Movin' On Up: The 2007 GP2 Season Preview

This time of year has generally been full of question marks about GP2: in 2005 commentators questioned the need for a feeder series at all, particularly one formed out of the ashes of Formula 3000, while last year the questions were whether GP2 could ever repeat the success that came against all expectations the year before.

For 2007 those question marks are gone, to be replaced by the only question that counts: who is going to win the title this year?

Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton's blistering start in this year's Formula One championship has decimated any residual doubts about GP2's place in racing, and with Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Scott Speed holding their own at the pinnacle of motorsport's ladder (and Nelson Piquet Jr knocking hard at the door to be let in) the junior category is now the must watch category for any serious race fan looking for the stars of tomorrow.

More than that, the last two years have shown that GP2 provides more entertainment on track than any other series, including (whisper it) their big brother in the paddock next door - it's no secret that activity in the F1 paddock grinds to a halt when the GP2 races are on the screens.

Last year's championship saw nine different race winners, sixteen drivers on the podium and 23 in the points, while the top twenty drivers were within a second of pole at almost every race during the season. With every driver in an identical car, and one designed to be run in the dirty air behind a rival without losing too much downforce, you get a series that has more spectacle in one race weekend than some series have in a season.

And it is that which makes it harder every year to pick the driver who will ultimately come out on top.

With a new car planned for 2008, little has been changed on the current crop of GP2 machines this year: chimneys on the sidepods mimic those on the bigger cars next door and should add to reliability while, hopefully, not affecting their ability to run close to each other. The rulebook has been left alone too, working on the principle of 'if it's not broke, don't fix it' (a lesson from which even F1 could learn) - and that means consistency will be even more vital over the coming season.

But who will win? Glock, Pizzonia, di Grassi and Senna all have valid reasons to think they could take a tilt at the title, and ten or more drivers could easily score a win or better over the season. But history shows that pre-season punditry is generally nothing more than an educated guess at best. Which makes the series so interesting in the first place: why bother if all the questions are already answered, after all?

Teams and Drivers

ART Grand Prix

1. Michael Ammermuller (GER)
2. Lucas di Grassi (BRA)

It's hard to bet against the two-time champions repeating their double in 2007, and the queue at Frederic Vasseur's door ahead of the post-season tests a few months ago shows that there are few drivers who wouldn't sell members of their immediate family for the opportunity to drive for the French team.

Ammermuller and di Grassi won the Christmas raffle, largely due to help from their long-term backers, and neither driver has been able to wipe the smile from his face ever since. And for good reason. It is impossible to think of ART not challenging for wins at every race, with titles following in their wake.

But could the impossible happen in 2007? In a series this tight any weakness, no matter how small, will be ruthlessly exposed by the competition. With the Crown Prince of Bahrain having bought into the team finances will not be an issue, and the team's history shows what they are capable of, which means that the biggest unknown this year is the drivers.

Ammermuller is the next driver in line at Red Bull, who have funded his career for a number of years and will now be looking for a return on their investment. A somewhat lucky win with a reverse grid after the main competitors took themselves out in Valencia last year is the high point of the German's career, but doubts persist in the paddock over his ability to compete at the top. With adequate funding and a ride in the "magic" car that carried Rosberg and Hamilton to successive titles, Ammermuller has nowhere to hide if he doesn't get it done this year.

Di Grassi has managed to pull himself to the top of the pile at Renault's Driver Development programme, which is no mean feat when you consider the number of drivers who have tried and failed to do the same thing. The amiable Brazilian has seen the two options open to him: former RDD cohort Heikki Kovalainen is a Formula One driver while Jose Maria Lopez is now looking at a season in Argentine Touring Cars after failing last year. Few have any doubts that di Grassi will add wins in GP2 to his Macau win: the only question is will he take enough of them to claim the title.

Minardi Piquet Sports

3. Alexandre Negrao (BRA)
4. Roldan Rodriguez (ESP)

There must be an element of wistfulness in the management structure at the newly renamed Minardi Piquet Sports: while the team defied expectations by giving Nelson Piquet Jr a genuine shot at the title last year (narrowly missing out in the final round to the combined weight of ART and Lewis Hamilton), their very cause for existence is now gone and they will need to find another raison d'etre to motivate the team over the long season to come.

