The 2011 GP2 Series review

The GP2 Series took on a different look in 2011, and that wasn't just because a new car and tyre supplier were introduced. The stakes are always high when young drivers are within touching distance of the Formula 1 paddock, but never before had such a wealth of experience been on show at the front of the grid.

Or in other words, never before had so many been sat in the last-chance saloon. Very few of the drivers at the front had the excuse of a lack of experience, and many of them had very important people who they had to impress if they wanted to keep their career going in the right direction.

That certainly applied to Romain Grosjean, who entered the season as the title favourite after winning the truncated Asia Series at the start of the year. The Frenchman was as experienced as anyone at this level, but this was to be his first full season in GP2 since 2008.

The brief for Grosjean was simple. Renault F1 team boss Eric Boullier has been managing his career since the aftermath of his short and painful stint in grand prix racing with the same team at the end of 2009, and he wanted to see that the 25-year-old Frenchman was a changed man.

Grosjean was placed at DAMS and told to turn around a team that has not shown championship-winning pedigree since GP2 began in 2005.

In the end he managed that emphatically, which owed as much to his own dominance in the cockpit as it did to all of his rivals failing to put any sort of consistent run together over the course of the season.

The top 10 GP2 drivers of 2011 in focus

1. Romain Grosjean (DAMS)
Points: 89
Wins: 5
Other podiums: 5
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 4

A win first time out in Turkey was supposed to set the scene for the season. But Grosjean had been pushed all the way by Sam Bird, and he threw away any chance of extending a lead at the front of the points race by damaging his car as he tried to bundle his way past Jules Bianchi in race two.

From there, it would be a while before his year came together. A disqualification from fourth place at Barcelona for a technical infringement disguised a weekend in which he showed great maturity: he'd settled for a solid finish when he realised he didn't have the pace of those ahead, and his patient drive from the back to ninth in race two involved a stunning final few laps as he made the most of protecting his tyres early on to enjoy a huge advantage at the end. It was a skill he would utilise at the front later in the year.

More disruption to his season followed. He crashed in a ridiculous qualifying session at Monaco, yet somehow found a strategy to get up to fourth in race one. Then, like in Turkey, he followed up a race-one win on the streets of Valencia with a race-two shunt, and a heap of criticism from within the paddock.

The Frenchman contends to this day that this backlash from his rivals didn't change his approach to the year, but after that he always opted for the sensible option during a race. That didn't mean he stopped fighting wheel-to-wheel, but he was happy to rely on his late-race tyre advantage if progress was proving difficult early in a race. Driving away at the front wasn't really an option, as DAMS poured all of its efforts into getting its race set-ups right and put qualifying on the back burner.

As the season went on and the all-French relationship got into its stride, the title became an inevitability. But, Grosjean was out-scored over the second half of the campaign...

2. Luca Filippi (Super Nova/Coloni)
Points: 54
Wins: 3
Other podiums: 2
Poles: 0
Fastest laps: 3

Luca Filippi and Coloni finished the season on top of the world, as they stole second place in the championship from some more fancied runners, and did it in style on home soil at Monza.

It was the culmination in a remarkable story for both driver and team. Filippi had returned to GP2 with Super Nova at the start of the year, but his early races were punctuated by flashes of speed and incidents in almost equal measure.

When Super Nova thought it had a new sponsor on board it had to replace Filippi with Adam Carroll mid-season, at the behest of the incoming backer. The cruellest part of that move was that it came on the eve of the veteran Italian's 100th start in GP2.

But as soon as Coloni found out Filippi was on the market, it sensed a chance to turn around its own struggling season. Davide Rigon had been ruled out for the season after breaking his leg in a crash at the season opener, and Michael Herck was struggling to recover from his own big shunt from the same weekend.

Teenaged Auto GP racer Kevin Ceccon did his best to fill in, but Coloni was languishing at the bottom of the standings. Team boss Paolo Coloni was convinced his team had a good car, but few believed it.

As if the sentimental value of getting Filippi back on the grid to take his 100th start wasn't enough, he went on to complete the fairytale story by winning the race.

The all-Italian combination remained in the sweet spot for the rest of the season, and Filippi went into the five-way showdown for second place in the championship as an outsider. He took another win before sealing the near impossible in race two.

And the scores in the races after his mid-season switch? Filippi 45; Grosjean 42.

