DAMS

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France DAMS
DAMS logo.png
Full name Driot-Arnoux Motorsport
Founded 1988
Base France Le Mans, France
Founder/s Jean-Paul Driot
René Arnoux
Team principal/s Jean-Paul Driot
Race drivers 03. Italy Davide Valsecchi
04. Brazil Felipe Nasr
GP2 Series record
Debut 2005
Drivers' Championships 2011 (Grosjean)
Race victories 10
Pole positions 4
Fastest laps 13
Other Series
Current Series GP2 Series
World Series by Renault
Formula Le Mans
Former Series Formula 3000
Formula Renault V6 Eurocup
ALMS
FIA GT Championship
Le Mans 24 Hours
FIA Sportscar Championship
A1 Grand Prix
GP2 Asia Series
Auto GP
Drivers' Titles 1990 Formula 3000 (Comas)
1993 Formula 3000 (Panis)
1994 Formula 3000 (Boullion)
2003 FR V6 Eurocup (López)
2008–09 GP2 Asia (Kobayashi)
2010 Auto GP (Grosjean)
2011 GP2 Asia (Grosjean)
2011 GP2 Series (Grosjean)
Teams' Titles 1989 Formula 3000
1990 Formula 3000
1993 Formula 3000
1994 Formula 3000
2005-06 A1 GP (France)
2008–09 GP2 Asia
2009 Formula Le Mans
2010 Auto GP
2011 Auto GP
2011 GP2 Asia

Driot-Arnoux Motorsport (DAMS) is a racing team from France, involved in many areas of motorsports. DAMS was founded in 1988 by Jean-Paul Driot and former Formula One driver René Arnoux.[1] It is headquartered near Le Mans, only 2 km from the Bugatti Circuit.

Contents

[edit] History

The year after its foundation, DAMS joined the International Formula 3000 Championship. They stayed in F3000 until 2001. DAMS were one of many French teams that were part of the Elf young driver sponsorship program.

Aside from F3000, DAMS planned to join the F1 World Championship in 1996, with a car (the GD-01) developed by Reynard, but lack of funds prevented the team from advancing.[1]

DAMS enter in sports car racing since 1997 until 2002 where it helped the Michel Vaillant movie, preparing and racing cars in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

[edit] GP2 Series and Formula 3000

Jérôme d'Ambrosio driving for DAMS at the Turkish round of the 2009 GP2 Series season.
Romain Grosjean won the championship with the team in 2011.

Right from its inception, the French team entered the FIA International Formula 3000 Championship, which they won in 1990 with Érik Comas, 1992 with Olivier Panis and 1994 with Jean-Christophe Boullion.

In 13 years, 1989 to 2001, DAMS won 4 team titles, 3 drivers titles, 21 wins, 19 pole positions and 19 fastest laps, making DAMS one of the most successful Formula 3000 teams with Super Nova Racing and Arden International.

The team competed in the GP2 Series since its beginning in 2005,[2] winning races with drivers José María López and Nicolas Lapierre.

DAMS was associated with the Toyota Drivers Program (TDP) from 2006 to 2009, and ran their drivers in the GP2 Series. In 2006, it was Franck Perera and then Kazuki Nakajima in 2007, who finished 5th in the GP2 championship and raced in the last Formula One Grand Prix of the season with Williams. Following this he won a full-time race seat with the team for 2008 and was retained for the 2009 season. In 2008, TDP driver Kamui Kobayashi replaced Nakajima at DAMS GP2 and became the Toyota Racing test driver.[3] Kobayashi stayed on in 2009, and was partnered by Jérôme d'Ambrosio for these two years. Neither driver was able to put together a consistent run of form in the main GP2 Series championships, but Kobayashi did win the 2008-09 Asian championship with the team.

