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In Depth: Formula One Jerez Test Preview & Provisional Driver Roster
The Formula One series returns to the track this week with testing from the Jerez Circuit in Spain!
Courtesy of Bridgestone
By Rick Volman
And so the chill of winter is upon us racing fans.
With the all-but-official death of A1GP and a seriously downsized GP2 Asia campaign the extravaganza of year-long racing days appears to be over, at least for the time being.
We’re back to the days of short-lived junior formula winter series races and Formula 1 post and pre season test sessions to provide that Methadone of the mind which gives us racing junkies our fix to tide us over until March when we will greet the sun in Bahrain to begin another year of Formula 1 racing.
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Now that the usual spree of GP2 post season tests have wrapped, our attention can focus on the F1 sessions that will run from Dec. 1 to Dec. 3 at Jerez. Only this season there’s a twist in the plot.
Under the FIA’s tighter testing regulations, the usual array of F1 drivers we saw the previous season are barred from taking part in testing until the new year. As such, we initially anticipated a ho-hum series of public relations runs where the teams paid out their junior racer prizes, took a look at some of the kids in their driver development programs and gave the odd tester something more meaty than running in a straight line to see how quickly the car accelerates and then discover how well the brakes work.
All of those elements will be in play at Jerez, but as usual in Formula 1 the twisted plot line took a turn to the rather more interesting side as far as most railbirds are concerned.
With their usual spirit-of-the-rules bending bravado one of F1 teams snuck one their 2010 pilots into the session, there may be a job open for one tester with Force India and there’s a bit of rumor mill fodder for those who enjoy kicking around some silly season scenarios.
There’s also couple of wildcards thrown into the works and some interesting comparisons might be drawn in respect to the kids in the driver development programs who are getting a long hard look - and some serious schooling - as to their worthiness as potential F1 drivers at some point down the road.
The test session sneaks will be Williams who will bring their 2010 rookie Nico Hulkenberg to the track to run their 2009 racer. The Mighty Hulk - as we like to call him - slides into the seat by virtue of the fact he is under the two F1 races maximum stipulated by the FIA’s rules.
We’ve been agog with the Hulk since he spanked the field in A1GP in 2006 and his follow up championships in Formula 3 Euroseries in 2008 and GP2 this past season have done nothing to dissuade us as to his ability. Our only question is whether Williams can build a car to match the talent this kid has displayed.
Renault will bring a trio of testers, a couple of whom will be interesting yardsticks to measure up against the Hulk.
The French team will start out with newly minted World Series by Renault champion Bertand Bagutte, then drop journeyman racer Ho Pin Tung into the seat for the second day before closing out with GP2 veteran Lucas di Grassi.
Baguette’s win in the World Series by Renault capped a three-year campaign in Renault’s top junior formula, a series which brought us such stars as Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel. The 23-year-old Belgian also has two seasons in Formula Renault Eurocup and took third in Belgian Formula Renault in 2004.
di Grassi - a former Renault tester - has been a top three finisher in three of his four years in GP2 and won the Grand Prix of Macau in 2005. The Grand Prix of Macau is the super bowl of Formula 3 and includes race winners Aryton Senna, Michael Schumacher, David Brabham, David Coulthard, Takuma Sato, Ralf Schumacher and Ralph Firman among an army of other notables.
So, we have a run off of sorts between the two top junior feeder series to Formula 1 as both 2009 series champions will take to the track. Add the winner of the Formula 2 championship and we have a bit of a three-way fight for bragging rights for best feeder series to F1.
The Formula 2 addition comes in the form of series champion Andy Soucek, who will test for Williams as a reward for winning the F2 championship. The 24-year-old racer also campaigned in GP2, Superleague and the World Series by Renault since winning the Spanish Formula 3 championship in 2005.
Now this group would be interesting enough, however to add a little spice to the field there are a handful of racers who have been thrown into the mix whom you would not normally expect to be on the F1 radar.
The most obvious of these wildcard racers come in the form of Force India’s choice of Paul di Resta and J.R. Hildebrand, both of whom will be vying for a test/reserve driver role with the team.
