Gp2 Series

Information about Gp2 Series

GP2 Series

Category	Single seaters
Country or region	Europe
Inaugural season
Drivers	30 (2006)
Teams	13 (2006)
Constructors	Dallara
Engine suppliers	Renault
Drivers' champion	Timo Glock
Teams' champion	iSport International
Official website	gp2series.com

For the article about the Asian version of the GP2 series, see GP2 Asia Series

The GP2 Series, GP2 for short, is a form of motor racing introduced in 2005 following the discontinuation of the long-term Formula One 'feeder' sport, Formula 3000. The format was conceived by Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore.^[1]

Designed to make racing affordable for the teams and to make it the perfect training ground for life in Formula One, GP2 has made it mandatory for all of the teams to use the same chassis, engine and tyre supplier so that true driver ability is reflected.

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.

Chassis: The 2006 specification GP2 Car has been designed by Dallara Automobili. The 2006 GP2 car features a biplane rear wing, with the triplane rear wing used in 2005 only to be used at the Monaco race. The front upper and lower wishbones have been reinforced, as have the front and rear suspension uprights.

Engine: The 4 litre V8 engine features internal, cartographic and software upgrades designed to improve performance and fuel consumption. The engine produces about 580 horsepower (432.5 kW).

Gearbox: The 2006 gearbox has been manufactured by GearTek and features an 8-position barrel with ratchet body and software upgrades as well as a new transverse shafts fixing system designed to facilitate improved gear selection.

Tyres: Bridgestone is the single tyre supplier for the GP2 Racing Series. Grooved dry tyres were used when the series started in 2005, regulation changed in 2006 in favour of slick tyres. Bridgestone is supplying three slick tyre compounds for racing on dry (soft, medium and hard), as well as a wet specification. The choice of tyre being raced is made jointly by the manufacturer and the GP2 Series organizers prior to each event.

Other parts: Brembo is supplying a new development of monobloc brake calipers and disc bells, which are exclusive to GP2. The car also features internal cooling upgrades, a new water radiator, radiator duct, oil/water heat exchanger, modified oil degazer, new oil and water pipes and new heat exchanger fixing brackets.

Performance: According to research and pre-season stability tests, the 2005 model can go 0 to 200 km/h in 6.70 seconds. The car has a top speed of 320 km/h meaning that it is the fastest single seater racing car bar Formula One, Champ Car and Indy Racing League models. The cars are predicted to be reliable and are within less than ten seconds per lap of the typical Formula One car.

Race weekend

On Friday they have a 30-minute free 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 kilometres.

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

On Sunday (except Monaco) there is a sprint race of 120 kilometres. 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

Pole for Saturday races: 2 points
Saturday races: 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points for top 8 finishers
Sunday races: 6-5-4-3-2-1 points for top 6 finishers
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 to be eligible to claim the fastest lap.

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 feat has only been achieved once in GP2 Racing's short history, by Brazilian Nelson Angelo Piquet. He scored the maximum 20 points in the 9th round of the 2006 season in Hungary.

Champions

Year	Driver Champion	Team Champion
2005	Nico Rosberg	ART Grand Prix
2006	Lewis Hamilton	ART Grand Prix
2007	Timo Glock	iSport International

Seasons

2005

Main article: 2005 GP2 Series season

The 2005 Season was the first of the series, it succeeding the now defunct Formula 3000 championship. Arden International won the last F3000 titles, thus starting as one of the favourites.

The 2005 season began on April 23, 2005 on the weekend of the San Marino Grand Prix at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. In the pre-season test to decide the inaugural season's car numbers, the iSport International and HiTech Racing teams showed a competitive edge. The latter team is largely funded by the former Formula One world champion Nelson Piquet in order to aid his son's route to the premier Formula sport.

The championship lasted 23 rounds, two races occurring a weekend with the exception of a single race in Monaco. It was won by German Nico Rosberg, who was subsequently hired by the WilliamsF1 Team.

2006

Main article: 2006 GP2 Series season

The 2006 Season was the second of the series. After championship holder Nico Rosberg's move to the WilliamsF1 team, and runner-up Heikki Kovalainen's move to be reserve driver at Renault F1, Nelson Piquet Jr. in the Piquet Sports car was installed as the early title favourite, though the ART Grand Prix cars of Alexandre Prémat and Lewis Hamilton also had fairly short odds, given ART were reigning champions.

For the first time, the season began on a calendar separate to the 2006 Formula One calendar, starting out at the Circuit de Valencia, in Valencia, Spain on April 8 2006, with Piquet Jr. the first victor.

Piquet raced into an early lead, before Lewis Hamilton came back into the foray. A dominant run by the Briton took him into the championship lead, before the balance came back into Piquet Jr.'s favour.

After an exciting championship battle lasting 20 races, Hamilton claimed the title in the penultimate race, at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, in Monza, Italy, and celebrated with a second place in the 21st and final round.

2007

Main article: 2007 GP2 Series season

The 2007 GP2 Series season began on 13 April at the Bahrain International Circuit, and completed on 30 September at the Circuit de Valencia. Eventual champion Timo Glock was a driving force throughout the series, but came under stiff competition from Lucas di Grassi in the closing stages- however, with a convincing win at the last race in Valencia, Glock sealed the championship.

Television rights

The television rights are held by the Formula One Management, which also manages the rights to Formula One. GP2 currently Broadcasts on British Eurosport or Eurosport International. In the UK race highlights are shown a week after the event on one of the ITV network channels The races are also broadcast in Canada and USA on the SPEED Channel before the Formula One races.