D'Ambrosio remained with the team for 2010, and was paired with Ho-Pin Tung, who replaced the Sauber-bound Kobayashi. As part of an agreement with the Renault Formula One team, both were nominated as Renault F1 test drivers, and the DAMS GP2 cars were liveried in an identical yellow-and-black scheme to the Renault R30 chassis.[4] D'Ambrosio won the sprint race at Monaco, but his form thereafter was disappointing and he was rested for one of the rounds in favour of Romain Grosjean, another driver with Renault F1 links. Grosjean later got the opportunity to move into the team full-time when Tung, yet to score a point after 12 races, sustained a broken vertebrae in a racing accident. D'Ambrosio, Grosjean and Tung finished 12th, 14th and 28th respectively in the drivers' championship, whilst DAMS finished sixth position in the teams' championship. Grosjean remained with the team for 2011, with Norwegian rookie Pål Varhaug replacing D'Ambrosio, who graduated to F1 with the Virgin Racing team. DAMS retained its links with Renault, although these were somewhat diluted by the F1 team's new sponsorship deal with Lotus Cars, which also backed the rival ART team in GP2. Grosjean dominated the year, winning both the Asian and main series championships. DAMS also won the Asian teams' title, but Varhaug's failure to score points in the main series saw the team beaten to the championship by Addax.

[edit] A1 Grand Prix and Formula Renault

In the 2003 and 2004 seasons, DAMS took part in the Formula Renault V6 Eurocup, which they won that same year with Argentinian José María López. In 2005 the team entered the World Series by Renault.[5] Since 2005, DAMS joined the GP2 Series but also the A1 Grand Prix where it serviced three teams.

Driot is one of the owners of the A1 Team France.[6][7] DAMS also managed A1 Team Switzerland,[8] A1 Team Mexico[9] and later A1 Team South Africa[10] in the A1 Grand Prix championships. With A1 Team France, DAMS was the first winner of the series winning 13 of the 22 races including in the 2005-06 season.

For the 2007-08 season, A1 Team France and South Africa collaborated closely to finalize the car like it was previously done with A1 Team Switzerland.[11]

[edit] Sports car racing

A Panoz GTR-1 campaigned by DAMS in the 1997 FIA GT Championship season

Starting from 1997, Driot's team diversified into sports car racing, entering the FIA GT Championship in partnership with Panoz. Splitting up in the following year, DAMS ran a Lola B98/10 with a Judd engine in the SportsRacing World Cup, winning four races, as well as participating in the American Le Mans Series and Le Mans 24 Hours.

In 2000 and 2001, DAMS associated themselves with General Motors, preparing the works Cadillac Northstar LMP prototypes for the American Le Mans Series, FIA Sportscar Championship and 24 Hours of Le Mans, but failed to get any competitive results.

DAMS (running the Bob Berridge Racing Lola) helped the Michel Vaillant movie crew in the 2002, 24 Hours of Le Mans entering with a Lola B98/10-Judd as Vaillante and a Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S-Élan as Leader.[12]

They then switched their effort to an FIA GT return. In 2003, they tried entering two Nissan 350Z, but once again funds prevented the French team from developing the Japanese car. In 2004, they teamed with Lamborghini and entered two Murciélago R-GT cars in the final rounds of the FIA GT Championship.

