Drivers to Fight for Numbers
GP2's leading drivers are going to face their first qualifying battle of the year before the season even starts, after series organisers confirmed that there will be a shoot-out next month in the fight for race numbers
With the series about to embark on its first ever season, GP2's bosses have decided to make a clean break from the old International Formula 3000 series and create a completely new numbering system.
During a planned official launch for the category at Paul Ricard in France on April 6, teams will face a double qualifying session that will decide their numbers for the season ahead.
Although the exact details of the format for the qualifying battle have not been confirmed, Autosport-Atlas understands that teams have been informed that there will be two separate half-hour sessions, separated by a 15-minute gap.
Teams will be able to run one of their drivers in each session - where there will be an unlimited number of laps but drivers will only have two sets of tyres available. One set will be fresh, while the other must have come from an earlier test session - although it is not mandatory that these have been used in the test.
Teams could, therefore, decide to not use those tyres during the test in a bid to save them for this qualifying session.
The team who set the quickest time with either of their drivers will be handed the lowest numbers, even if their second driver is much slower or even fails to set a time. No number 13 will be issued, and it is also not clear yet whether the quickest team will have numbers 0 and 2, or 1 and 2.
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