GP2 newcomer Prema recruits technical director from ART
GP2 Series newcomer Prema Powerteam has recruited technical director Guillaume Capietto from championship-winning team ART Grand Prix
Capietto, who most recently oversaw Stoffel Vandoorne's dominant run to the 2015 title, has filled a similar role at the Italian squad, while the RBM BMW DTM team's Jonathan Moury will take up a team-manager position.
Moury also co-runs the M2 Competition team in the New Zealand-based Toyota Racing Series that fielded Prema Formula 3 driver Lance Stroll on his way to the 2015 title.
Prema will also redeploy some of its existing staff within the new GP2 squad so that it operates along the same ethos as its highly successful F3 European Championship and Formula 4 teams.
It suffered some issues on its first GP2 outing in last week's post-season Abu Dhabi test, during which current GP2 aces Pierre Gasly and Sergey Sirotkin, Formula Renault 3.5 champion Oliver Rowland, European F3 king Felix Rosenqvist and DTM title winner Pascal Wehrlein all drove.
Team boss Rene Rosin said: "It was a difficult test, and we faced some problems that were not expected.
"On the other hand the performance showed, especially on day one and day three, that it was promising."
Gasly and Sirotkin respectively set third-fastest times in the afternoon sessions on those days, Rosin adding the issues were "a pity for Ollie, Felix and Pascal."
Rosin refused to be drawn into any dispute with Lazarus, which sold Prema its GP2 equipment and issued a statement relating to 'a supposed and at the same time entirely unfounded 'reliability' of the Dallara-Mecachrome single-seaters with the numbers 26 and 27 handed over to Prema Racing based on a regular sale contract'.
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