[edit] Results

[edit] GP2 Series

Year Car Drivers Races Wins Poles F.L. Points D.C. T.C.
2005 Dallara-Mecachrome Argentina José María López 23 1 0 0 36 9th 7th
Malaysia Fairuz Fauzy 23 0 0 0 0 24th
2006 Dallara-Mecachrome Italy Ferdinando Monfardini 21 0 0 0 6 21st 12th
France Franck Perera 21 0 0 0 8 17th
2007 Dallara-Mecachrome Japan Kazuki Nakajima 21 0 1 3 44 5th 5th
France Nicolas Lapierre 21 2 1 2 23 12th
2008 Dallara-Mecachrome Belgium Jérôme d'Ambrosio 20 0 0 0 21 11th 8th
Japan Kamui Kobayashi 20 1 0 2 10 16th
2009 Dallara-Mecachrome Belgium Jérôme d'Ambrosio 20 0 0 0 29 9th 6th
Japan Kamui Kobayashi 20 0 0 0 13 16th
2010 Dallara-Mecachrome Belgium Jérôme d'Ambrosio 18 1 1 0 21 12th 6th
China Ho-Pin Tung† 14 0 0 0 0 28th
France Romain Grosjean 8 0 0 0 14 14th
2011 Dallara-Mecachrome France Romain Grosjean 18 5 1 6 89 1st 2nd
Norway Pål Varhaug 18 0 0 0 0 23rd
2012 Dallara-Mecachrome Italy Davide Valsecchi
Brazil Felipe Nasr

† Tung also competed in 2 races for Racing Engineering in 2010.

[edit] Formula 3000

  • D.C. = Drivers' Championship position, T.C. = Teams' Championship position.

[edit] A1 Grand Prix and Formulas Renault

World Series by Renault results[15]
Year Car Drivers Races Wins Poles Fast laps Points D.C. T.C.
2005 Dallara-Renault Sweden Alx Danielsson 7 0 0 0 32 15th 11th
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 5 0 0 0 4 25th
Italy Ferdinando Monfardini 1 0 0 0 1 28th
United Kingdom Alex Lloyd 1 0 0 0 0 40th
France Nicolas Prost 1 0 0 0 0 41st
Italy Raffaele Giammaria 3 0 0 0 0 43rd
2012 Dallara-Renault Brazil Lucas Foresti
France Arthur Pic
  • † Davide di Benedetto drive only the last round for DAMS. He drive also for Guidare Formula this season and is final 9th place take both team results.
  • D.C. = Drivers' Championship position, T.C. = Teams' Championship position.

[edit] Sports car racing

  • D.C. = Drivers' Championship position, T.C. = Teams' Championship position.

[edit] Timeline

1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Formulas International Formula 3000 GP2 Series
FRV6E WSbR WSbR
A1 Grand Prix
Auto
Sports car 24 Hours of Le Mans
FLM  ?
ALMS
FIA GT
Sportscar

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Team history dams.fr
  2. ^ DAMS presentation at gp2series.com gp2series.com
  3. ^ DAMS signs Kobayashi for 2008 season automobilsport.com (23rd November 2007)
  4. ^ English, Steven (2010-02-01). "Renault's d'Ambrosio, Tung join DAMS". autosport.com. Haymarket Publishing. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81176. Retrieved 2010-02-01. 
  5. ^ Renault World Series claims 30 cars grandprix.com
  6. ^ Driot, directeur principal france.a1gp.com
  7. ^ A1 Team France informations a1podium.com
  8. ^ A1 Team Switzerland information a1podium.com
  9. ^ A1 Team Mexico information a1podium.com
  10. ^ A1 Team Switzerland information a1podium.com
  11. ^ "Team France and RSA to continue to work together". GPUpdate.net. 14 August 2007. http://www.gpupdate.net/en/a1gp-news/163087/team-france-and-rsa-to-continue-to-work-together/. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  12. ^ Preliminary practice Lola Cars notes motorsport.com, 2002-05-07
  13. ^ GP2 and Formula 3000 entry list and complete results speedsportmag.com
  14. ^ A1GP complete resultsresults.a1gp.com
  15. ^ WSbR complete results speedsportmag.com
  16. ^ FRV6 Eurocup complete results speedsportmag.com
  17. ^ 24h of Le Mans complete results wsrp.ic.cz
  18. ^ ALMS complete results wsrp.ic.cz
  19. ^ FIA Sportscar complete results wsrp.ic.cz
  20. ^ FIA GT complete results wsrp.ic.cz

[edit] External links

Teams and drivers competing in the 2012 GP2 Series season
Teams and drivers competing in the 2012 Formula Renault 3.5 Series season
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