Hildebrand, another racer we’ve been impressed with, will be celebrating his 22nd birthday during the session and is coming off a championship season in Indy Lights. He also packs championship hardware from his record-setting 2006 campaign in the Cooper Tire/Zetech Formula Ford 2000 series and his 2004 effort in Formula Russell, a championship also won by Scott Speed in 2001. In between Hildebrand ran impressive campaigns in Pacific Formula Ford 2000, Formula Atlantic and A1GP.
di Resta also has an American connection in that he is a cousin of current Indycar champion Dario Franchitti. di Resta took the F3 Euroseries championship in 2006 and parleyed that success into a three-year stint in the tin-topped DTM series, where he’s been a front runner since he arrived in 2007. The 23-year-old racer cut his teeth in Formula Renault UK in 2003 and won the Masters of Formula 3 race at Zandvoort in 2006.
Not to be outdone Braun/Mercedes scheduled Indycar racer Mike Conway and Japanese Formula 3 champion Marcus Ericsson to run with them. This one is very interesting in that the Mercedes team still has a seat open and should the team be unsuccessful in wooing a certain star racer out of retirement either one of these two just might end up as a Plan B driver to partner Nico Rosberg at the F1 championship squad.
For Conway this marks a return of sorts to the F1 circus as he campaigned in GP2 in 2007 and 2008 and was a tester for Honda in 2008. He scored mid-pack results with mid-pack teams in GP2, but did have a race win and a couple of podium finishes to show for his effort. His Indycar campaign last season saw him end up 17th and he nabbed a podium finish while running with an also ran team.
He was once regarded as an up and comer after his championship season in British F3 in 2006 and took home the big trophy from the Grand Prix of Macau that year. He also holds championship hardware from his 2004 season in British Formula Renault.
Ericsson’s brief three-year racing career started with a championship run in Formula BMW UK in 2007 to go along with this past season’s run to glory in Japanese F3. He’s also run in British F3 and is currently racing in GP2 Asia.
Renault’s day two tester, Ho Pin Tung, will also make a return of sorts to the F1 paddock. He tested for Williams in 2003, back in the days when he was a fresh-faced 20-year-old coming straight off his Formula BMW Asia championship.
Tung recently wrapped a stint of races in Superleague with a podium finish for Athletico Madrid and in between he spent a couple of years in GP2, a couple of years in A1GP, a winter in GP2 Asia, and took the championship in German Formula 3 which capped a three year stint in that series.
Red Bull and Torro Rosso continue to work the fertile ground of their driver development program with a trio of kids split across the two teams.
The senior Red Bull team will test Aussie Daniel Ricciardo who slides into the car after winning the championship in Formula 3 UK, a series won in 2008 by Torro Rosso’s Jamie Alguersuari. Ricciardo also holds championship hardware from his 2008 campaign in Formula Renault Western European Challenge and from his second place finish in Formula Renault Eurocup in 2008. He ran fifth in the Formula BMW World Final in 2006 after coming home third in Formula BMW Asia that season.
Toro Rosso will bring an interesting pair when the Jerez round opens. The official Red Bull Junior team opted to bring Brendon Hartley and Mirko Bortolotti for this session. Toro Rosso might have a seat open for next season - should Alguersuari not be signed for 2010 - and the silly season tongues could wag about either one of these two if they do well in the session.
Bortolotti pinged everybody’s radar in 2008 when he ran away with the Italian F3 championship and he followed up that campaign with a solid fourth place finish in Formula 2 this past season. He also ran second in Formula Azzurra in 2006.
Kiwi Hartley holds a championship from Formula Renault Eurocup in 2007. He ran third in Formula 3 UK in 2008, with a podium finish at the Grand Prix of Macau and was a reserve driver for A1GP New Zealand last winter. He spent his 2009 campaign running between F3 Euroseries and the World Series by Renault.
BMW may be gone from the Formula 1 grid in 2010, but they will appear at Jerez to pay off a couple of prize winning junior series champions of their own.
American racer Alexander Rossi will get his first taste of an F1 car courtesy of his 2008 win in the Formula BMW World Final and his run as the Formula BMW Americas champion. Last season he took rookie honors in International Formula Master and is racing in GP2 Asia with Piquet GP.
BMW’s other championship runner will be Mexican Esteban Gitierrez who took the Formula BMW Europe title in 2008 after finishing as runner up in the 2007 Formula BMW Americas series. Gitierrez spent the 2009 season with ART Grand Prix in F3 Euro finishing ninth in points.