In Brazil, it's broascasted by Cable TV channel SportTV.

References

1. ^ Spurgeon, Brad. "Formula One experiments with its minor league", The International Herald Tribune, 2005-06-01, p. 22. Retrieved on 2007-01-31.

External links

The official GP2 Series website
The official blog of team Minardi Piquet
GPUpdate.net GP2 news, results, photos and more

Open-wheel car (Often single-seater car, in UK English) describes cars with the wheels outside the car's main body. In the majority of cases they have only one seat.
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Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea,
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Dallara Automobili is a chassis manufacturer for various motor racing series, being most notable for its near-monopoly in Formula 3 since 1993. Dallara also is the chassis used by almost all teams in the Indy Racing League and all teams of GP2 Series.
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Renault

Public (Euronext: RNO )
Founded February 25 1899
Headquarters Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Key people Carlos Ghosn, President & CEO
Industry Automotive
Products Automobiles
Trucks and buses
Revenue €41.528 billion (2006) -0.
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Formula One World Championship career
Active years 2004
Teams Jordan
Races 4
Championships 0
Wins 0
Podium finishes 0
Career points 2
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
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iSport International is a British motor racing team that competes in formula single-seaters in Europe. It was founded in 2005.

Overview

The team is comprised of several former members of the Petrobras Junior F3000 team who took Bruno Junqueira to his Formula 3000
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Category Formula cars
Country or region Asia
Inaugural season
Drivers TBC (2008)
Teams TBC (2008)
Constructors 1 (2008)
Engine suppliers 1 (2008)
Drivers' champion N/A
Teams' champion N/A

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20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
1970s 1980s 1990s - 2000s - 2010s 2020s 2030s
2002 2003 2004 - 2005 - 2006 2007 2008

2005 by topic:
News by month
Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
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Category Single seaters
Country or region International
Inaugural season 1950^[1]
Drivers 22
Teams 11
Engine suppliers 6
Drivers' champion Fernando Alonso
Official website formula1.
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Formula 3000 was a type of formula racing, active from 1985 to 2004. It was replaced by the GP2 Series in 2005.

In 1985, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) created the Formula 3000 International Championship (initially entitled the European Formula 3000
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Bernard Charles "Bernie" Ecclestone (born October 28 1930 near Bungay, Suffolk, England) is the president and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration, and owns a stake in Alpha Prema, the parent company of the Formula One Group of companies.
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Flavio Briatore (born April 12, 1950) is an Italian businessman and managing director of the Renault Formula One team.

Early life and Benetton career

Briatore was born in Verzuolo near Cuneo, Italy, in the Maritime Alps, from a family of elementary school teachers.
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Bridgestone Corporation

Public (TYO: 5108 )
Founded 1931 by Shojiro Ishibashi
Headquarters Tokyo , Japan

Key people Chairman of the Board, CEO and President, Shoshi Arakawa
Industry Manufacturing
Products Motor Vehicle Tyres
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V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders. In its simplest form it is basically two straight-4 engines sharing a common crankshaft. However, this simple configuration has the same secondary dynamic imbalance as two straight-4s, resulting in annoying vibrations in
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range of input/output ratios in addition to its infinite number of possible ratios; this qualification for the IVT implies that its range of ratios includes a zero output/input ratio that can be continuously approached from a defined 'higher' ratio.
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Tyre may refer to:

Tire, the outer part of a wheel. Tyre is the British spelling.

Locations

Tyre, Lebanon, the Phoenician city
Tyre, New York, a town in the United States
Tyre, Michigan, a hamlet in the United States

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20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
1970s 1980s 1990s - 2000s - 2010s 2020s 2030s
2003 2004 2005 - 2006 - 2007 2008 2009

2006 by topic:
News by month
Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
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slick tire (also known as a "racing slick") is a type of tire that has no tread pattern, used mostly in auto racing. By eliminating any grooves cut into the tread, such tires provide the largest possible contact patch to the road, and maximize traction for any given tire dimension.
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Rain tyres or Wet tyres are special tyres used in motor sport in wet weather as opposed to a slick tyre used in dry conditions. They are very similar in many ways to the tyres found on normal road cars.
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brake is a device for slowing or stopping the motion of a machine or vehicle, or alternatively a device to restrain it from starting to move again. The kinetic energy lost by the moving part is usually translated to heat by friction.
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Category Open wheel racing
Country or region International
Inaugural season See text
Drivers 17^[1]
Teams 9<ref name="entrylist2007" />
Constructors Panoz
Engine suppliers Cosworth

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Sport governing body

Category Open wheel cars
Area of jurisdiction United States
Japan
Formation date 1996
Headquarters Indianapolis, Indiana
President Tony George
Chairman
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Motto
Ordem e Progresso (Portuguese)
"Order and Progress"
Anthem
Hino Nacional Brasileiro
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Nelson Angelo Piquet (born July 25 1985, Heidelberg, Germany), also known as Nelson Piquet Junior or Nelsinho Piquet, is a Brazilian race car driver. He is the son of three-time Formula One world champion Nelson Piquet, one of Brazil's all-time most successful F1
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The 2006 GP2 Series season began at Valencia, Spain on April 8, 2006 and ended in Monza, Italy on September 10, 2006. The season was won by Briton Lewis Hamilton, with Brazilian Nelson Angelo Piquet finishing second.
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