Thread: GP2 2008 Line-Up

All GP2 champions so far has gone directly to Formula 1. Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and now Timo Glock.

Now the battle for the available seats and the raising of the enormous cash involved (if you're not in an F1 junior development program) is in progress.

The confirmed line-up for the 2008 season (stay tuned for updates):

* = rookies

Trust Team Arden
Sebastien Buemi, Switzerland (2007 F3 Euroseries runner-up)
* Yelmer Buurman, Netherlands (6th in F3 Euroseries 2007)

ART Grand Prix
* Romain Grosjean, France (2007 F3 Euroseries champion)
Luca Filippi, Italy (4th in 2007)

BCN Competition
* Paolo Maria Nocera, Italy (2007 Italian F3 champion)
* Milos Pavlovic, Serbia (3rd in World Series by Renault 2007)

Campos Grand Prix
Vitaly Petrov, Russia (13th in 2007)
* Ben Hanley, Great Britain (2nd in World Series by Renault 2007)

DAMS
* Kamui Kobayashi, Japan (4th in F3 Euroseries 2007. 2005 European and Italian Formula Renault champion. Toyota Development Driver).
* J?r?me D'Ambrosio, Belgium (2007 International Formula Master champion)

David Price Racing
???
???

Durango
* Alberto Valerio, Brazil (8th in British F3 2007. 2005 South American F3 champion)
* Davide Valsecchi, Italy (16th in World Series by Renault 2007)

FMS International
Adrian Valles, Spain (2007 Spyker F1 test driver)
???

iSport International
Bruno Senna, Brazil (8th in 2007)
Karun Chandhok, India (15th in 2007)

Minardi Piquet Sports
Andreas Zuber, Austria (9th in 2007)
Pastor Maldonado, Venezuela (11th in 2007)

Racing Engineering
Giorgio Pantano, Italy (3rd in 2007)
Javier Villa, Spain (6th in 2007)

Super Nova International
* Alvaro Parente, Portugal (2007 World Series by Renault champion)
Christian Bakkerud, Denmark (no points in 2007)

Trident Racing
Mike Conway, Great Britain (14th in 2007)
Ho-Pin Tung, China (24th in 2007)

The final 2007 test (and the final tests with the old cars) were carried out at Paul Ricard in late October / early November.

A bunch of GP2 regulars and some of the most promising young talents did laps along with all the regular not-so-talented-but-with-wallets.


The following people tested at Paul Ricard:

Mikhail Aleshin, Russia
Kasper Andersen, Denmark
Nathan Antunes, Australia
Vladimir Arabadzhiev, Bulgaria
Christian Bakkerud, Denmark
Sebastien Buemi, Switzerland
Recardo Bruins Choi, Netherlands
Yelmer Buurman, Netherlands
Adrian Campos jr, Spain
Carun Chandhok, India
Dani Clos, Spain
Mike Conway, Great Britain
Fabrizio Crestani, Italy
Maximo Cortes, Spain
Jerome D'Ambrosio, Belgium
Simona de Silvestro, Switzerland
Maro Engel, Germany
Luca Filippi, Italy
Borja Garcia, Spain
Romain Grosjean, France
Ben Hanley, Great Britain
Michael Herck, Germany
Carlos Iaconelli, Italy
Oliver Jarvis, Great Britain
Stephen Jelley, Great Britain
Henri Karjalainen, Finland
Jonathan Kennard, Great Britian
Adam Khan, Great Britain
Kamui Kobayashi, Japan
Nicolas Lapierre, France
Pastor Maldonado, Venezuela
Marcos Martinez, Spain
Celso Miguez, Spain
Kazuki Nakajima, Japan
Markus Niemel?, Finland
Paolo Maria Nocera, Italy
Diego Nunes, Brazil
Alejandro Nunez, Spain
Vitaly Petrov, Russia
Giacomo Piccini, Italy
Matteo Puglisi, Italy
Davide Rigon, Italy
Manuel Saez-Merino, Spain
German Sanchez, Spain
Harald Schlegelmilch, Latvia
Bruno Senna, Brazil
Andy Soucek, Spain
Ho Pin Tung, China
Alberto Valerio, Brazil
Adrian Valles, Spain
Davide Valsecchi, Italy
Carlo van Dam, Netherlands
Chris van der Drift, New Zealand
Giedo van der Garde, Netherlands
Renger van der Zande, Netherlands
Adrian Zaugg, South Africa
Andreas Zuber, Austria