3. Jules Bianchi (ART)
Points: 53
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 5
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 0

Ferrari's junior driver was another hot tip for glory this year, but in the end he had to settle for a second consecutive third place in the standings. But even that seemed a long way off early in the year, as he languished down in 15th after four race weekends out of nine.

The early-season misfortune was a combination of bad luck and bad decisions. Grosjean had got under his countryman's skin by nerfing him off in Turkey, while everyone was baffled that Bianchi hadn't seen Giedo van der Garde as he kept moving over on him until they crashed at the start of the Barcelona sprint race.

Hydraulic problems were in fact to blame when he ran into van der Garde again in Monaco, and next time out at Valencia he suffered from more spacial awareness issues, resulting in another start shunt.

Bianchi climbed out of the car and admitted his title hopes were over as soon as he returned to the paddock. As soon as that declaration had been made, the transformation on track was instant. Bianchi raced from the back to seventh the following day, and he looked like his old self at Silverstone next time out.

He converted pole position into his first main-series victory, and was involved in the scrap of the year with Christian Vietoris to do it. Those peaks weren't quite repeated for the rest of the year, but it is easy to over-estimate how well ART got on with the new car for 2011.

4. Charles Pic (Addax)
Points: 52
Wins: 2
Other podiums: 3
Poles: 3
Fastest laps: 1

The third Frenchman in this year's final standings won't be too upset about his fluctuating luck during the 2011 season now that he has a place on the F1 grid secured with Virgin, for its transition into Marussia next year.

But Pic could have been much more of a threat had his results reflected the pace and composure he'd shown when outside factors weren't interfering with his season.

He followed up a solid opening weekend with a victory in Barcelona, which was owed to his only bit of good fortune all year as his team-mate Giedo van der Garde was delayed at his pitstop while leading.

His cruellest luck of the year came at the team's home race at Valencia, where Pic's car broke down on his reconnaissance lap to the grid. He was supposed to start from pole, but had to join the race from the pitlane. When he started race two from towards the back as well, he was caught up in the aftermath of a shunt caused by Grosjean.

Addax missed the boat in changeable conditions during qualifying at Silverstone, which wrote off another weekend. From there, in the five races (out of eight) that Pic finished, he was second three times.

On the other side of that coin, he was excluded for not serving a penalty after crossing the pit-exit white line at the Nurburgring, lost out due to an ill-timed safety-car period while leading at the Hungaroring, was put to the back of the grid (from third) at Spa because his car ran out of fuel in qualifying, and was caught up in a first-corner melee in the finale at Monza.

5. Giedo van der Garde (Addax)
Points: 49
Wins: 0
Podiums: 5
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 1

Addax deserved the teams' title it picked up this year. More often than not it had the best car, and it was the only team with two drivers performing to a reasonable level on every weekend.

Like his team-mate Pic, van der Garde could point to some bad luck of his own this year. He should have won on both visits to Spain; a fluffed pitstop cost him at Barcelona, and he was given a drive-through penalty for a yellow-flag infringement while controlling the feature race at Valencia from Grosjean. But that was only after pole-sitter Pic had broken down before the start.

During the middle of the season the Dutchman held his season together better than most, but it's not a coincidence that he also never quite scaled the same peaks as those around him who were also chasing down Grosjean.

His sensible and steady approach to lay the foundations for a title shot meant that he couldn't afford anything to go wrong. But after tightening his grip on second in the championship with two fourth places in Hungary, he closed out the season without scoring another point. For the most part, that was down to traffic or set-up problems in qualifying putting him on the back foot at Spa and Monza.

6. Sam Bird (iSport)
Points: 45
Wins: 0
Podiums: 3
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 3

The Briton shared the lead of the championship at the end of each of the first three race weekends, as he and iSport reaped the rewards of working very hard in the first part of the year to look after the Pirelli tyres.

Bird would have only needed one more lap to topple Grosjean to win the season opener, and in the first half of the season he was always in the top six if he stayed out of trouble.

But the killer blow during that time came at Monaco, where his car stalled on the grid while he was sat on pole for the feature race. His weekend was compounded by an unsightly sequence of collisions with team-mate Marcus Ericsson, and it would be the only weekend of the year in which he didn't score any points.

Bird was understandably livid when Grosjean bounced into him at the start of the Valencia sprint race, and from then on he went into a mid-season slump where fighting for podiums became fighting for points.

