Driver Database News

Carlin’s Max Chilton finished in a very strong seventh place in the GP2 Monaco Feature race today, following a chaotic race around the Principality. Team mate Oliver Turvey finished seventh on the road, but was later handed a 30 second penalty for not having taken a drive-through penalty. Turvey’s penalty meant he was classified 15th, the position he will take on the grid tomorrow. Chilton will line up second in tomorrow’s reverse grid race, taking Carlin’s first front row start in GP2.

A brief rain shower a few minutes before the race this morning caused a few moments of concern for the GP2 drivers, but the sky soon cleared and the sun emerged. Lining up on the grid for race one, Chilton was seventh, while Turvey was 15th.

As the lights went out the stalled car of pole sitter Sam Bird provided an immediate obstacle for Chilton, who was forced to swerve to the left to avoid him. In the melee both Jules Bianchi and Esteban Gutierrez managed to get through. In the run down to the first corner Chilton was wheel to wheel with Jonny Cecotto, but the young Brit held his ground and kept the position. At the end of the first lap Chilton was eighth.

After a compromised qualifying session yesterday, Turvey started in the middle of the field and was boxed in at the start. The Racing Steps graduate lost out to Luiz Razia and Dani Clos and by the end of the first lap was 17th, just ahead of Romain Grojean.

By lap seven, Chilton was still eighth behind Gutierrez and holding a comfortable two second gap from Cecotto in ninth. Turvey meanwhile was 15th.

Chilton pitted from eighth on lap nine, the Carlin team changed both rear tyres, with the 20 year-old returning to the track in 14th, just behind Bird and in front of Charles Pic. Bird pitted a lap later elevating Chilton to 13th.

By lap 14, Chilton had cleared both Bianchi and Gutierrez during the pit stop window and was 10th. Turvey meanwhile was making his way through the field and had climbed to third when he made an unexpected pit stop on lap 16. With his radio broken, Turvey was unable to tell his team he was pitting, but the Carlin mechanics did well to return Turvey to the track in a promising ninth place. Almost immediately the team were notified of a drive through penalty for Turvey who was deemed to have jumped the start.

With no radio contact with his team, Turvey was unaware of the penalty and continued to race, and was running seventh on lap 24, with Chilton just behind him in eighth.

The safety car was deployed on lap 34 to clear away debris following an accident between Marcus Ericsson and Sam Bird, with Ericsson’s rear wing lying on the exit of the tunnel. The racing resumed on lap 36, with both Turvey and Chilton still holding onto position in seventh and eighth respectively.

At the chequered flag Turvey was seventh with Chilton eighth, which would effectively have given Carlin a front row lock out in tomorrow’s reverse grid race. However, Turvey was handed a 30 second penalty for not having taken his drive through and was finally classified 15th . That elevated Chilton to a very strong seventh place, which will give him a front row start on the grid tomorrow.

Speaking about his race, Chilton said, “It was a great race, although it felt quite long! I made a good start but had to find a way past Bird and Bianchi made a good start and got past me. In the early stages I had a good pace and was able to stay quite comfortably ahead of Cecotto. In the second half of the race, the team had told me that Oliver had a drive though, so I didn’t want to risk anything trying to pass him, especially as he is my team mate. Then the safety car closed us all up again, but I held my place at the restart. I think we did a good job as a team today, I’m pleased to have taken some points and we’re in a great position on the grid tomorrow.”

“It was a very exciting and challenging race for the team and drivers with a major element of confusion thrown in due to radio failure on Oliver’s car. This affected our ability to inform him of his drive through penalty and as importantly to notify him when to pit. Under the circumstances the mechanics did a fantastic job. Max drove a faultless race and richly deserved to score points this morning. Oliver was unlucky in that his car moved slightly when he put it into gear on the grid and it wasn’t a jump start as such, but rules are rules.”

He is only at his second weekend on the GP2 car and at his debut race in Monaco, but Kevin Ceccon already showed that he can aim for great results together with Scuderia Coloni. The Italian driver contested a very good qualifying session, closing in P21 after boasting a very consistent drive and showing a steady improving trend. Hampered by slowing-down cars, as often happens in Monaco, Kevin had only a traffic-free lap and in that one he posted his best laptime in 1’23:913. Anyway, the split times realized in the rest of the session were good for an ideal laptime close to the top ten, an impressive potential for a rookie driver.

