GP2 Series

2014 GP2 Series Season Preview – Part 1 – History of GP2

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2014 is the tenth season of the GP2 series.  There have been some amazing races in the nine previous years, and some great champions, most of which you can now see plying their trade in Formula 1.  The first champion was German Nico Rosberg, who now races successfully for the front-running Mercedes-AMG team in F1 as team-mate to Lewis Hamilton, who won the second GP2 championship in 2006 as a rookie.

Here we take a look back at the past champions of the GP2 series, plus a quick look back at the inaugural race weekend back in 2005 when GP2 was born, having risen from the ashes of Formula 3000.

Past Driver and Team Champions

Year

Drivers’ Champion

Teams’ Champion

2005

Nico Rosberg

(ART Grand Prix)

ART Grand Prix

2006

Lewis Hamilton

(ART Grand Prix)

ART Grand Prix

2007

Timo Glock

(iSport International)

iSport International

2008

Giorgio Pantano

(Racing Engineering)

Barwa International Campos Team

2009

Nico Hulkenberg

(ART Grand Prix)

ART Grand Prix

2010

Pastor Maldonado

(Rapax)

Rapax

2011

Romain Grosjean

(DAMS)

Barwa Addax Team

2012

Davide Valsecchi

(DAMS)

DAMS

2013

Fabio Leimer

(Racing Engineering)

Russian Time

 First Race Weekend – April 23rd-24th 2005 – Imola

The first GP2 series weekend took place over the weekend of April 23rd-24th 2005 at the Imola circuit in Italy as support to the Formula 1 San Marino Grand Prix weekend.  There were twelve teams of two drivers, of which five remain to this date (ART Grand Prix, DAMS, Racing Engineering, Campos Racing and Arden International).

There were two former Formula 1 drivers in the first race in the form of Giorgio Pantano and Gianmaria Bruni, while four of the drivers to participate in the first race would eventually end up in F1 (Scott Speed, Nelson Piquet Jr, Nico Rosberg and Heikki Kovalainen).

April 23rd – Feature Race Qualifying Results – Top Six

POS DRIVER NAT TEAM TIME
1 Nicolas Lapierre FRA Arden International 1:33.505s
2 Giorgio Pantano ITA Super Nova Racing 1:33.510s
3 Jose Maria Lopez ARG DAMS 1:33.577s
4 Ernesto Viso VEN BCN Competicion 1:33.852s
5 Heikki Kovalainen FIN Arden International 1:33.927s
6 Scott Speed USA iSport International 1:33.984s

 April 23rd – Feature Race Results – Top 6

POS

DRIVER

NAT

TEAM

LAPS/

GAP

1

Heikki   Kovalainen

FIN

Arden International

37 Laps

2

Jose Maria Lopez

ARG

DAMS

+6.802s

3

Scott Speed

USA

iSport International

+17.742s

4

Gianmaria Bruni

ITA

Coloni Motorsport

+18.438s

5

Adam Carroll

GBR

Super Nova Racing

+21.571s

6

Neel Jani

SWI

Racing Engineering

+43.007s

Fastest Lap: Ernesto Viso – Venezuela – BCN Competicion – 1:35.257s

April 24th – Sprint Race Results – Top 6

POS

DRIVER

NAT

TEAM

LAPS/

GAP

1

Adam Carroll

GBR

Super Nova Racing

17 Laps

2

Alexandre Premat

FRA

ART Grand Prix

+5.460s

3

Heikki Kovalainen

FIN

Arden International

+6.715s

4

Gianmaria Bruni

ITA

Coloni Motorsport

+9.964s

5

Olivier Pla

FRA

David Price Racing

+11.519s

6

Nelson Piquet Jr

BRZ

Hitech/Piquet Racing

+13.580s

Fastest Lap: Nicolas Lapierre – France – Arden International – 1:33.871s

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Long time motorsport fanatic, covering Formula 1 and the occassional other series. Feel free to give him a follow on Twitter at @Paul11MSport.
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