GP2 Series

GP2 Series
Category	Single seaters
Country or region	International
First season	2005
Drivers	26
Teams	13
Constructors	Dallara
Engine suppliers	Renault
Tyre suppliers	Pirelli
Drivers' champion	Jolyon Palmer (2014)
Teams' champion	Russian Time (2013)
Official website	gp2series.com

The GP2 Series, GP2 for short, is a form of open wheel motor racing. GP2 was started in 2005 after the Formula 3000 was stopped. The format was conceived by Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore,^[1] while Ecclestone also has the rights to the name GP1.^[2] In 2010 the GP3 Series class was launched, as a feeder class for the GP2 series.^[3]

GP2 was designed to be an affordable racing series and a training series for Formula One. GP2 requires all of the teams to use the same chassis, engine and tyre supplier. Almost all races have taken place as support races on Formula One race weekends. Many drivers have used GP2 as a stepping stone into Formula One.

GP2 Series cars

The GP2 Series car is used by all of the teams, and features a Dallara chassis powered by a V8 Renault engine and Bridgestone tyres.

The 4 L Renault V8 engine features design and software upgrades designed to improve performance and fuel consumption. The engine produces about 620 bhp (432.5 kW). GP2 Series engines are rev-limited to 10,000 rpm.

Bridgestone supplying three slick tyre compounds for racing on dry (soft, medium and hard). They also provide a wet weather tyre. The choice of tyre to be raced is made by the Bridgestone and the GP2 Series organizers prior to each event.

Brembo supplies the brakes.

Race weekend

On Friday, drivers have a 30-minute practice session and a 30-minute qualifying session. The qualifying session decides the grid order for Saturday's race which has a length of 180 kilometers.

During Saturday's race, each driver has to make a pit stop in which at least two tyres have to be changed.

On Sunday there is a sprint race of 120 km. The grid is decided by the Saturday result with top 8 being reversed, so the driver who finished 8th on Saturday will start from pole position and the winner will start from 8th place.

Point system

2005-2011

Pole for Saturday races: 2 points

Point system for race 1
1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
10	8	6	5	4	3	2	1

Point system for race 2
1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
6	5	4	3	2	1

Fastest lap: 1 point in each race. Driver recording fastest lap has to drive 90% of race laps. The driver must now also start the race from his allocated grid position and as of 2008 must finish in the top ten of the race to be eligible for the fastest lap point.

With this points system, the most number of points anyone can score in one round is 20 by claiming pole position, winning both races with the fastest lap in each race. This has only been achieved twice in GP2 Racing's short history. By Brazilian Nelson Piquet, Jr. in the 9th round of the 2006 season in Hungary and by German Nico Hülkenberg in the 5th round of the 2009 season in Germany.

2012-present

Point system for race 1
1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th
25	18	15	12	10	8	6	4	2	1

The top eight finishers in a sprint race receive points as follows:

Point system for race 2
1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
15	12	10	8	6	4	2	1

Fastest Lap and Pole position are the same in the previous system

Champions

Season	Champion	Second	Third	Team Champion
2005	Nico Rosberg (ART Grand Prix)	Heikki Kovalainen	Scott Speed	ART Grand Prix
2006	Lewis Hamilton (ART Grand Prix)	Nelson Piquet, Jr.	Alexandre Prémat	ART Grand Prix
2007	Timo Glock (iSport International)	Lucas di Grassi	Giorgio Pantano	iSport International
2008	Giorgio Pantano (Racing Engineering)	Bruno Senna	Lucas di Grassi	Barwa International Campos Team
2009	Nico Hülkenberg (ART Grand Prix)	Vitaly Petrov	Lucas di Grassi	ART Grand Prix
2010	Pastor Maldonado (Rapax)	Sergio Pérez	Jules Bianchi	Rapax
2011	Romain Grosjean (DAMS)	Luca Filippi	Jules Bianchi	Barwa Addax Team
2012	Davide Valsecchi (DAMS)	Luiz Razia	Esteban Gutiérrez	DAMS
2013	Fabio Leimer (Racing Engineering)	Sam Bird	James Calado	Russian Time
2014	Jolyon Palmer (DAMS)

Drivers graduated to F1

2005	Nico Rosberg	Heikki Kovalainen ^‡	Scott Speed
2006	Lewis Hamilton	Nelson Piquet, Jr. ^‡
2007	Timo Glock	Kazuki Nakajima ^†
2008	Bruno Senna ^‡	Sébastien Buemi
2009	Nico Hülkenberg	Vitaly Petrov	Lucas di Grassi	Romain Grosjean ^†	Kamui Kobayashi ^†	Karun Chandhok
2009	Sergio Pérez^[4]
2010	Pastor Maldonado	Sergio Pérez	Jérôme d'Ambrosio
2011	Jules Bianchi ^‡	Charles Pic
2012	Max Chilton	Esteban Gutierrez	Giedo van der Garde
2013	Marcus Ericsson

Drivers are listed by their last year in GP2 Series. Usually they started in F1 at the start of the following season.
^‡ = graduated to F1 later
^† = started in F1 mid-season

Note: Timo Glock had four Grand Prix starts in 2004, drove in GP2 Series in 2006-07 before moving to F1 in 2008.

Related pages

References

↑ Spurgeon, Brad (2005-06-01). "Formula One experiments with its minor league". The International Herald Tribune. p. 22.
↑ grandprix.com August 11, 2005
↑ "autosport.com October 3, 2008". Archived from the original on 2010-02-01. Retrieved 2010-09-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
↑ "Sauber land Sergio Perez for 2011 Formula 1 season". news.bbc.co.uk. BBC Sport. 2010-10-04. Retrieved 2010-10-04.

Other websites

GP2 Series site
English Information Website Archived 2009-06-16 at the Wayback Machine

[1] Spurgeon, Brad (2005-06-01). "Formula One experiments with its minor league". The International Herald Tribune. p. 22.

[2] randprix.com August 11, 2005

[3] "autosport.com October 3, 2008". Archived from the original on 2010-02-01. Retrieved 2010-09-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

[4] "Sauber land Sergio Perez for 2011 Formula 1 season". news.bbc.co.uk. BBC Sport. 2010-10-04. Retrieved 2010-10-04.

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