Patronise F1

The GP2 Series gets underway in Barcelona this weekend, with 26 cars and 13 teams preparing for another hectic season of spills, thrills and needless crashes. Because we feel we must, Patty takes a look at the season ahead.

Unsurprisingly, neither of the top two from last year's series will be back to fight another year in the category. More surprisingly, neither of those top two of Giorgio Pantano and Bruno Senna made it to the F1 grid, with Pantano stupidly deemed too old for the sport and Senna ignored for a drive with either Brawn GP or Toro Rosso, and left racing sportscars for 2009.

This, therefore, is something of a crucial year for the series to re-establish itself as a genuine way into F1. The grid boasts an intriguing mix of seasoned GP2 campaigners and rookie upstarts, many already tied to an F1 team in some way, and the season promises to be one of the most open in GP2 history.

The series also needs a strong year given the presence of a direct competitor in the shape of the new FIA sanctioned Formula Two series, which gets underway in June, and promises to beat the GP2 ideal on both costs and entertainment. Time will tell, but right now all the doubling up of second-tier series seems to have done is halve the depth in quality of the grids of each of the series. Nevertheless, here's a rundown on who will be driving for who in the 2009 GP2 Series.

Barwa Addax Team - Vitaly Petrov / Romain Grosjean
The teams champion from 2008 has had a change of name, with Adrian Campos stepping down and allowing the fabulously-named Alejandro Agag to take over. Driver-wise, Petrov has been knocking around the GP2 scene for years, becoming regarded as something of a dependable driver, even if he's never looked like making it to F1. Meanwhile, this is a watershed year for Grosjean, having won the 2008 GP2 Asia title and finishing fourth last year. His name has already been thrown into the ring as a potential mid-season replacement for Nelson Piquet Jr at Renault, and he starts the year as title favourite.

iSport International - Giedo van der Garde / Diego Nunes
The iSport team have an illustrious past in recent GP2 history. They ran Timo Glock to the 2007 title and finished second with Bruno Senna last year. But with the team apparently having one eye on the F1 grid for 2010, they may well take their eye off the ball this year. Van der Garde is a former Force India test driver, and is the reigning World Series by Renault champion, but looked fairly rubbish in the GP2 Asia series over the winter, picking up just 11 points. Meanwhile, Nunes looked useless driving for DPR last year, but then everyone does with that team. He scored two wins for iSport in the GP2 Asia series though, which was enough to convince the team to keep him on for the full series.

Piquet GP - Roldan Rodriguez / Alberto Valerio
The whole point of the team was to get Nelson Piquet Jr into F1. And it worked. Sadly. After drifting lazily into the doldrums following Half Nelson's progression, the team secured a return to form last season, picking up two poles and a win with Pastor Maldonado (not a real Pastor). For 2009, the driver pairing will be Rodriguez, who was useless in GP2 for the last two series, but was a lot better in this year's Asia series, and Valerio, who is just useless.

Fat Burner Racing Engineering - Lucas di Grassi / Dani Clos
The team that ran Giorgio Pantano to the drivers championship last season has taken on a brand new, and somewhat hilarious, title sponsor for the new season. They also possess one of the most interesting driver pairings, with di Grassi inheriting Pantano's seat and position as the "guy who ends up winning lots but always gets overlooked for F1", and sometime Williams tester Clos in the second seat. Di Grassi will start the season as another title favourite, while Clos has struggled in the F3 Euroseries for the last two years, and will probably be plod.

ART Grand Prix - Pastor Maldonado / Nico Hülkenburg
Having romped to back-to-back GP2 titles with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in the first two years of the series, along with a second place for di Grassi in 2007, ART have as strong a history as any team in the sport. And they have a strong driver line up for this year, as expected. Maldonado was a race winner last year, while Williams test driver (and owner of an umlaut) Hülkenburg is among the title favourites after romping to the 2008 F3 Euroseries title with ART, as well as winning a race during a truncated showing in the Asia series over the winter. He will be aiming to continue the fine tradition of Nicos doing well in the series.

Telmex Arden International - Sergio Pérez / Edoardo Mortara
The Red Bull-affiliated Arden team have flattered to deceive in GP2 since so nearly taking the 2005 title with the powerful forehead of Heikki Kovalainen. This year they look set to struggle to fight at the very front again. Pérez won two races in the Asia series, so may be worth a win or two, while Mortara finished a distant second to Hülkenburg in the Euroseries last year, and pottered around to fairly little success for the team in the Asia series.

Super Nova Racing - Luca Filippi / Javier Villa
Super Nova had a fine history in the old F3000 series, but have never really found their feet in the GP2 era. Suitably then, they've chosen to run two drivers who have never really found their feet in GP2 either. Filippi is a well-known figure of fun for The Elbow, and returns again to delight with his incompetence, while Villa raced for Racing Engineering for three years, managing little more than the odd race win.

DAMS - Jérôme d'Ambrosio / Kamui Kobayashi
The DAMS team have been around forever in the lower formulas, but have never really achieved much on the single-chassis era, until they dominated the winter Asia series. D'Ambrosio had a steady opening year with the team, and finished second in the GP2 Asia series, albeit thanks to consistent points rather than outright speed. Kobayashi is the man who beat him to the Asian title, and will be hoping that the teams performance in the weaker winter series will translate to the main championship.

Trident Racing - Ricardo Teixeira / Davide Rigon
This redoubtably midfield team will be looking to secure a couple of wins this year, and will be trying to do it with the pairing of Teixeira, who has done naff-all in any number of lower formulae over the last few years, and Rigon, whose most notable achievement to date was winning the staggeringly pointless Superleague Formula championship last year for Chinese team Beijing Guoan.

Fisichella Motor Sport - Andreas Zuber / Luiz Razia
Unsurprisingly, Giancarlo Fisichella's GP2 team has never really amounted to much in the series, and this year they're likely to have more of the same in store. Zuber has raced in the category for the last three years, with only two wins to his name, and Razia has spent the last year piddling around in the career dead-end that is the Euroseries 3000.

Durango - Davide Valsecchi / Nelson Panciatici
Another team destined to slug it out towards the back of the grid, Durango keep on Davide Valsecchi, who managed to win a race in the series last year, and another one in the Asia series, and Panciatici, who achieved the dubious career high of second place in last year's Spanish F3 Championship.

Ocean Racing Technology - Karun Chandhok / Álvaro Parente
The former BCN Competition team has been taken over, somewhat implausibly, by former Jordan driver Tiago Monteiro for 2009, and renamed. The backmarking team will be hoping to leap up the grid having made a potentially good pair of signings. Chandhok won a race last year, showing fleeting promise, while Parente struggled in the category last year, though the former British F3 and World Series by Renault champion will look to rebuild his career this season.

DPR - Michael Herck / Giacomo Ricci
Formerly owned by David Price, the perennial GP2 backmarkers have been bought by Andre Herck ahead of this year. Shockingly, this has meant that Andre's son, Michael, takes one of the seats at the team. He is joined by Ricci, who is rubbish, but if the new owners are anything like the old ones, there will be a veritable merry-go-round in the seats at the team, with wallet size mattering a bit more than talent.

The Races

The calender this year sees the teams visit ten venues, starting with the boredom of Barcelona, and ending with a standalone non-F1 weekend event at the new Algarve track in Portugal. Which is all very exciting.

On Patronise

We'll be giving out our usual rundown of reviews throughout the GP2 season, although they may be a bit more rubbish now the TV coverage has reduced. Nevertheless, Patty will do something. You'll see.