The deal with Euro3000 outfit Minardi ensured that the team could continue racing in 2007, but there must be an element of disappointment at the driver line-up they will take into the new season.

Xandi Negrao is one of the nicest drivers in the paddock, as well as the only man to take part in every test and race in GP2's short history. But question marks remain as to whether he will ever be able to bring the speed he shows in just about every test to bear in a racing environment.

Roldan Rodriguez came along with the Minardi name and while he is pretty much unknown to most fans, a second place in last year's Spanish Formula Three championship (albeit on his fourth attempt) along with some rides in the Euro3000 series suggests he won't be made to look foolish. Nonetheless GP2 is a series where experience is paramount, and it's unlikely that the Negrao/Rodriguez combination will be one to continue the team's sterling work from 2006, or spark fear in hearts of their rivals.

iSport International

5. Timo Glock (GER)
6. Andreas Zuber (UAE)

If there could ever be such a thing as a hands-down favourite to win the title in GP2, then Timo Glock is it. After a rocky start last year where he was easily beaten by teammate Hiroki Yoshimoto at BCN, the German got the kick start his career needed when a seat opened up at iSport, whereupon the floodgates opened and he became a genuine title contender to Hamilton and Piquet. All of which speaks volumes about Paul Jackson and his iSport crew's ability to get the most out of their drivers, and the relationship that Glock built with the British team in a very short period of time.

Jackson's men have been arguably the strongest team in GP2 since last year's mid-season test at Paul Ricard, and they have certainly been the team to beat in off-season testing since the end of racing last year: most commentators in the paddock believe that iSport will the team to finally bring ART's dominance to an end.

Andi Zuber, the likeable Austrian born, UAE licensed driver has been taking all the pre-season glory in testing this year, but while he is very likely to add to his Turkish victory from last year question marks remain over his ability to string a title challenge together, something that he has failed to do in the lower categories. And while Zuber has been getting all the headlines, Glock has been there or thereabouts, albeit somewhat unhappy that he was unable to get the final tenth out of a car he knows very, very well.

Going into the opening round, Zuber's mindset is at an all time high ahead of the hardest season of his life while Glock is champing at the bit to prove his overwhelming favourite status is on merit and that his car is as fast as he thinks it is, rather than what it has shown in testing. Coincidence? No one knows right now, but should it prove to be otherwise then it's an indication of the level of thinking that could finally wrestle the championship laurels across the channel.

Arden International

7. Bruno Senna (BRA)
8. Adrian Zaugg (RSA)

By rights Arden should be one of the pre-season favourites for the title this (and every) year, but 2006 was brutal by their own exacting standards and the years when they walked to the title with the likes of Bjorn Wirdheim and Tonio Liuzzi are starting to look like an age ago: last year certainly made Kovalainen's efforts in 2005 look retrospectively even better than previously suspected.

But a team with the inherent strength of Arden does not take a beating without reply, and there were definite signs of resurgence during the off-season testing. 2007 will be the first year in an age that the team starts a season without the proven combination of experienced driver and promising rookie. Both Senna and Zaugg are new to GP2, but both have shown signs of being very prepared for their season in F1's nursery.

Senna will get the lion's share of attention by dint of his famous surname, following in the footsteps of uncle Ayrton as well as the junior versions of Rosberg, Piquet and Lauda. Time will tell if he is ready for the challenge: there is no question that he has been rushed through the junior ranks to make up for lost time, but equally his performances to date have been measured and impressive. His name casts a large shadow, but his time so far in GP2 suggests that Bruno is ready to carve out his own name.

By contrast Zaugg seems more than happy to have spent the season build up in other people's shadows. With Hamilton exceeding most people's expectations the dubious mantle 'best black driver' is well and truly off the South African's shoulders, and being behind Ammermuller in the Red Bull food chain seems to suit him too. There is no question that Zaugg is exceptionally fast, and he has impressed most observers with his abilities behind the wheel. Arden may turn out to be the best apprenticeship he could hope for, ahead of a tilt at the title in 2008.

Petrol Ofisi FMS International

9. Antonio Pizzonia (BRA)
10. Jason Tahinci (TUR)

With almost the entire team leaving before the start of last season, little was expected of the then newly re-christened FMS outfit - so it was a credit to the hard work put in behind the scenes by team boss Paolo Coloni that his squad was able to take three wins in 2006, two of them in the final race meeting at Monza.

