How van der Garde plans to 'do a Grosjean' in GP2

GP2 is always a difficult series to predict on the eve of the season. And in many ways, that adds to its excitement. As with most one-make categories, the parity in machinery means that there is a greater chance of fluctuating form between the teams than is often the case in Formula 1.

Plus, as drivers come and go through the championship's revolving doors, hoping to exit in the direction of the F1 paddock rather than motorsport obscurity, there is usually a fresh pool of unproven talent that blurs the picture even further for those trying to make educated guesses about what to expect.

The numbers back this up too. In seven seasons of GP2, only one team has managed to win the drivers' championship more than once. That accolade goes to ART Grand Prix, which has three titles - 2005, 2006, and 2009 (Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg). The rest have been shared out between iSport (Timo Glock, 2007), Racing Engineering (Giorgio Pantano, 2008), Rapax (Pastor Maldonado, 2010) and DAMS (Romain Grosjean, 2011).

Van der Garde is racing for Caterham's GP2 squad this year... © LAT

Testing, as ever, is hard to read, although category veteran Davide Valsecchi did little in the way of sandbagging when he first got in Grosjean's championship-winning car last month and started blitzing the timesheets with DAMS. With six of the seven drivers who finished 2011 ahead of him in the standings moving on, the fiery Italian should be in the hunt this year. But what about the one among those seven who has stayed on?

Giedo van der Garde is vastly experienced in the junior categories. He joined the F3 Euro Series in the same year as Hamilton, and in his three years there he also went up against Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Adrian Sutil, Sebastian Vettel, Paul di Resta, Kamui Kobayashi, Sebastien Buemi and Grosjean among others.

He won the Formula Renault 3.5 title in 2008, when current Marussia F1 driver Charles Pic was just a rookie in the series. And since 2009, his GP2 career has taken him up against Hulkenberg, Vitaly Petrov, Maldonado, Sergio Perez and some of his previous contemporaries from F3.

That level of experience, plus the fact that he was in the title fight in GP2 last year, leaves an understandable amount of expectation at his door. For a man who declared even as late as February that he was not interested in returning for a fourth season at this level, he's pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

"I'm quite chilled, I know what I have to do," he says of his deal, which combines a reserve driver role with the Caterham F1 team and a race seat with its GP2 squad. "Yes, it will not be easy because there are good teams and good drivers, but when the car is good you have to win."

... and is taking on reserve driver duties for its F1 team too. © LAT

It could be the car that is responsible for taking some of the pressure away from the 26-year-old Dutchman. As Team AirAsia last year, Caterham burst onto the scene as a GP2 newcomer, winning the feature race at Monaco with Valsecchi to confirm just how far it had come in a very short time.

But from there on the season tailed off, until by the end of it the cars that had been painted green mid-season were fighting to even get into the top 10. Placing van der Garde at the team could be seen as a shrewd move by Caterham owner Tony Fernandes, as he should have the experience to bring the squad forward.

"The goal at first is we have to make the team better," says van der Garde, who does not expect to quite be in the mix for race wins in the early part of the season. "From then on we have to win races, and of course my aim is to win the championship. The aim for everybody here is to get the team to the top."

It all sounds very familiar in GP2 circles. Van der Garde's task is very similar to the one Lotus team boss Eric Boullier set Grosjean with DAMS last year. Take a team that is chasing the leaders, and turn it into one leading the chasers.

"That is the aim for the team," he says. "Grosjean did it so why can't I? It is hard work - in testing we were at the track until 10, 11pm or even midnight working with the engineers. We were flat out but I think we made good progress. We still have a bit to sort out, but I think we are going the right way."

He finished fifth in GP2 with Addax last year, but didn't win a race © LAT

The other thing Boullier did with Grosjean was to put heaps of pressure on him to prove he could lead a team, with the promise that if he delivered, there was a fair chance of landing a drive in Formula 1. Van der Garde chased F1 seats over the winter, and perhaps tellingly he refers to Caterham driver Vitaly Petrov as "the Russian who came along and took the seat".

But with ties to a Formula 1 team, he knows that by doing well in GP2 and creating a good impression with his third driver duties (which should include Friday running later in the season), he can make something happen in the long-term.

"They told me I just have to concentrate on what I am doing this year and then see what happens," he says of his Caterham deal. "I have to show well with the team, try to learn as much as possible from the F1 guys, do well in the car, and then I hope to race."

The end of van der Garde's 2011 campaign, where he fell from second to fifth in the standings across the final two weekends, still hurts. He admits that he found it very hard to get over, while reflecting on the fact that everything that could go wrong did go wrong (he failed to score a single point in the final two weekends).

That initial bitterness formed part of the reason why he didn't want to return for 2012, but now the season is upon us, he is looking at the positives of extending his GP2 career. Grosjean and Maldonado, the past two champions in the category, departed for F1 with 58 and 72 starts under their belts in GP2's main championship respectively. Van der Garde is on 58 already, but with the feeder series becoming more and more complex as it tries to get closer to F1, he sees it as a realm for the more experienced. Are the days of rookie champions (Rosberg, Hamilton, Hulkenberg) behind GP2?

Hamilton and Vettel were his F3 rivals, and have both become F1 champions since © LAT

"Four years [in GP2] - some people say I am crazy," he says. "But I think it is the right choice. Maldonado and Grosjean are in F1, and [Luca] Filippi [with 107 starts] is going to IndyCar. So I'm not bothered."

The 2011 title fight could prove to be a high watermark for GP2 in years to come. Driving for Addax, van der Garde did battle with Grosjean, Filippi, Jules Bianchi, Sam Bird and Pic all season, and were it not for those disastrous final two weekends he would have probably been second in the final reckoning.

It is widely accepted that this year's field isn't a match for 2011, but the only man to stay on from last year's leading bunch sees plenty of potential rivals.

"The competition last year was very tough, and this year is a bit thinner," he admits. "But you never know who will step up and be quicker. I'm sure [Esteban] Gutierrez will be there with ART [Lotus GP], [Stefano] Coletti will be strong with Coloni, and of course [Marcus] Ericsson works well with iSport. Then you have some strong rookies as well.

"GP2 is a series where you don't have much track time, so it is very hard. It's a steep learning curve, and you have to be straight on it all the time. So I feel good going into this season and now I'm just looking forward to seeing where we are."

Throughout the interview van der Garde does his best not to bite when pushed on the subject of being the title favourite. Grosjean did a similar thing in the early going last year, but by the time his graduation to Formula 1 was confirmed, he admitted that he knew the championship success had played a big part in landing him a move to the big time.