Also Michael Herck had problems with traffic: the Romanian passed the whole session looking for a “clear” lap, but in the final minutes, when he finally had the space to push a bit more, he lost the car in the Swimming Pool chicane, hitting the armco.

Paolo Coloni: “I think that Kevin did a really impressive job today. He learned the track quickly, and soon he was on the same pace of drivers with much more experience on both the car and the track. Qualifying isn’t telling the real truth as his ideal laptime would have been much quicker than that, but tomorrow we will try to gain positions with a good strategy. Besides his speed, Kevin was again flawless, making no mistakes on a really difficult track. I’m also very sorry for Michael: in Monaco you alway need some luck, and he had none of that today.”

Max Chilton qualified in a competitive seventh place in Monaco today, following a chaotic GP2 session around the principality this afternoon. Team mate Oliver Turvey was 16th quickest, having been taken out mid way through the session by eventual pole man Giedo van der Garde.

A 30 minute practice session this morning allowed the GP2 drivers to familiarise themselves with the Monaco circuit. Predictably, it was a session filled with disruptions, with several yellow flags and one red flag period. Chilton was on the pace in the early stages; the 20 year-old was fourth quickest with ten minutes to go while Turvey was 11th.

The main interruption came with 13 minutes to go, when a red flag was needed to clear debris at turn 16. Heading back out on track after the interruption, Chilton was 12th while Turvey was 19th. Chilton would improve in his final laps to finish inside the top ten in ninth.

If this morning’s practice session was eventful, this afternoon’s qualifying session was chaotic. Several drivers were involved in collisions on track and as the pressure mounted, driving standards seemed to suffer.

Both Carlin drivers were on the pace in the first half of the session and were both in the top ten, with Turvey seventh and Chilton ninth. Turvey was soon the innocent victim of an accident however which effectively ended his session. Giedo van der Garde closed in on the Carlin driver through the swimming pool complex and rammed Turvey off the track, bending his front right track rod in the process.

Several red and yellow flags disrupted proceedings with seemingly an accident every lap at Rascasse. With three minutes remaining on the clock Chilton was 10th while Turvey was 12th, but the times soon started to tumble as drivers tried to make the most of new tyres.

Having been forced to pit for repairs, Turvey saw his qualifying session seriously compromised. With no time to make a full repair, the Racing Steps Foundation graduate returned to the track still with a damaged front right corner and wasn’t able to complete a flying lap on his new tyres and finished the session 16th.

Chilton meanwhile found space on his final lap and improved to 8th, which becomes 7th when Jules Bianchi’s five place grid penalty from Barcelona is taken into account.

Speaking about his qualifying session, Chilton said, “Today’s qualifying session was a really good performance by the whole team. I was well within my target to qualify within the top ten and was able to get a couple of clear laps and push really hard with a good car. It sounds like I was pretty fortunate and missed a lot of incidents this afternoon. There was more and more debris on track with every lap but I managed to stay out of trouble and push when the circuit was green. I’m really looking forward to the first race tomorrow.”

The GP2 drivers will take to the track again at 11.15 local time tomorrow for Race 1.

Max Chilton and Mikhail Aleshin completed another competitive round of the 2011 GP2 Series, following yesterday’s Sprint race at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Chilton fought hard but was held up in the final stages of the race and crossed the line 11th while his team mate recovered from stall on the grid to finish 18th.

With finishing positions from Saturday’s Feature race setting the grid positions for Sunday’s Sprint, Chilton lined up 12th, with Aleshin 16th on the grid. Chilton made a good start while Aleshin made an uncharacteristic mistake and stalled on the grid. Chilton soon found himself in the middle of the action as he drove into a collection of debris following an accident between front runners Jules Bianchi and Geido van der Garde. With carbon fragments entering the cockpit and Chilton’s helmet, the Carlin driver backed off and lost a couple of places in the run to the second corner.

The inevitable safety car bunched up the pack at the end of lap one, and stayed out for five laps while marshals cleared the track. In contrast to the last races in Istanbul, it was rather a processional race, until the final five laps when the action kicked off again.

Chilton had done well to preserve his tyres in the early part of the race and soon found himself considerably quicker than tenth placed man Rodolfo Gonzalez. Chilton looked threatening on several occasions and tried a move around the outside of turn 1. The move didn’t quite come off however, as Gonzalez squeezed the Carlin man, with Chilton forced to back off to avoid an accident. That allowed two other cars past, but Chilton wasn’t about to settle for 13th.

