ISR takes over RC's FR3.5 team
Czech driver Filip Salaquarda's family team, ISR, has confirmed that it will acquire Italian single-seater stalwart RC Motorsport's Formula Renault 3.5 team for the 2010 season
Salaquarda raced for RC at Monaco earlier this year, before switching to Prema Powerteam.
RC Motorsport has competed in World Series by Renault since the inaugural season in 2005, and challenged for the championship with Borja Garcia in 2006. Team manager Cristiano Giardina said RC would continue in other series, but had been overstretched this year and needed to scale back.
"We found a good driver in Salaquarda at Monaco, it was unfortunate that he had an accident in qualifying, otherwise I am sure that he could have been in the top five," said Giardina. "Filip's father, Igor, will be doing my job of running the team next year, and we are giving them RC's slot.
"RC will continue in Formula 3 and probably Formula BMW. Doing World Series as well was becoming a bit too much for me to do all by myself, as I don't have any partners any more. World Series is commercial and also political, and with running just one car for most of the year we did not have too much success. I was happy to end the year with Esteban Guerrieri as it showed that we can do a good job.
"We are also looking at doing Formula BMW International. There's a team called Autotecnica, they are Canadian, and have been running for two or three years in the US series. With BMW quitting that championship they are trying to find a place in the Euro Series, as they have all the materials. If everything goes to plan we will be a joint venture. I am sure RC will continue for the next 200 or 300 years."
Giardina also expressed his desire to continue working with Guerrieri, who set the fastest lap in his one-off outing with RC in the final round of the year at Motorland Aragon last weekend, and came close to finishing on the podium.
"We could run Esteban in Motorland because of the support from [kart manufacturer] Intrepid, they were already involved with our Italian F3 drivers," he said. "If Esteban is available we would like to do something together next year, because we really have seen something successful in this last test where he was our driver coach. He has helped Filip hugely to get down and find the last two tenths.
"We are staying in Motorland now to set the car up for the last test at Barcelona next week. We will be running [Jan] Charouz, Salaquarda and possibly one other driver. After the test we will deliver the cars and the spares to the Czech Republic, and we will see if ISR want us to have some involvement.
"For the last two years I have been flat out, I have done 18 race meetings and 26 days of testing this year, so perhaps if we're doing FBMW as well it would be nice to have a couple of weekends' rest."
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