That was partly down to missing the mark in qualifying, as the man who was on the front row for the first three feature races of the year never made it higher than sixth for the rest of the campaign.

7. Christian Vietoris (Racing Engineering)
Points: 35
Wins: 2
Other podiums: 1
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 1

Vietoris has made the shrewd move of nailing his colours to the Mercedes DTM mast for the future. But his final GP2 attack could have been even more impressive than it was had he not taken a serious bang on the head on the opening weekend.

As the TV cameras missed the German's brake failure-induced shunt in Turkey, the severity of it was never really picked up on until it was revealed that he was going to sit out the following round at Barcelona.

Dovetailing his single-seater efforts with a rookie DTM campaign wasn't a problem once he was back to full fitness, but you have to question the wisdom of his racing a hot and loud tin-top just a week after his GP2 crash. The fact that he missed two GP2 rounds in total but raced in both DTM races that took place over the same period of time didn't sit well with the team, but he made up for that by finding some great form as the year went on.

8. Davide Valsecchi (AirAsia)
Points: 30
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 1
Poles: 0
Fastest laps: 1

The excitable Italian was a surprise title contender early in the season, and his Monaco victory (in the feature race) was a masterclass in how to control a race in which there is no margin for error.

New team AirAsia struggled with the fragile Pirellis first time out in Istanbul, but it was then one of the first to make big strides in tyre conservation. Valsecchi capitalised on that good form to put in some very strong results, but when the honeymoon period came to an end he struggled more than team-mate Luiz Razia to make the best of bad days.

Remarkably, Valsecchi didn't score a point again after Valencia in June, and he didn't qualify higher than 12th. AirAsia seemed baffled as to where its speed has gone, which suggests it maybe didn't realise how it was achieving so much in the first place.

9. Dani Clos (Racing Engineering)
Points: 30
Wins: 0
Podiums: 2
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 4

This was a big year for Clos, who already had two seasons of GP2 under his belt before 2011. Unfortunately, he couldn't stand the tyre-management aspect of the racing, and that was compounded by the fact that Racing Engineering was one of the teams to struggle most with looking after its rubber.

The Spanish-run cars got faster once Vietoris returned and the team was able to settle down, but it was the German who then made the most of it while Clos continued to be frustrated. He missed the flat-out style of racing that was the norm with Bridgestone rubber, but he's considering another year in the category having put some hard work in to learn the nuances of the Pirellis as 2011 wore on.

10. Marcus Ericsson (iSport)
Points: 25
Wins: 0
Podiums: 2
Poles: 0
Fastest laps: 1

Kenny Brack's protege couldn't get a break in the early part of the season, where iSport clearly had a very good car and Sam Bird was putting it to effective use. But after the team's season hit a low point in Monaco when its drivers roughed each other up, it was Ericsson who started to come to the fore.

The team put his turnaround in the summer down to him making a breakthrough mentally, and that upswing in form should have been rewarded with a feature-race victory at the Hungaroring. But he was given a drive-through penalty while controlling the race from the front after he was released into the path of Luiz Razia from his pitstop.

The Swede dealt with that disappointment well, but he never quite scaled those heights again as iSport battled against a tide of improving teams as the year went on.

Any other business...

The depth of experience in the field this year meant that it was incredibly hard for a rookie to shine. That had to be taken into account when judging the performance of inaugural GP3 champion Esteban Gutierrez, who put in a better performance this year than 13th in the standings suggested.

Coletti was twice a winner for Trident, but also broke his back © LAT

A review of the season wouldn't be complete without a mention of Stefano Coletti's crazy year either. The Monegasque won the first sprint race of the year in Turkey, but his campaign was scrappy for the most part as Trident's form fluctuated from race to race.

His highlight came in Hungary, where he gambled by starting with slick tyres on a damp track to go from 21st to victory. Others took the same risk, but lacked Coletti's patience in the early laps. The fact that his season was curtailed by a back-breaking shunt at Spa brought a disappointing end to a rollercoaster season.

Finally, there was one combination that was expected to shine but could not live up to such expectations. Fabio Leimer went into the season full of promise, especially as he was heading to the team that took Pastor Maldonado to the 2010 title - Rapax.

But the Italian outfit was caught out by the differences in the 2011 package to the previous chassis and tyre combination that it had mastered. Aside from an impressive weekend at Barcelona (where he started the feature race last, got into the points and then won the reversed-grid race), Leimer had little to shout about.