The British racer kept fighting and passed Julian Leal and Jonny Cecotto to take back 11th and began closing in again on Gonzalez. However, with only a few laps left, Chilton ran out of time and had to settle for 11th place. Team mate Aleshin meanwhile had had his work cut out following his difficult start and crossed the line 18th.

Speaking about this race, Chilton said, “The car felt awesome in race two. It was really good, but unfortunately I got held up by traffic. We were able to manage the tyre wear a lot better in race two which gave me quite a bit of pace towards the end of the race. Pace wise we’re really making good progress as a team and I’m already looking forward to the next round at Monaco this weekend which will be a different kind of challenge.”

Kevin Ceccon will drive for Scuderia Coloni in the Barcelona and Monaco GP2 rounds. So Paolo Coloni, the Italian team’s head manager, chose to bet on another Italian talent, remaining faithful to the same philosophy his team always followed in more than 30 years of motorsport history.

Ceccon is among Italy’s most interesting youngsters, boasting both speed and good race management despite his young age, skills that he confirmed also last week clinching a podium finish in the Auto GP debut weekend in Monza.

Furthermore, at 17 Kevin will be the younger driver in GP2′s history, the previous record holder being Javier Villa, who was “already” 18 when he raced in the series for the first time.

Kevin will drive car #19, stepping in for Davide Rigon who in the meantime has started the medical rehabilitation process that will lead him to a full recovery after the fractures to tibia and fibula he suffered in Istanbul. It will take some time, but the whole Scuderia Coloni staff hopes that Davide will be back soon.

Paolo Coloni: “When we signed with Rigon we were happy that we were living a great chance to a talented italian driver, and on the same basis we were happy to give Kevin the chance of making GP2′s history, becoming the youngest driver to have ever raced in the series. With his good debut in Auto GP Ceccon already showed that he can handle such a situation, and he knows that there’s no pressure on him in this weekends, we know that Auto GP remains his main program. In GP2 he will just have to put miles under his belt, get to know the car and two important tracks as Barcelona and Monaco, gaining useful experience; then, if he will surprise us adapting quickly to the car, we’ll be even happier.

If on one side we’re happy for Kevin, on the other we keep waiting good news from Davide. We are not giving up on having him back with us before the end of the season, and we’ll follow his recovery very closely.”

Kevin Ceccon: “These are really amazing days for me, passing from the Auto GP podium on my debut weekend to this news leaves me pretty speechless. T thinking to Barcelona, and then Monaco with F1 and all that people on the grandstands, I’m really excited. I want to say thanks to Paolo Coloni and the whole Scuderia Coloni staff, and to all those people who are making this possible supporting me. I will do my best, but I will still keep my right foot connected to my head.”

Carlin’s Max Chilton had an action packed race in Turkey today, in round two of the 2011 GP2 Series. The British driver started 23rd having been taken out of the race on lap one yesterday, and enjoyed an eventful race to cross the line 17th.

With team mate Mikhail Aleshin not in the running this weekend following an accident in qualifying that left him with a fractured left hand, there was just one Carlin car on the grid this afternoon as Chilton lined up 23rd.

The Carlin man made a good start from 23rd on the grid and by the end of lap one was already up to 18th. A few laps later Chilton was 16th. The 20 year-old continued to make progress and was 14th by lap ten in an eventful race around the Istanbul Park circuit.

As the race entered the middle stages, Chilton began to pay the price for his attacking drive through the field as tyre wear became an issue. Fighting hard against Lotus ART’s Esteban Gutierrez, Chilton was never out of the action in a chaotic race.

Chilton did well to avoid a nasty accident involving Davide Rigon and Julian Leal in the final stages of the race, as the rear wing of Rigon lay stranded in the middle of the track. That incident brought out the safety car, as marshals recovered the two cars and assisted the injured Rigon.

The safety car came in with just one lap of racing action to go – making it a sprint to the flag. Chilton did will at the restart, passing Luca Filippi into the last corner and was briefly 14th, but lost out at the final corner of the final lap as Luiz Razia and Filippi squeezed the Carlin car, leaving Chilton to cross the line 17th.

Reflecting on his race, Chilton said, “Today was a good opportunity to try some things out that we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, as there wasn’t much to race for today. We’ve definitely learnt from a couple of things that we tried, so we can take some positives away with us. Our pace at the start of the weekend was also really impressive, but unfortunately our races were ruined by an accident yesterday.

