ART Grand Prix
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| Full name | Lotus GP (2012) Lotus ART (2011) ART Grand Prix (2005–2010) |
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| Founded | 1991 (as ASM) |
| Base | Villeneuve-la-Guyard, France |
| Founder/s | Frédéric Vasseur Nicolas Todt |
| Team principal/s | Frédéric Vasseur Nicolas Todt |
| Race drivers | 09.  Esteban Gutiérrez10.  James Calado |
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GP2 Series record
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| Debut | 2005 |
| Teams' Championships | 2005 2006 2009 |
| Drivers' Championships | 2005 (Rosberg) 2006 (Hamilton) 2009 (Hülkenberg) |
| Race victories | 23 |
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Other Series
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| Current Series | GP2 Series GP3 Series Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 |
| Former Series | Championnat de France Formula Renault 2.0 Formula Three Euroseries GP2 Asia Series |
| Drivers' Titles | 2004-2009 F3 Euroseries (Green, Resta, Grosjean, Hülkenberg, Bianchi) 2010-2011 GP3 Series (Gutiérrez, Bottas) |
| Teams' Titles | 2003-2009 F3 Euroseries 2010-2011 GP3 Series |
ART Grand Prix is a French motor racing team that competes in formula single-seaters in Europe. From 2012 onwards it will compete in the GP2 Series and GP3 Series as Lotus GP to reflect sponsorship from British sports and racing car manufacturer Lotus.[1] The team competed as Lotus ART in 2011.
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[edit] Creation
ART Grand Prix was created in 2005 as a collaborative project between Frédéric Vasseur, the principal of ASM Formule 3, and Nicolas Todt, the son of Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) President Jean Todt. Vasseur wanted to expand his championship-winning Formula Three team into the newly-created GP2 Series that supports Grands Prix in Europe, while Nicolas Todt had expressed an interest in team management. He had become involved in motorsport as a driver manager, and was notable for representing Felipe Massa. Todt took charge of the new team's commercial and promotional interests, while Vasseur managed the day-to-day running of the operation. ART is based at the ASM workshops at Villeneuve-la-Guyard in the département of Yonne, France.
[edit] Immediate success
In ART Grand Prix's debut season, it employed F3 Euroseries graduates Alexandre Prémat, of France, and Nico Rosberg, of Germany. Against drivers who had prior experience at this level, from Formula 3000, Rosberg became the inaugural GP2 Drivers' Champion. He showed consistency, with points scoring results at every race meeting, and his championship challenge became stronger as the year progressed. Prémat was 4th in the championship, which was enough to provide ART with the Teams' Championship title. Rosberg's increasingly rapid rise to the top continued when he graduated to Formula One with Williams.
Prémat remained with ART in 2006[2], and was joined by Britain's Lewis Hamilton[3]. He was a logical choice, having dominated the F3 Euroseries with ASM Formule 3, ART's sister team. Hamilton took an impressive title in his debut season, though his performances faltered slightly mid-season against an increased challenge from the eventual runner-up, Nelson Piquet, Jr.. Prémat was a consistent and reliable number two to Hamilton; his third position in the Drivers' Championship contributed to ART's second consecutive Teams' title.
It is understood that ART have launched an entry into Formula One as one of many candidates to fill in the 13th slot for the 2011 Formula One season with a possible partnership from the now-defunct Toyota Racing grand Prix team. Also the team announced that it was going to phase out it's Formula 3 operation because it wanted to focus only on GP3 and GP2. The 2010 Formula 3 season proved to be ART Grand Prix's last [4]
[edit] Formula one entry bid
ART Grand Prix announced their entry bid for Formula 1 on 13 May 2010.[5]
On 24 June 2010, Autosport magazine said that ART are set to become the 13th team for 2011. However, on 7 July 2010, ART announced in its official statement withdrawal of its entry bid. ART declares in its official statement that "ART Grand Prix had forged strong bonds with several technical and financial partners but with unfavourable economic conditions they could not gather the necessary guarantees to ensure the stability of the project in the long term." As revealed by one of the Formula One insiders during Czech TV NOVA 2010 British Grand Prix live coverage, one of the crucial partners was Michelin, who didn't succeed in their efforts to become an official Formula One tyre supplier from 2011.