McLaren also has one young racer in the works with their selection of Oliver Turvey. The 22-year-old racer draws into the test by virtue of winning the McLaren/British Racing Drivers Club young driver award in 2008 after running second in Formula 3 UK despite missing the first third of the schedule.
He followed up that campaign with a fourth overall standing in the World Series by Renault and is currently running in GP2 Asia. Turvey’s career took some time to gain traction as he entered the sport in 2003 taking fourth in Formula Zip. He did a three-year stint in Formula BMW UK, capping that run with a second-place showing in 2006. He spent 2007 bouncing from Formula Renault Eurocup to F3 Asia Pacific to Formula Renault Italy with a couple of sportscar runs tossed in between.
Ferrari, which is rumored to be in the throws of putting together its own young drivers program, will bring four youngsters to the track. The first three, Daniel Zampieri, Marco Zipoli and Pablo Sanchez-Lopes, finished in that order atop the Italian Formula 3 championship for 2009.
The fourth driver, a late addition to the Prancing Pony’s test stable, caused us to tweak an eyebrow as they recently added F3 Euroseries champion Jules Bianchi.
Bianchi handily won the series in 2009 winning eight of the 20 races in F3 Euro, a series won by racers such as Lewis Hamilton, Romain Grosjean and Ryan Briscoe. The 20-year-old Frenchman is currently racing in GP2 Asia with powerhouse ART Grand Prix and started his career with a bang winning the French Formula Renault championship in 2007.
Ferrari’s other three testers are young almost to a fault. Being teenagers, their racing resumes aren’t deep and given that they spent those years running against far more developed racers. they’ve hardly wrapped themselves in glory. But then nobody knew who Kimi Riakkonen was when Peter Sauber plucked the Flying Finn out of Formula Renault UK back in 2001.
Zampieri is currently in GP2 Asia with Piquet GP, but prior to winning the Italian F3 crown the 19-year-old racer spent three unremarkable seasons running in both Formula Renault Eurocup and Italian Formula Renault.
Zipoli, another 19-year-old, has basically three seasons of racing under his belt, starting with a runner up finish in Formula Azzurra and two years in Italian F3, capped with his runner up standing in 2009.
The third 19-year-old racer in the crew is well seasoned veteran by comparison. Mexican Pablo Sanchez-Lopes started racing at the age of 14 running in America’s Skip Barber regional and national championships, then moved over to Formula Renault Argentina before heading off the Europe to run in Formula Renault Eurocup, Italian Formula 3, International Formula Master and the World Series by Renault. His career high water mark came in 2007 when he took third in both International Formula Master and Italian Formula 3.
Rumors also continue to swirl around Ferrari with respect to motorcycle racing champion Valentino Rossi who is still on the team’s radar and is rumored to be slated for a January test. Rossi has tested with Ferrari off and on since 2004, but continually opts to pile up championship after championship in MotoGP.
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| Team | Day One | Day Two | Day Three
| | Sauber-BMW | Alexander Rossi | Esteban Gutierrez | Not Confirmed
| | Brawn GP | Mike Conway(am) | - | -
| | Brawn GP | Marcus Ericsson(pm) | - | -
| | Brawn GP | - | Mike Conway(am) | -
| | Brawn GP | - | Marcus Ericsson(pm) | -
| | Brawn GP | - | - | Mike Conway(am)
| | Brawn GP | - | - | Marcus Ericsson(pm)
| | Ferrari | Jules Bianchi | Jules Bianchi | Daniel Zampieri
| | Ferrari | - | - | Marco Zipoli
| | Ferrari | - | - | Pablo Sánchez López
| | Force India | J.R. Hildebrand(am) | - | -
| | Force India | Paul Di Resta(pm) | - | -
| | Force India | - | Paul Di Resta(am) | -
| | Force India | - | J.R. Hildebrand(pm) | -
| | Force India | - | - | Paul Di Resta(am)
| | Force India | - | - | J.R. Hildebrand(pm)
| | McLaren | Not Confirmed | Not Confirmed | Not Confirmed
| | Red Bull | Daniel Ricciardo | Daniel Ricciardo | Daniel Ricciardo
| | Renault | Bertrand Baguette | Luca Di Grassi | Luca Di Grassi
| | Toro Rosso | Brendon Hartley | Mirko Bortolotti | Mirko Bortolotti
| | Williams | Andy Soucek | Nico Hulkenberg | Nico Hulkenberg |
PaddockTalk Perspective
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