A big part of the turnaround came after the difficult decision was made to drop promising youngster Luca Filippi in favour of the experienced Giorgio Pantano, who scored all of the team's points and allowed them to finish fifth in the championship. Lesson learnt, 2007 sees Antonio Pizzonia joining the squad in place of Pantano.

The former Williams F1 driver is probably a better fit personality wise at the Italian squad and with clearer potential and experience despite being younger than the gregarious Pantano. And while many people have questioned the abilities of the Brazilian at the top of the tree, there is no doubt that he will be a calming influence on a team that at times can definitely need it. Will it be enough to allow FMS to hold a title run together? Time will tell, but Pizzonia will definitely be in the running for wins at most meetings.

Tahinci was unfairly branded a ride buyer last year, and while his lack of points finishes certainly helps to foster that impression there has been a definite air of contentment around the likeable Turk in testing, and those who have watched him at work suggest that it has come from a marked improvement in his work methods. Will Tahinci compete for the title? No, but he will definitely be fighting for points this year - and in a career as brief as Tahinci's, that will mark a big improvement indeed.

Trident Racing

11. Pastor Maldonado (VEN)
12. Kohei Hirate (JPN)

Trident shocked most of the paddock last year by coming into the series as strongly as they did. While it should not have been such a surprise, considering the experience of the engineers and mechanics they bought in, their performance nonetheless laid down a marker to everyone else on the grid.

A big part of the experience they bought in was Gimmi Bruni, the genial but rapid Italian around which the team was built. While it's a stretch to suggest that the team will fall apart without the Roman at their centre, there is little doubt that the team will feel his absence.

Maldonado comes to GP2 from the World Series, where he went close to clinching the title despite a somewhat erratic driving style that added to the growing collection of rather silly incidents. Word in the paddock is that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez personally interceded to make sure that his country's businessmen supported Maldonado rather than last year's dual race winner Ernesto Viso. Only time will tell if the younger driver is ready to put away his wildness in an attempt to overtake his more experienced countryman.

Hirate races for Trident courtesy of Toyota, who have two of their junior drivers competing in GP2 this year after showing Franck Perera the door. Hirate won races in last season's Euroseries and deserves a shot at the big time on merit, although it remains to be seen what he will make of the innate Italian-ness of his new team after racing in Germany. He will be an outside chance of taking a win, but Hirate's first job should be to beat his teammate, which is a definitely possibility.

Racing Engineering

14. Javier Villa (ESP)
15. Sergio Jimenez (BRA)

The big question of 2006 was what happened to Racing Engineering? A two time winner with Neel Jani the previous year, the addition of Adam Carroll and a strengthened engineering department suggested the Spanish team should have been a possible title contender, but the records say it all: zero wins, one pole, four podiums.

Team boss Alfonso de Orleans Borbon is not a man to take a knock like last year lying down, and rumours in the paddock of an attempt to bring a very big name driver into his team suggest that he was pushing hard to get his team back into the spotlight. The move came to naught however, and Jimenez was given the opportunity to climb up the ranks after racing with the team in Spanish F3 last year.

That means the team's hopes will now rest on the rather narrow shoulders of Javi Villa. While most of the Spanish contingent in the paddock seem convinced that the young driver from Asturias will follow in the footsteps of the famous two time world champion from his region, the simple fact is that Villa was one of only three full time drivers to fail to score a point last year. While his testing pace has been impressive in the off-season, Villa must start to live up to his reputation soon, for his team's sake as well as his own.

Super Nova International

16. Luca Filippi (ITA)
17. Mike Conway (GBR)

No one ever seems to know what to expect from Super Nova, and sometimes it seems that they like it that way. Jose Maria Lopez was supposed to be a title contender last year but failed to score a win, whereas the previous year saw Carroll score three wins while Pantano was desperately unlucky not to add to the team's haul. With consistency seemingly the most prized quality in motor racing, Super Nova seem to be last mavericks in town. Which is perhaps unfair to a team which has more experience in depth than most.

Nonetheless, after showing Fairuz Fauzy the door at the end of the season, and gently easing Lopez out behind him, the great experiment of money over talent has seemingly finished, and the team have chosen a good combination of experience and ability for the new season.