“We had really good pace in the first half of the race and gained nearly 10 places, but then a couple of things didn’t go my way and the tyres started to drop away in the second half of the race so I wasn’t able to fight quite so hard. We’ve got a great pace in qualifying, but we still need to work a little on our race pace and I think the work we did today definitely helped with that.”

After their magnificent victory yesterday, Romain Grosjean and DAMS were not quite so successful today on the Istanbul park circuit.

The French driver was involved in a collision with Jules Bianchi on the first lap and fell back to the rear of the field. However, he made a fighting comeback and scraped into the top 10 in the dying moments of the race helped by a safety car period. He scored the point for the fastest lap, which helped him retain the championship lead, which he shares with Sam Bird.

His team-mate, Pal Varhaug, had a slightly hectic morning. He pulled back a few places in the opening stages, but spun when under pressure from another car.
The young Norwegian was not a wit discouraged and fought back from second-last place passing some of his rivals and finished on a high note.

Loic David, General Manager: “Things did not go quite so well today. It was a frustrating race as the car was obviously among the quickest and this is not reflected in the results. Our overall position in the championship is still good and we’re already thinking about Spain.”

Romain Grosjean: p10

“A positive race despite the collision with Jules. I’m really sorry we touched. The car was even quicker than yesterday, and I’m delighted to have fought my way back up into the top ten as well as bagging the point for the fastest lap. Bravo to the whole team and let’s keep up the good work!”

Pal Varhaug: p21

“I have to say I’m learning in every race. I had a good start but I made a mistake when Bianchi caught me. Afterwards, I was determined to finish well for the sake of the team.”

Next races in Barcelona on Saturday and Sunday 21-22 May.

Scuderia Coloni chose Davide Rigon to complete their line-up for the 2011 GP2 Main Series season, flanking the already confirmed Michael Herck. The agreement between the Italian team and the driver from Vicenza was a natural conclusion after a very positive experience in pre-season testing, with the newly formed pair shining in the recent Barcelona outing: on the spanish track Davide clinched the sixth fastest time overall (and the 2nd quickest in the final session) despite having just a few kilometres under his belt on the new Dallara car equipped with Pirelli rubber.

This was possible thanks to both a great job by the team and Rigon’s great talent and versatility, qualities that led him to two Superleague Formula titles (2008 and 2010) and to being selected by Scuderia Ferrari for a very important task, the simualtor development in Maranello.

Now the team, boosted also by the best overall laptime posted by Herck in the Barcelona test, is ready to tackle the season that is going to start in less than two weeks time in Istanbul.

Paolo Coloni: “I think that we can be satisfied with the line-up that we will field like never before. Davide, despite his late arrival in the team, managed to get on with the guys in the best possible way thanks to a very good attitude, and his talent proved to be an immediate boost for our outfit. Besides this, I’m really happy to be working again with a driver who has been selected by Scuderia Ferrari: this takes us back to 1989 when Roberto Moreno, who was on testing duties with Maranello, made his debut in F1 with our team.

We have great expectations also with Michael, as he was really good in GP2 Asia and he’s still improving, showing that he can be steadily among the top challengers.

So we believe that we have two very strong drivers, that have the talent and the experience to manage even the most tricky moments in a race. We hope that this, together with the positive mood of the team, will lead us to great results”.

Davide Rigon: “I’m really delighted to be back in GP2, and doing it with Scuderia Coloni, a team that has been racing in the Series from the very first year, is a further boost to my ambitions. They clinched great results in the past and they have a lot of experience, something that proved to be very useful in Silverstone, where they managed to make my first contact with the car very easy. I’m happy to feel that I have the trust of both Enzo and Paolo Coloni, and I’m sure that together we will clinch great results”.

Giovanni Minardi (Minardi Management): “I’m really happy that all our efforts had such a good outcome. Davide is in a crucial moment of his career, both his shape and experience are at the top and he really has what it takes to win. That’s why this agreement with Scuderia Coloni is very important for him, giving him the chance to focus only on his driving duties. We have very high ambitions, and we want to impress some team managers”.

As Alexander Rossi prepares for his upcoming BMW/Sauber F1 test in Jerez, Spain, December 1-3, he joined the GP2 Main series at the final 2009 test at the famed Paul Ricard Circuit, November 10-12. Rossi originally slated to drive only the first day with DAMS and the third day with Piquet GP, was given the opportunity to take up a vacant seat on day two of the test when a driver for Piquet fell ill.

