Briton Jon Lancaster returns to the Hilmer Motorsport team for this weekends GP2 Series round at Silverstone. He replaces Argentine driver Facu Regalia who left the team earlier this week.
25-year-old Lancaster raced a partial season with Hilmer in 2013, winning twice. He took his maiden series victory in the Sprint race at Silverstone, and followed that up with a second Sprint race in Germany next time out. This year, he has only raced once in GP2 in the season opener in Bahrain for MP Motorsport.
“I am very thankful for this opportunity to come back to Hilmer Motorsport what is kind of my GP2 home after last year,” said Lancaster. “If we could repeat what happened here last year with our race win we would be pretty happy. I know the team very well and it’s hard to believe what happened to the team this year so far. I hope that we can prove that we are still a winning team and I will give everything to have a good result.”
Team Principal Franz Hilmer was unhappy about the way Regalia left the team, but was happy to be able to recruit Lancaster for this weekend’s British event.
“Before the race in Silverstone we have to announce a driver change,” said Hilmer. “Jon Lancaster will compete with us in GP2 in Silverstone and he will replace Facu Regalia. Since Facu Regalia didn’t comply with his contract until the end of the season and only informed us a few days ago that he will not race with Hilmer Motorsport anymore from the event in Silverstone, it was extremely difficult to find a replacement in the shortness of time.
“We are very happy that we could come to an agreement with Jon Lancaster for this weekend and we are very happy that he will return to the team. With Daniel and Jon we now have two winning drivers and we are confident to race at the top this weekend.”
Hilmer also reflected on the Austrian event of two weeks ago, and hopes the pointless run of the team can come to an end sooner rather than later.
“The weekend at the Red Bull Ring didn’t run as expected unfortunately,” said Hilmer. “It is enough to drive one to despair that we were not lucky this season so far. But we will keep on working hard in order to score our first points soon.”
Second driver Daniel Abt has shown flashes of speed during the 2014 GP2 Series season but has yet to register his first point of the year. The young German, who has also signed up for the inaugural Formula E Championship that begins later this year, feels that one good result can turn his season around, and he hopes that Silverstone provides that season changing result.
“It is very important for us to have a good race weekend,” said Abt. “We have to stay out of trouble and everything has to run smoothly. Every race is a new chance and I have to push as hard as I can. I was racing many times in Silverstone and I nearly finished on the podium a couple of times.
“The track is challenging and should suit our car because it is very demanding on tyres and we always could use our tyres very well. Hopefully Silverstone will be a turning point for a successful second half of the season. There are seven race weekends left and if we score points continuously it still can become a good year.”