Luca Filippi impressed most people in the paddock last year by being everything he was not supposed to be: calm, smart, and very, very quick. While the usual BCN gremlins meant the Italian had little in the way of results to show for his debut in the series, a strong testing programme and solid work ethic suggest that Filippi is probably the strongest of his countrymen outside of Formula One. Wins should be just around the corner.

Mike Conway returns to GP2 after a solid run to the title in British F3 last year. While he may not have the buzz that countryman Hamilton has around him, there is no question that he is being groomed for bigger things. His one-off weekend in the series at Silverstone last year can only help, but as the star in the Brundle/Blundell all-Brit stable there will be a lot of pressure on Conway to resume his winning ways as quickly as possible. The first few races will show how well the seemingly conservative driver works with the maverick team.

BCN Competicion

18. Sakon Yamamoto (JPN)
19. Ho-Pin Tung (CHN)

Anyone wanting to see where BCN fit into things in GP2 could do worse than to look at Timo Glock's record from last year: 5 points with BCN, 53 with iSport. Or does Hiroki Yoshimoto's ten retirements and a lone podium tell the story more accurately? Either way, the team from Barcelona needs to do much, much better in 2007.

Yamamoto ended up with the team after a failed debut in Formula One, with Super Aguri apparently paying the bill after dropping him down a category. Some wags have suggested that the Japanese driver only needs to score a couple of points finishes to be promoted back into his old team in the top category, although it's doubtful that Anthony Davidson is losing any sleep at present.

Ho-Pin Tung backed into the final seat in GP2 when one of his rivals ran out of money, but the Dutch-raised Chinese driver does at least arrive in the paddock with the German F3 title on his CV. Nonetheless his first drive in a GP2 car will be free practice in Bahrain, and his inexperience at this level will be clear. Unfortunately he will not have an opportunity to really test the car until the mid-season test at Paul Ricard, when he will be hoping that the promised improvements for this year turn out better than the ones the team has promised over the last two years.

DPR

20. Christian Bakkerud (DK)
21. Andy Soucek (ESP)

DPR's 2006 was a season from hell, with their main sponsor pulling out of racing mid-season and most of the team's funds going with them. Just to be on the grid in Bahrain is a major achievement, and it speaks volumes for the loyalty Dave Price engenders from his team. Nonetheless racing is a tough business, and last year's problems meant that the big names wouldn't consider a season with the plucky team.

Bakkerud brings experience from British F3 and should be easily able to handle Soucek, who had a decent season in the World Series last year after winning Spanish F3 in his fourth year but has so far failed to show much in GP2.

Dams

22. Kazuki Nakajima (JPN)
23. Nicolas Lapierre (FRA)

The biggest shock of 2006 was the failure of Dams, who by rights should be one of the biggest teams on the grid. Last year, the experience of Monfardini and speed of Perera should have given the team a strong base to work with, but the Frenchman's solitary podium was a shockingly poor return on investment for a team with their history.

Lapierre now joins his countrymen after a rollercoaster two years with Arden, and will be hoping that testing times are an accurate reflection of what the team can achieve this year. Nakajima too has been fast, having spent time in the big paddock with Williams. The pair will be looking to prove that 2006 was a momentary blip in the team's otherwise strong racing history.

Campos Grand Prix

24. Giorgio Pantano (ITA)
25. Vitaly Petrov (RUS)

Adrian Campos running a team with no Spanish drivers? Perhaps hell has frozen over but no one sent out a memo. To be fair, The Man Who Discovered Alonso realised last year that consistency is everything in GP2, and his prompt move to employ Pantano (arguably the most experienced driver ever at this level) will provide a solid base to work from as the team attempts to shake off the unwanted tag of the only team in GP2 not to have scored a win.

Other behind-the-scenes moves can only help the team in this respect, and Pantano should be able to make a difference, even though it's unlikely that he can think about a title. Petrov should also provide solid support in the second seat, building on his experience from his half season last year with DPR.

Durango

26. Borja Garcia (ESP)
27. Karun Chandhok (IND)

Despite the now annual rumours of a sale, Ivone Pinton's Durango team return to the paddock once again, hopeful of finding a way of avoiding the wooden spoon after a truly wretched 2006.

Garcia's return to GP2 should help (he did end up on the podium in 2005, lest you forget), and Chandhok has looked quick at times in testing, which is certainly better than the alternative. 2007 should be a rebuilding year for the cheerful Italian battlers.

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