At the seventh time of asking (three of them in F3000), Giorgio Pantano has finally been crowned the GP2 Series Champion. The Italian had finished second to 2008 Toro Rosso F1 driver Sebastien Bourdais in 2002, and third in 2003 and 2007, so you could say he was due for success. Having been signed by Racing Engineering in February to partner Javier Villa, he was imperious throughout the first half of the season, taking victories in Turkey, France, Britain and Germany, and being cruelly robbed of a further win by fuel problems on the last lap in Valencia. Despite this, it looks like the Italian has no real hope of returning to Formula 1, where of course he drove for the Jordan-Ford team in 2004, with little success.
Therefore we’ll have to look elsewhere in the GP2 field to find the next Rosbergs, Hamiltons and Glocks of this world. ‘What of Bruno Senna?’ I hear you cry. From my point of view, the jury is still out. Senna undoubtedly has talent, as his faultless victories at Monaco and Silverstone showed, but he also demonstrated (particularly in the latter stages of the year) that there are still a lot of rough edges that need to be smoothed if he is to make the jump to F1 (see for instance his crash at Valencia, his mistake at Spa, and his messy weekend at Monza). Second in the Championship was a fair reflection of his talents, and he may still find a seat in F1 next year.
Next up was Romain Grosjean, who many had tipped as the title favourite pre-season after his “success” in the inaugural GP2 Asia Series over the winter. The young Frenchman was denied by a mixture of inexperience (his transgressions in Spain and Germany costing him points, his pointless weekend in Monaco, spinning out of the Magny Cours sprint race and his incident-filled pointless weekend in Hungary) and plain old bad luck (mechanical failure while leading his home feature race and being punted out of the lead in Valencia by Luca Filippi). His superb wins in Turkey and Belgium showed that, with another year of GP2 under his belt, he can succeed in F1.
Venezuela hasn’t produced a Formula 1 driver since Johnny Cecotto, who drove 18 races for Theodore and Toleman in the early eighties. The talented Pastor Maldonado probably won’t be following in Cecotto’s footsteps any time soon, but could easily put in a claim to be the season’s most improved driver after sparkling performances in Belgium and Italy, races in tricky conditions which Maldonado was able to show great skill.
It seems bizarre that the man who took sixth in the championship is the man most likely to take a seat in F1 next year, but 19-year-old Sebastien Buemi fits the bill as far as Toro Rosso are concerned (i.e. he’s called Sebastien). Runner-up to Grosjean in the Asia Series, Buemi showed great speed throughout the season, taking excellent victories in France and Hungary and only being classified outside the top 8 positions 5 times in twenty races. Toro Rosso have already announced they are likely to sign him for next year, although I reckon he could do with another year at least in GP2 before he’s ready.
Six other men won races this year. Vitaly Petrov inherited victory when both Pantano and Senna conked on the last lap of the feature race in Valencia. Alvaro Parente dominated the first feature race of the season in Spain but was nowhere for most of the rest of the year. Karun Chandhok could be up for a potential test role at Force India, and scored victory in the sprint race at Hockenheim. Mike Conway had a disappointing year with Trident, but took a dominant Monaco sprint win from Pole, as did Kamui Kobayashi at Barcelona. Davide Valsecchi missed a fair chunk of the season injured but won his home sprint race in Monza, despite being saddled in a pretty poor Durango.
Andi Zuber ended ninth in the championship despite showing great pace for much of the year, but ultimately proved too accident prone to be able to sustain a title challenge – indeed because of an accident at Monza the stewards forced him to start 26th on the grid of 25 for the sprint race! Javier Villa, team-mate to Pantano, had taken three wins last season but scored a measly eight points this time around, while Pantano’s fellow F1 reject Sakon Yamamoto made his return mid-season with former Champions ART, scoring a mere three points.
The 2008 GP2 Series provided great entertainment from start to finish, and a lot of that was down to laughter caused by the repeated awfulness of Italian Luca Filippi, who looked a shadow of the driver who looked like the next big thing after the 2007 season. Six points and a host of incidents later, Filippi may well end up on the scrapheap.
However, my undoubted star of the year wasn’t a driver. This particular person took to the role of wandering up and down a pitlane and paddock dressed provocatively like a duck to water, and showed us all what we’ve been missing in having to endure Louise Goodman for years. Take a bow, Charlie Webster, who presented ITV4’s coverage of the series throughout the year. I’m sure Charlie would accept that perhaps she’s not the best presenter in the world (though I’d still have her hosting over Steve Rider any day), but her infectious enthusiasm amongst other things were a joy to watch.
Overall, F1’s premier feeder series once again produced some absolutely classic races, even on circuits which aren’t exactly famed for overtaking, and showed that together with the youngsters currently setting F1 alight, F1’s future is in very good hands. The GP2 world never stops moving, however. The final week of September saw a two-day test at Paul Ricard, with plenty of new names on show and a few having played musical chairs too. However, it was a race winner from 2008 who was quickest, with Kamui Kobayashi dominating both days in his DAMS.
The next test will be at Shanghai on October 8-9, ahead of the start of the 2008/09 GP2 Asia Series. This year the Series will run on both sides of Christmas, with events in China, Dubai (twice), Malaysia and Bahrain. The races at Shanghai (October 18-19), Malaysia (April 4-5) and Sakhir (April 18-19) will support the respective F1 events, with the 12 races being an increase on two from last year. Already confirmed in seats are Yamamoto with ART, Luiz Razia of Brazil with Arden, Bahrain’s Hamad Al Fardan with iSport, Valsecchi once again with Durango and Spain’s Roldan Rodriguez returning to the Piquet Sports team he represented in the 2007 GP2 Series.
Here at Patty we’ll be doing our best to cover the series in it’s entirety, so keep your eyes peeled throughout the winter for updates, starting in a week or so when I’ll bring you all the news from the Shanghai test and a Season Preview.
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