) for a drive, which he didn’t get. leimer then knocked on caterhams door, but they were already set on ericsson and kobayashi. there were talks of him moving to indycar, but in the end he settled to endurance racing, still eyeing a f1 seat or even a test driver role. let’s hope he’ll get there eventually..

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