Scuderia Coloni have signed 17-year-old Kevin Ceccon to replace the injured Davide Rigon in the team's GP2 Series lineup for the coming rounds in Barcelona and Monaco.
Rigon suffered multiple fractures of the tibia and fibia in a crash at the end of the sprint race in Istanbul after being tagged by Julian Leal at the beginning of the pit straight.
Ceccon tested with the Coloni team in Abu Dhabi last November. Having raced in the European F3 Open for two years he is this year racing in Auto GP with Ombra Racing. He scored a podium finish at the first round of the season at Monza last weekend. He will become the youngest driver in GP2 history when he makes his debut at Catalunya.
Team boss Paolo Coloni said he was pleased to give Ceccon the opportunity to race in GP2.
“When we signed with Rigon we were happy that we were living a great chance to a talented Italian driver, and on the same basis we were happy to give Kevin the chance of making GP2's history, becoming the youngest driver to have ever raced in the series. With his good debut in Auto GP Ceccon already showed that he can handle such a situation, and he knows that there's no pressure on him in this weekends, we know that Auto GP remains his main program.
“In GP2 he will just have to put miles under his belt, get to know the car and two important tracks as Barcelona and Monaco, gaining useful experience; then, if he will surprise us adapting quickly to the car, we'll be even happier.
“If on one side we're happy for Kevin, on the other we keep waiting for good news from Davide. We are not giving up on having him back with us before the end of the season, and we'll follow his recovery very closely.”
Ceccon said: “These are really amazing days for me, passing from the Auto GP podium on my debut weekend to this news leaves me pretty speechless. I want to say thanks to Paolo Coloni and the whole Scuderia Coloni staff, and to all those people who are making this possible supporting me.”