End of GP2 Asia Series

[Londoner]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2011/07/12/gp2-drop-asia-series-2012/

I don't think it's going to be much missed.

[DanielPT]

Agreed. It was already a joke this year with only 4 races split in 2 weekends due to the Bahrain debacle... Besides, the original idea never really took off, since it was meant to promote Asian young drivers... It only good thing was Kamui Kobayashi winning it once!

[Ed24]

Hopefully they can actually spread GP2 worldwide then -it would be great to see races in Australia and Brazil for example.

Maybe run a wildcard car for appopriate local entrants to have a go.

[FullMetalJack]

Meh, the GP2 Asia Series was never relevant anyway.

[dr-baker]

Besides, the original idea never really took off, since it was meant to promote Asian young drivers...

I thought it was meant to be an A1GP rival... What with them both running over the winter months and both containing Asian rounds...

[F1000X]

Agreed. It was already a joke this year with only 4 races split in 2 weekends due to the Bahrain debacle... Besides, the original idea never really took off, since it was meant to promote Asian young drivers... It only good thing was Kamui Kobayashi winning it once!

I'd go a step further and say it was always a joke. What makes sense about creating another GP2 championship for the eastern hemisphere? Obviously the cost gap to run a GP2 season and a Formula 3 season is immense. And the series provided an avenue for virtually nobody who wasn't already there. The only local team to compete in the series was Team Meritus and despite Luca Fillipi's brilliance in 2009 they were STILL beaten to 3rd in the teams championship by DPR.

If you want to compete in single seater racing, you move to Europe, which Kamui Kobayashi had already done years before GP2 Asia existed. If you can't make it in Europe, you're not going to be a grand prix driver. Your only real alternative to relocation that's in Asia is Formula Nippon, where you're still going to end up competing against superior international drivers.

[DanielPT]

Besides, the original idea never really took off, since it was meant to promote Asian young drivers...

I thought it was meant to be an A1GP rival... What with them both running over the winter months and both containing Asian rounds...

That too. But implicitly, of course...

[Aerospeed]

That's what happens when you include Imola in your Asia league. Good thing too, I hope GP2 does expand to North America...

[beetleman64]

Seems sensible to merge the two, since all of the teams and most of the drivers competed in both. Hopefully we'll now see more Asian rounds at places like Suzuka because that would really test the young drivers and see who's best (although Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi will testify that success in GP2 equals nothing in F1)!

[Captain Hammer]

Hopefully they can actually spread GP2 worldwide then -it would be great to see races in Australia and Brazil for example.

That's the plan. The trick is to get enough events to justify the merger, but not so many that the series could overshadow Formula 1 if one team in Formula 1 dominates and/or the rules don't work.

Meh, the GP2 Asia Series was never relevant anyway.

Actually, it was. The idea behind it was to find talent outside the traditional motorsport nations.

[Aerospeed]

Seems sensible to merge the two, since all of the teams and most of the drivers competed in both. Hopefully we'll now see more Asian rounds at places like Suzuka because that would really test the young drivers and see who's best (although Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi will testify that success in GP2 equals nothing in F1)!

Uhh... he's already unrejectified himself, isn't that a successful moment? (Quoting Jamie and Enoch [Don't know who], he has X-Factor oozing all over him )

[Jeroen Krautmeir]

Seems sensible to merge the two, since all of the teams and most of the drivers competed in both. Hopefully we'll now see more Asian rounds at places like Suzuka because that would really test the young drivers and see who's best (although Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi will testify that success in GP2 equals nothing in F1)!

Uhh... he's already unrejectified himself, isn't that a successful moment? (Quoting Jamie and Enoch [Don't know who], he has X-Factor oozing all over him )

The point here is that Kamui was a nobody in GP2, but his F1 results say otherwise. RMMMMMMNNNNNNNN is the opposite (although in fairness everything was against him).

[mario]

Hopefully they can actually spread GP2 worldwide then -it would be great to see races in Australia and Brazil for example.

That's the plan. The trick is to get enough events to justify the merger, but not so many that the series could overshadow Formula 1 if one team in Formula 1 dominates and/or the rules don't work.

Meh, the GP2 Asia Series was never relevant anyway.

Actually, it was. The idea behind it was to find talent outside the traditional motorsport nations.

It was certainly a laudable idea to use the Asian series as a testing ground for promising drivers outside of the traditional motorsport arenas of Europe or the Americas, with the original idea that the teams would have to offer a seat to at least one driver outside of those two national blocks.

