Incredible weekend for André Herck’s DPR team, yesterday solidly in the points and today with both Michael and Ricci on the podium. Solid race from Valsecchi, now clearly in route to the GP2 Asia title.

Results:
1 – Davide Valsecchi – iSport – 21 laps 41′00″566
2 – Michael Herck – DPR – 1″969
3 – Giacomo Ricci – DPR – 4″227
4 – Sergio Perez – Addax – 11″618.
5 – Oliver Turvey – iSport – 12″235
6 – Max Chilton – Ocean – 19″619
7 – Jules Bianchi – ART – 20″018
8 – Charles Pic – Arden – 20″686
9 – Alexandre Rossi – Meritus – 26″380.
10 – Vlaimir Arabadzhiev – Rapax – 27″038
11 – Javier Villa – Arden – 27″400
12 – Marcus Ericsson – Super Nova – 28″307
13 – Dani Clos – Trident – 29″574
14 – Christian Vietoris – Dams – 30″993
15 – Daniel Zampieri – Rapax – 31″691
16 – Edoardo Piscopo – Dams – 32″213
17 – Luca Filippi – Meritus – 34″854
18 – Alberto Valerio – Coloni – 39″649
19 – Giedo Van Der Garde – Addax – 63″697
20 – Plamen Kralev – Trident – 67″219

Fastest lap: Davide Valsecchi 1′52″061

Retirements
Will Bratt
Fabio Leimer
Josef Kral
Sam Bird

With this win, Valsecchi is 19 points clear of iSport teammate Oliver Turvey, and 25 points ahead of Alexander Rossi.  Filippi, closest rival after the first race went home with zero points this weekend, after both mechanical problems and run-ins while battling his way up from a terrible qualifying session.    The race seems to be an iSport battle, ahead of the next race in Bahrain later this month.

Other relevant highlights include the continued terrible streak for Sam Bird in GP2.   After showing well in free practice and qualifying, Bird was once again unable to rack up any points.   His teammate Bianchi had a difficult sprint race, but showed pace and aggressiveness towards the end.

Turvey took a commanding win at Abu Dhabi, followed by Valsecchi, Bianchi, Villa, Ricci, Rossi, Herck and Chilton.

Great start from the iSport duo, taking the lead from Pic, who held on well for 3rd until his pitstop.  Terribly slow stop from Pic, very tentative reaching his crew, coming out 4th after Javi Villa.  Bianchi took Villa and kept 3rd for the rest of the race.  Wonderful fight between Van der Garde and Rossi, with clean racing and strong challenges from the future GP3 racer, with the position finally taken by the American (more…)

Arden’s Charles Pic (ex-RDD driver) took a suprise pole today at Abu Dhabi, in qualifying for tomorrow’s feature race.  Reports indicate that Luca Filippi was on track to be on top and repeat his free practice pole, but his Meritus Dallara stopped on track during the session.  Davide Valsecchi was able to stay up in the timesheets, topped only by Pic and team mate Oliver Turvey.  Rookie Jules Bianchi closes out the second row, while his ART team mate was not able to stay within the top five, finishing 6th. (more…)

Italiaracing has been kind enough to post the times from the free practice today at AD.  Live timing was down at the GP2 site.. let’s hope it works for qualifying.

1 – Luca Filippi – Meritus – 1′54″146 – 11
2 – Davide Valsecchi – iSport – 1′54″431 – 10
3 – Sam Bird – ART – 1′54″775 – 10
4 – Charles Pic – Arden – 1′54″803 – 14
5 – Sergio Perez – Addax – 1′54″824 – 14 (more…)

Confirmed grid for this weekend’s Abu Dhabi race:

With the announcement of 3 Gravity drivers signing GP2 contracts in one day, the management company led by Gerard Lopez and Genii Capital is making lots of noise in the top ranks of the racing world.

Jerome D’Ambrosio, long-time GP2 veteran, and Ho-Pin Tung, failed GP2 grad, will be racing with the French DAMS team in what can truly be considered the first F1 junior team since the F3000 era.  Additionally, F3 top-runner Christian Vietoris has signed to race in one of the highly-coveted seats at Racing Engineering.  One seat left, presumably for Dani Clos, assuming he can come up with the cash to honor his budget. (more…)

With 11 spots still to fill in the 2010 GP2 grid, maybe we can have a bit of fun playing with the silly season rumors.

First, 2009 GP2 drivers still unsigned and may still be running GP2 next year:

• Alvaro Parente
• Luiz Razia
• Luca Filippi
• Edoardo Mortara
• Roldán Rodríguez
• Dani Clos (close to honoring his 2-year contract with Racing Eng…enough budget?)
• Diego Nunes
• Jerome D’Ambrosio (is Gravity over?)
• Johnny Cecotto

Second, the new guys in GP2

• Christian Vietoris (same Gravity question…)
• James Jakes (finally?)
• Bertrand Baguette
• Other WSR grads?
• All the lesser known guys who tested… who will put together the money?

The race is on for the 2 Racing Engineering seats, though I hear 1 is pretty much a done deal with Clos.  After that… a run for the “GP2 survivors” and the “GP2 backmarkers”.

A couple months ago I compared Autosport’s Top-10 list with mine.  Now we can compare both to the one just published by Italiaracing.

Some agreement on the top drivers with Italiaracing, though I think they have ranked Parente a bit too low and Maldonado a bit too high.  Mortara makes their list, surely some national bias there!   Also, they seem to think D’Ambrosio had a crappy 2009 season… not sure Autosport and I agree on that one.

With Super Nova, Barwa, ART, Ocean and iSport now showing a “no vacancy” sign, the rush is on to fill up the spots remaining in the top teams in GP2 for 2010.

Charles Pic, signing for Arden yesterday, has moved early in this pre-season rush towards Horner’s team, Racing Engineering and DAMS – the “good” teams remaining with available rides for this season.  By the way, Italiaracing reports that Pic, as well as Sorensen and Valsecchi, is now RDD-less as the new Renault team led by Genii Capital has shut down the junior driver operations.

The next couple of weeks will be interesting, and I would love to see the emails coming into Alfonso de Orleans’ inbox…. as most drivers will be keen to get into his cars.

Sorry for the delay getting back on the blog…

Apart from the wonderful images of Michael Schumacher in a GP2 development car at Jerez, the new year has brought us the confirmation of David Sears’ 2 drivers for 2010.   Nice rookie lineup for Super Nova, especially when considering Ericsson is probably one of the favorites for 2010 along with Bianchi. Perez and Giedo.

Not that Super Nova is not a great team with a solid racing history, but I can’t say it doesn’t surprise me to see Marcus in this car.  Given that Super Nova has failed to put in a stellar season yet in GP2 – 6 total wins since 2005 and half of them from 1 driver (Adam Carroll) – it is a risky bet from Ericsson and his backers, to say the least.

Other options?  Only Racing Engineering was still vacant, so I assume Marcus and his team made a controlled decision.   Question then is, why did they take so long?  Maybe some of you Swedish readers can give us some insight on that one…  All in all, Ericsson will be contending for wins in 2010.