While perfection is something that is difficult to come by, it is necessary at times in GP2 series. This past week over the 3 days of testing, the time charts reflected the highly competitive nature of GP2, as often the top fifteen drivers were separated by merely half a second. The highly regarded premier feeder series into Formula 1, GP2 and Bridgestone have created a tire to have nearly identical characteristics to that of F1. This is by no mistake and is meant to prepare the next generation of F1 drivers for this important step as they learn to maximize the narrow window of the complex tire, often, the most critical element to putting in the penultimate lap in qualifying.

Rossi entered the Paul Ricard test with sights of perfecting his ability to maximize the highly sensitive Bridgestone’s, knowing this is a key element to his first F1 outing. With his F1 test only three weeks away, Rossi’s goal was to be more than ready to deliver the results expected of him.

“At this level of motorsport,” stated Rossi, “there is so much that goes into being able to find the maximum of the tire, as chances are you will only get one lap and one opportunity to string it all together. While many factors play a part in the ultimate lap, aside from race craft, I believe that fully understanding the tire is the most important aspect a driver must know. The Bridgestone this week gave me new meaning to the word ‘push’. I am just looking forward to being able to get into the BMW / Sauber and put all the key pieces together. This just further proves the fact that GP2 is really the best preparation any young driver can have before reaching F1.”

Most of the drivers at Paul Ricard experienced the difficulty of stringing a lap together at times due to traffic on the short test circuit, while optimizing the tire. In the highly competitive GP2 test, Rossi on Day 2 was just 4/10ths off the quickest time which placed him P10 in the morning, while 4/10ths placed him P14 in the afternoon, a very tight field indeed.

Rossi returned to Italy to continue his training regimen and final preparations for the F1 test. This test will be bittersweet as it will mark Alexander’s debut on the Formula 1 scene while being a sad departure of a fantastic manufacture from the sport.

“I know many of the drivers that will be at the Jerez official F1 test”, Rossi added. “This will be my first opportunity to introduce myself to Formula One. In motorsports an opportunity of this magnitude has far reaching potential and one I take very seriously. My goals for the test are to put in a fantastic performance while fully absorbing the whole experience. At the same time, however, I feel it is my duty to represent the BMW Sauber F1 team well at their last official test and I plan on delivering an excellent result, one which they can be proud of.”

Alexander Rossi will test for BMW-Sauber F1 Team, December 1 -3, Jerez, Spain.

GP2 Series rookie Will Bratt capped off this week’s official test outing at Paul Ricard in France with a superb front-running effort today, Thursday, 12th November – the Briton posting the fifth fastest time in the morning before improving to fourth quickest this afternoon.

Marking the last time category runners will be on track until the second race meeting of the 2009/2010 GP2 Asia series in early February, the Party Poker Racing-supported driver completed just shy of 200 laps over the course of the three-day test and made fantastic progress along the way.

Steering his Renault-powered Dallara to a quickest lap of 1m12.675 seconds this morning, just 0.159 seconds shy of the session’s best, the 21-year-old went on to lap with a fastest time of 1m12.835 seconds in the afternoon to conclude the final session of the year in fourth position.

Each time he was on track today, Will was always in the top cluster of pace-setting drivers. Despite not being able to piece together his fastest sector times in both sessions, which ultimately cost the Banbury racer a potential time-sheet topping best, his efforts were still incredibly impressive.

Will commented: “I’m pretty happy with how the Paul Ricard test has gone for us, it’s just a shame we weren’t able to hook the sectors up today as we should have been faster. Finishing in the top five this morning and fourth this afternoon is great but it could have been better still. Even so, we’ve made very good progress and it’s been a fantastic way to end a phenomenal year.”

The steps made by Will throughout this week, working closely with the PartyPokerRacing.com Scuderia Coloni engineers, have truly put the icing on the cake for 2009 – a memorable year in which the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC) Rising Star matched academic success, a degree in History from Oxford University, with multiple race wins and championship victory in Euroseries 3000.

With today’s test outing the final GP2 run of the year, Will now has a lengthy 12 week break from competitive action until the GP2 Asia Series resumes at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi on Friday, 5th February, and Saturday, 6th February 2010.

Photo by GP2 Media Service