The problem is, the teams were allowed to circumvent the system right from the start - even back in 2008, four of the teams were allowed to run two drivers from Europe or the Americas (even though it did prevent them from scoring points for the second driver), so, with only a couple of regional teams taking up a place, all that was happening was that the teams from the European Series saw it as a way of giving their drivers more seat time.
Under that system, it was always going to be viewed as a poor relation to the main GP2 Series - especially since the choice of venues was not always great. OK, I can understand going to Dubai, Bahrain, Malaysia and China, presumably as support races for Formula 1, but why did they not attempt to, say, have a race at Suzuka or Fuji? Both tracks are F1 Grade venues, they could have driven at both venues as support races to F1, and with several Japanese drivers competing within the Asian Series, it would have made sense to try to tap into the Japanese market. Or why not try piggybacking off the support for the F1 night race in Singapore?

In the end, I guess that merging the Asian Series with the main Series is the most sensible option - after all, the teams are exactly the same, and 85% of the drivers in the Asian Series were already competing in the main GP2 Series, so why both duplicating everything? Having one unified competition that can compete across multiple regions makes much more sense, and is probably going to be more financially viable in the long term anyway.

[Waris]

It's interesting for me to read stuff like this, since I was working on this fantasy vision of motorsport in the years to come (inspired by the ideas for the 'world engine'), in which for example GP2 And GP2 Asia, ALMS+LMS etc. merged, and now it seems like they're doing this in real life...

[dnhrudi]

If GP2 goes international it will become unsustainable. This is a series in which mostly the drivers find the budget. Who is gonna find 3 million plus plus a year to enter a feeder formula! They might as well rename it formula Piquet and be done with it cos you are not gonna be able to move for silver spoons. It's getting like that already. Still F1 will be happy though because everyone they take on will be a renta driver......

[ADx_Wales]

...which begs the question:

Does there NEED to be an "out of season" racing championship at all?

[Waris]

...which begs the question:

Does there NEED to be an "out of season" racing championship at all?

It's a very old tradition that drivers race during the off-season to amuse themselves and train their skill. Though I suppose that was more about F1 drivers, since the GP2 Series didn't exist back then.

[F1000X]

...which begs the question:

Does there NEED to be an "out of season" racing championship at all?

It's a very old tradition that drivers race during the off-season to amuse themselves and train their skill. Though I suppose that was more about F1 drivers, since the GP2 Series didn't exist back then.

In that case, I expect to see the entire F1 grid in person when I go to the 24hrs of Daytona in January. MAKE IT HAPPEN BERNIE.

[dnhrudi]

I suspect there will be further limits on F1 drivers racing off season after Kubica's accident. Some teams have contractually imposed big restrictions on drivers, not just for racing but any dangerous pastimes, for decades.

[TomWazzleshaw]

I suspect there will be further limits on F1 drivers racing off season after Kubica's accident. Some teams have contractually imposed big restrictions on drivers, not just for racing but any dangerous pastimes, for decades.

Evidently McLaren is NOT one of those teams

[Captain Hammer]

I suspect there will be further limits on F1 drivers racing off season after Kubica's accident. Some teams have contractually imposed big restrictions on drivers, not just for racing but any dangerous pastimes, for decades.

The FIA has no control over what drivers do in the off-season.

[mario]

I suspect there will be further limits on F1 drivers racing off season after Kubica's accident. Some teams have contractually imposed big restrictions on drivers, not just for racing but any dangerous pastimes, for decades.

The FIA has no control over what drivers do in the off-season.

I suppose that, in theory, the FIA would have a limited amount of control through the issuance of driver licences for FIA registered events, though it is unlikely that the FIA would intervene in such a manner.

However, the point that dnruhdi was making was about the driver-team contracts, and, as he correctly pointed out, a number of teams do include clauses within their contracts that prevent their drivers from taking part in excessively dangerous sports events. Ferrari, for example, are understood to have fairly tight regulations on what their drivers can do, and McLaren tightened up their restrictions too, I believe, after Montoya's shoulder injury in 2005 - although officially it was put down to a tennis injury, there were persistent rumours at the time that he'd actually injured himself in a rallycross event.
Some drivers have circumvented that, though - Kimi still went snowmobile racing during the 2007 season under a false name (reputedly, he used the pseudonym of "James Hunt" on the entry form), though I'd imagine that Ferrari cracked down after that once the news broke about that incident.