GP2 races joy!

THE GP2 Series organisers have revealed their 2012 calendar will consist of 12 rounds and include the Bahrain International Circuit twice … despite a GP2 Asia Series event being cancelled last year at the eleventh hour due to civil unrest.

The Series will see its eighth season open for the first time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 23. The 13 GP2 teams will then fly to Bahrain for back-to-back rounds in Sakhir, the first one as a support event to F1 on April 20-22 followed by the only standalone event of the season on April 26-28.

“We’ve always raced in Bahrain since the inception of our Series – Nico Rosberg won both races in 2005,” said GP2 Series CEO Bruno Michel.

Eleven of the rounds will be support events of the official Formula One World Championship whilst one round will be a standalone event. Two new venues – Sepang and Singapore – have been added to the otherwise familiar circuit list.

The month of May will mark the return of the Series to Europe, starting with Barcelona on May 11-13 and Monaco two weeks later. After a short break, the action will resume in the Spanish streets of Valencia on June 22-24. The month of July will once again be extremely busy with three events – Silverstone, Hockenheim and Budapest.

After the summer breather, the Series will return to Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps on August 31 followed a week later by the Italian round in Monza. Finally, the 2012 season will be concluded two weeks later in Singapore at one of F1’s most magnificent venues, marking the GP2 Series’ first visit to the Asian city.

Michel added: “GP2 being the natural and logical path to Formula One, it is imperative that our calendar carries as many F1 tracks as possible including tracks outside Europe which is why we added Bahrain, Sepang and Singapore this season. However, the Series has also to remain affordable, therefore we did not want to add more overseas circuits.

“Racing on eleven F1 tracks in 2012 with a car close to F1 in performance and using the same tyres, GP2 drivers will gain as much experience as possible which will enable them to be immediately competitive in the next category as previously demonstrated by all our graduates. We have also made sure that we remain affordable by working together with our partners in order to keep down freight and spare parts costs.”

GP2 Series CEO Bruno Michel continued: “I am glad that we will be going back to Kuala Lumpur: we’ve seen during the Asia Series some very exciting races there. It is a splendid venue to open a new chapter of our Series which includes new sporting regulations. We will close our season in Singapore. It will be the first time ever that our Series goes there. It is very exciting!”

In addition to these 12 rounds, two pre-season test sessions will be organised first at Jerez de la Frontera on  February 28-29 and March 1, followed by Barcelona on March 6-8.

The cancellation of last year’s Rounds 3 and 4 of the GP2 Asia Series, with the entire GP2 fraternity already in the country, followed an earlier announcement that practice and qualifying had been pushed back. A spokesman announced within hours: “Following the current events in Bahrain, at the request of the Bahrain Motorsport Federation, it has been decided that the remainder of the meeting which was supposed to take place at Bahrain International Circuit is cancelled due to force majeure.”

The early abolition ramped up fears of a similar outcome for both Formula 1 testing on March 3-6 plus the opening round of the World Championship on the weekend of March 11-13. These were realised when the race was postponed, later reinstated and finally cancelled.

F1 officials say this year’s Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix is confirmed and the statement has gained added weight with the news that the GP2 Series is firmly on board.