Top Fives from the tests:

Day 1, morning session:
1. Andreas Zuber, Minardi Piquet Sports
2. Pastor Maldonado, iSport International
3. Luca Filippi, DPR
4. Ben Hanley, FMS International
5. Sebastien Buemi, DAMS

Day 1, afternoon
1. Andreas Zuber, Minardi Piquet Sports
2. Luca Filippi, DPR
3. Pastor Maldonado, iSport International
4. Romain Grosjean, ART Grand Prix
5. Adrian Valles, FMS International

Day 2, morning session:
1. Luca Filippi, ART Grand Prix
2. Pastor Maldonado, iSport International
3. Andreas Zuber, Campos Grand Prix
4. Andy Soucek, DPR
5. Kamui Kobayashi, DAMS

Day 2, afternoon session:
1. Luca Filippi, ART Grand Prix
2. Andreas Zuber, Campos Grand Prix
3. Sebastien Buemi, Arden International
4. Andy Soucek, DPR
5. Vitaly Petrov, Campos Grand Prix

Day 3, morning session:
1. Andreas Zuber, Super Nova
2. Pastor Maldonado, Minardi Piquet Sports
3. Luca Filippi, Super Nova
4. Kazuki Nakajima, ART Grand Prix
5. Adrian Valles, iSport International

Day 3, afternoon session:
1. Andreas Zuber, Super Nova
2. Pastor Maldonado, Minardi Piquet Sports
3. Romain Grosjean, Racing Engineering
4. Adrian Zaugg, BCN Competition
5. Kazuki Nakajima, ART Grand Prix

Durango is the team who's first to confirm both seats for 2008:

Alberto Valerio from Brazil and Davide Valsecchi from Italy. Two rookies and, if I may say so, probably not the most impressive pair on the 2008 grid. Valerio's pretty quick but his British F3 record isn't very impressive. Valsecchi won a race in World Series this season but still only managed to finish 16th in the championship, he's quite young though so there is room for improvement.

Is there still that many gaps in he driver line up?

Its great to see any Aussie in the testing there.

Originally Posted by JoelManiac

Is there still that many gaps in he driver line up?

Yeah, the GP2 grid doesn't start to fill up quickly until more or less every race and test seat in F1 is filled and then the drivers who aimed for F1, but didn't make it this year comes along with their big bags of money.

But there are probably several seats already filled but with no official word yet.

So is there any rush to get drivers when it gets close to race 1?

Originally Posted by JoelManiac

So is there any rush to get drivers when it gets close to race 1?

I'd say the good GP2 seats will be filled early next year and then there might be some last minute swaps before the first race in the not-so-good seats when people find out that perhaps they couldn't raise the required money.

The best seats will probably be split between the F1 development drivers.

The good seats are starting to fill up now.

With Paolo Maria Nocera signed for BCN there's now 13 seats yet to be filled.

The following people from last year's season are currently not in GP2 seats:

Adam Carroll
Andreas Zuber
Giorgio Pantano
Borja Garcia
Pastor Maldonado
Nicolas Lapierre
Andy Soucek
Adrian Zaugg
Kohei Hirate
Alexandre Negrao
Marcos Martinez
Sergio Jimenez
Ricardo Risatti
Ho Pin Tung
Filipe Albuquerque
Christian Bakkerud (signed for GP2 Asia though)
Henri Karjalainen
Markus Niemel?
Oliver Pla
Jason Tahinci
Ernesto Viso
Sakon Yamamoto