Trident Motorsport
Trident Racing is a motor racing team that competes in single-seater formula racing. It was founded in 2006 in order to compete in the GP2 championship, which is Europe's highest-ranking single-seater formula below Formula One. GP2 functions as an official support championship to Formula One and thus shares the latter championship's European dates and venues. Trident is headquartered at San Pietro Mosezzo in the Piedmont region of Italy.
Racing history
GP2 Series
After a rapid formation, Trident secured a place on the 2006 GP2 entry list, represented by former Formula One driver Gianmaria Bruni and rookie Andreas Zuber. It was one of three teams that had lodged requests for the thirteenth entry that was made available for that season onwards. GP2's organiser Bruno Michel commented: "Trident Racing put forward a proposal which promised strong sporting and engineering excellence."[citation needed]
Trident's first year of competition was competitive against more experienced opposition. Bruni provided two race wins, together with three pole positions and two fastest race laps, whilst Zuber secured a single race win. In the teams' championship standings, Trident ended the year in sixth place overall. For the 2007 season, Trident chose F3 Euro Series race winner Kohei Hirate from Japan and World Series by Renault front-runner Pastor Maldonado from Venezuela, who suffered a training injury mid-season and was replaced by Ricardo Risatti and then Sergio Hernández. Before his injury, Maldonado secured pole position and the race victory in the series' single race at Monaco, and secured eleventh place in the drivers' championship despite missing the final eight races of the season. His team-mates struggled, however, dropping Trident to tenth in the teams' championship.
Trident's 2008 drivers were Mike Conway and Ho-Pin Tung. The team's best result again came at Monaco, with Conway leading Tung home for a Trident one-two in the sprint race. Both drivers were unable to replicate this performance elsewhere, but Trident improved to ninth in the teams' championship. For 2009, the team changed its driver line-up to Ricardo Teixeira and Davide Rigon, with Rodolfo González deputising for Rigon for a single round of the championship. The trio scored a mere three points between them, resulting in Trident finishing twelfth and last in the teams' championship. The 2010 season saw a slight improvement as the team improved to eleventh overall; the drivers for the year were Adrian Zaugg and Johnny Cecotto, Jr., the latter of whom was replaced first by Edoardo Piscopo and then Federico Leo.
Trident enjoyed something of a renaissance in 2011, with new lead driver Stefano Coletti winning two races en route to eleventh in the drivers' championship, despite suffering a back injury at the penultimate round of the season at Spa-Francorchamps which saw him ruled out of the finale; he was replaced by Monegasque compatriot Stéphane Richelmi. In the other car, the returning González failed to score. For the 2012 season, Richelmi was retained and joined by Julián Leal: the duo scored 31 points between them under the new scoring system, but Trident slipped to tenth in the teams' championship, having finished eighth the season before.
GP2 Asia Series
Trident also competed in the GP2 Asia Series from its inception in 2008 to its cancellation in 2011. In the series' inaugural championship, the team fielded Harald Schlegelmilch and Ho-Pin Tung for a total of four points, finishing thirteenth and last in the teams' championship. For the 2008-09 season, Trident employed an unusually high number of seven drivers to share its two race seats: Giacomo Ricci, Alberto Valerio, Frankie Provenzano, Ricardo Teixeira, Chris van der Drift, Adrián Vallés and Davide Rigon all shared driving duties at some stage, propelling Trident to ninth in the teams' championship between them. In the 2009-10 season, the team reduced is roster two four drivers, with gentleman driver Plamen Kralev buying one seat for the entirety of the championship, and the other shared between Johnny Cecotto, Jr., Dani Clos and Adrian Zaugg. This campaign was less successful, as the team slipped back to eleventh in the standings. The truncated 2011 season was Trident's best, as lead driver Stefano Coletti put in a strong showing to finish fourth in the drivers' table, with one win, a position replicated by the team in its own championship. In the other car, Rodolfo González failed to score.
GP3 Series
Trident joined the GP3 Series for its third year of competition in 2012, replacing the departing Barwa Addax team. It became the first GP3 team to intentionally field two drivers instead of the usual three (although several other teams later dropped down to two-car entries for certain rounds), beginning the season with Vicky Piria and Antonio Spavone. For the fourth round of the championship at Silverstone, it expanded briefly to three cars for Giovanni Venturini, but Spavone's ride disappeared thereafter and the team once again returned to a two car set-up. Venturini was the most successful of the Italian trio, finishing on the podium twice and finishing thirteenth in the drivers' championship, in contrast to Piria and Spavone, who did not score. Trident finished ninth and last in the teams' championship.
Results
GP2 Series
GP2 Asia Series
| Year | Car | Drivers | Races | Wins | Poles | F.L. | Points | D.C. | T.C. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Harald Schlegelmilch
|
10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 18th | 13th |
 Ho-Pin Tung
|
10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 21st | |||
| 2008-09 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Giacomo Ricci
|
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27th† | 9th |
 Alberto Valerio
|
1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37th | |||
| Frankie Provenzano
|
4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35th | |||
 Ricardo Teixeira
|
4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 38th | |||
 Chris van der Drift
|
3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 18th | |||
 Adrián Vallés
|
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40th | |||
| Davide Rigon
|
6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 17th | |||
| 2009-10 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Johnny Cecotto, Jr.
|
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 17th | 11th |
| Dani Clos
|
4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27th | |||
 Adrian Zaugg
|
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 19th | |||
 Plamen Kralev
|
8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33rd | |||
| 2011 | Dallara-Mecachrome |  Stefano Coletti
|
4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 4th | 4th |
| Rodolfo González
|
4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17th |
† Ricci also drive for the David Price Racing team.
GP3 Series
| Year | Car | Drivers | Races | Wins | Poles | F.L. | Points | D.C. | T.C. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Dallara-Renault | Vicky Piria
|
16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26th | 9th |
| Antonio Spavone
|
8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30th | |||
| Giovanni Venturini
|
10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 13th | |||
| 2013 | Dallara-Renault | Giovanni Venturini
|
18 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 15th | 8th |
| David Fumanelli
|
16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 19th | |||
 Emanuele Zonzini
|
18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25th | |||
 Robert Cregan
|
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27th | |||
| 2014 | Dallara-Renault | Victor Carbone
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | n/a | n/a |
| Roman de Beer
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | n/a | |||
| TBA | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | n/a |
Timeline
| 2000s | 2010s | ||||||||
| 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |
| Formulas | GP2 Series | ||||||||
| IFM | Auto GP | GP3 Series | |||||||
| GP2 Asia Series | |||||||||