With today’s confirmation of Kam Kobayashi by Sauber-Ferrari, we’re up to 54% of the grid coming from GP2/F3000:

(a) Confirmed (14/26 seats are GP2/F3000 = 54%) … with 7 seats still pending confirmation

1. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
3. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
4. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes GP)
5. Mark Webber (Red Bull)
6. Rubens Barrichello (Williams)
7. Nico Hulkenberg (Williams)
8. Vitatonio Liuzzi (Force India)
9. Sebastien Buemi (STR)
10. Bruno Senna (Campos)
11. Timo Glock (Manor GP)
12. Lucas Di Grassi (Manor GP)
13. Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus)
14. Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber)

(b) Rumored – 5 more GP2/F3000 drivers

1. Nick Heidfeld (Sauber – Mercedes GP)
2. Vitaly Petrov (Campos – Sauber)
3. Pastor Maldonado (Campos)
4. Roldan Rodriguez (USF1)
5. José María Lopez (USF1)

The success of the category and concept is incontestable.    Here, I take my hat off to the GP2 organization…. even Mr. Michel himself.

The GP2 Series has confirmed via twitter that Tiago Monteiro’s Ocean team has signed IFM champ Fabio Leimer and Briton Max Chilton for the 2010 season. (more…)

With this mornings announcement of both Alvaro Parente and Luiz Razia as Manor GP’s test drivers for 2010 season, it seems certain that both of them will be contesting the GP2 series next season.  Long gone are the days that an F1 tester had a full-time job, even less in a team with a declared budget of €45 million for next year. (more…)

Bruno Michel’s comments to Autosport this past weekend have struck me as very negative for the category.

First, he unilaterally declares that Durango will not be in GP2 for 2010.  We all know Pinton’s team has serious problems, but I would assume an official communication from him or GP2 should be the one to inform us of their absence next season. (more…)

Last season, the GP2 drivers’ market was held up until February mainly in expectation of Bruno Senna’s decision to return or not to the Series.  Once he declared his intention to stay out, announcements arrived one after the other:  Nunes, van der Garde, Perez, Di Grassi, Grosjean, Razia…. (more…)

The Barwa Addax team has closed its very strong 2010 lineup with the confirmation of Sergio Perez, who with Giedo van der Garde will form a formidable duo for next year’s GP2 season.

With Giedo and Sergio, Team Principal Alejandro Agag will have 2 of the top rookies of the 2009 season, who will no doubt be accompanied with some decent cash to back their efforts.  Sergio will continue with his Telmex cash up front, while I assume Giedo will still have some McGregor fashion money behind him (some of you may have better info than me… Haho?).

Though the Bianchi-Bird is a good rookie combo, the Perez-van der Garde team definitely puts on track a stronger team effort.  We await confirmations from the other top teams.  Who will partner Turvey at iSport (Valsecchi or Ericsson) and who will drive the Racing Engineering cars (Rodríguez, d’Ambrosio)?

Not a wonderful sample of GP2 drivers at this week’s F1 young driver test.

In total, 2 drivers from GP2’s past (Soucek, Conway), 2 drivers from the 2009 season (Di Grassi, Hulkenberg) and 3 future GP2 drivers (Bianchi, Ericsson, Turvey). (more…)

Just this week, Autosport magazine published its top 10 GP2 drivers of 2009, along with a very lame season summary.  Curious how someone can put in the effort to write about the GP2 races this season and come up so short…

Anyway, here are the Autsport and GP2 insider top 10 lists compared.  A couple notable differences, mainly the inclusion of Perez and higher rankings for Parente and Giedo:

In my opinion, Jerome D’Ambrosio, who had a solid start to the season, was not as strong throughout the year as Giedo, Alvaro and Luca.  Perez was inconsistent, but a clear top driver for the year.  For me a close call between Maldonado and Rigon, only to favor the ART driver due to his race wins.  Pastor’s season was horrible, while Rigon drew maximum advantage from his limited seat time.  Another notable for me is Johnny Cecotto, though his 2009 presence was not enough to have a decent “sample” of his GP2 driving. Let’s see what he does in 2010.

Hello all…. I have been hard at work on personal projects, but haven’t forgotten the blog.  Problem is, everything is quiet on the GP2 front – probably until early next year.  I will keep my eyes and ears open for any news….

If I’m not mistaken, only Giorgio Pantano, Antonio Pizzonia and Gianmaria Bruni have “stepped down ” from F1 to race in GP2.

My question here is:  though Pantano did not officially complete a full season in 2004 with Jordan, Bruni did complete a full season that same year with Minardi.  Does anyone know why that exception was granted to Bruni?  Was there a special loophole that Coloni took advantage of to put Gianmaria in one of their cars in 2005?

Not that he would want to, but we all think that Kimi could not race in GP2 because of the current series regulations.   But, now that he has announced a sabbatical from F1 for 2010, wouldn’t it be awesome to see him battling it out with the younger guys in the GP2 Dallaras?