[edit] Results
[edit] Formula Three
ART Grand Prix competed the Formula Three Euroseries as ASM Formule 3 from 2003 to 2007.[6]
| Formula Three Euroseries | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Car | Drivers | Wins | Poles | F.L. | Points | D.C. | T.C. |
| 2003 | Dallara F303-Mercedes HWA |  Alexandre Prémat |
1 | 2 | 2 | 50 | 7th | 1st |
| Olivier Pla |
0 | 3 | 0 | 74 | 3rd | |||
 Bruno Spengler |
0 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 10th | |||
| Jamie Green |
0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 20th | |||
| 2004 | Dallara F303-Mercedes HWA | Alexandre Prémat |
3 | 4 | 88 | 2nd | 1st | |
| Jamie Green |
7 | 6 | 139 | 1st | ||||
| Eric Salignon |
3 | 2 | 64 | 6th | ||||
| 2005 | Dallara F305-Mercedes HWA | Lewis Hamilton |
15 | 8 | 172 | 1st | 1st | |
 Adrian Sutil |
2 | 1 | 94 | 2nd | ||||
| 2006 | Dallara F305-Mercedes HWA | Sebastian Vettel |
4 | 1 | 75 | 2nd | 1st | |
| Paul di Resta |
5 | 3 | 86 | 1st | ||||
 Giedo van der Garde |
1 | 1 | 37 | 6th | ||||
 Kamui Kobayashi |
0 | 1 | 34 | 8th | ||||
| 2007 | Dallara F305-Mercedes HWA | Kamui Kobayashi |
1 | 1 | 59 | 4th | 1st | |
| Romain Grosjean |
6 | 4 | 106 | 1st | ||||
| Nico Hülkenberg |
4 | 2 | 72 | 3rd | ||||
| Tom Dillmann |
0 | 0 | 23 | 9th | ||||
| 2008 | Dallara F308-Mercedes HWA | Nico Hülkenberg |
7 | 6 | 7 | 85 | 1st | 1st |
| James Jakes |
1 | 1 | 2 | 19 | 13th | |||
| Jules Bianchi |
2 | 2 | 1 | 47 | 3rd | |||
| Jon Lancaster |
1 | 0 | 2 | 19 | 12th | |||
| 2009 | Dallara F308-Mercedes HWA | Jules Bianchi |
9 | 6 | 7 | 114 | 1st | 1st |
 Valtteri Bottas |
2 | 0 | 1 | 62 | 3rd | |||
| Esteban Gutiérrez |
0 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 9th | |||
| Adrien Tambay |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23rd | |||
| 2010 | Dallara F308-Mercedes HWA | Valtteri Bottas |
2 | 1 | 4 | 74 | 3rd | 2nd |
| Alexander Sims |
1 | 0 | 0 | 63 | 4th | |||
| Jim Pla |
1 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 10th | |||
[edit] GP2 Series
| Year | Car | Drivers | Races | Wins | Poles | F.L. | Points | D.C. | T.C. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Dallara-Mecachrome | Nico Rosberg |
23 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 120 | 1st | 1st |
| Alexandre Prémat |
23 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 67 | 4th | |||
| 2006 | Dallara-Mecachrome | Lewis Hamilton |
21 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 114 | 1st | 1st |
| Alexandre Prémat |
21 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 66 | 3rd | |||
| 2007 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Lucas di Grassi |
21 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 77 | 2nd | 2nd |
 Sébastien Buemi |
11 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 21st | |||
 Mikhail Aleshin |
4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 25th | |||
| Michael Ammermüller |
6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 26th | |||
| 2008 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Luca Filippi |
10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 19th | 5th |
| Sakon Yamamoto |
10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 23rd | |||
| Romain Grosjean |
20 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 62 | 4th | |||
| 2009 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Pastor Maldonado |
20 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 36 | 6th | 1st |
| Nico Hülkenberg |
20 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 100 | 1st | |||
| 2010 | Dallara-Mecachrome | Jules Bianchi |
20 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 52 | 3rd | 3rd |
| Sam Bird |
20 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 48 | 5th | |||
| 2011 | Dallara-Mecachrome | Jules Bianchi |
18 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 53 | 3rd | 5th |
| Esteban Gutiérrez |
17 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 13th | |||
| 2012 | Dallara-Mecachrome | James Calado |
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| Esteban Gutiérrez |
[edit] GP3 Series
| Year | Car | Drivers | Races | Wins | Poles | F.L. | Points | D.C. | T.C. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Dallara-Renault |  Alexander Rossi |
16 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 38 | 4th | 1st |
| Esteban Gutiérrez |
16 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 88 | 1st | |||
| Pedro Nunes |
16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 24th | |||
| 2011 | Dallara-Renault | Pedro Nunes |
12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32nd | 1st |
 Richie Stanaway |
4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 20th | |||
| Valtteri Bottas |
16 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 62 | 1st | |||
| James Calado |
16 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 55 | 2nd | |||
| 2012 | Dallara-Renault | Daniel Abt |
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| Conor Daly |
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| Aaro Vainio |
[edit] References
- ^ Geoni, Filiberto (10 January 2012). "Lotus ART change name to Lotus GP". GP2 Fanatic (Filiberto Geoni). http://gp2fanatic.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/lotus-art-change-name-to-lotus-gp/. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ Premat renews with ART, autosport.com (5 January 2006).
- ^ Hamilton confirmed at ART, autosport.com (19 January 2006).
- ^ ART pulls out of Formula 3
- ^ http://www.thef1times.com/news/display/01036
- ^ "Champions ASM renamed ART". autosport.com. 2007-11-28. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/64136. Retrieved 2007-11-28.
[edit] External links
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