Junior Open Wheel Talent

Spanish driver Jaime Alguersuari (World Series by Renault) will replace Brendon Hartley (F3 Euro Series, World Series by Renault) as the Red Bull Formula One reserve driver for the German Grand Prix.

It’s not really a surprising move by Red Bull as Hartley hasn’t been producing the results that many had hoped for. The lackluster performances are quite likely due to the diversified focus between being a F3 Euro Series driver, World Series by Renault driver, and the all encompassing Formula One reserve driver position. Alguersuari, on the other hand, has been able to focus exclusively on the World Series by Renault and has finished inside the top-ten in 71.4% of his 2009 race starts. It’s likely that Alguersuari will finish out the season as the Red Bull test driver, which should prove beneficial to Hartley’s results.

Junior Strous, who was currently fourth in the Indy Lights championship, has decided to race at Zandvoort this weekend in the Dutch GT4 championship rather than in his Indy Lights car at the Milwaukee Mile. There are a couple different rumors circulating in regards to his decision. The most probable, per a comment on planetlemans.com, is that his Dutch sponsors wanted him to run at home. I’m sure Strous and everyone involved in his racing this season are disappointed in his recent Indy Lights results, after such a promising start to the year—where he swept the opening rounds at St. Petersburg. That said, it would be odd to see them drop Indy Lights so early in the season. Hopefully, his GT4 stop is a one-off and we will see him back in the #18 Lights car soon.

At Zandvoort, he took the pole positions in Q1 and claimed Q3 for Race 2. You can follow his results this weekend: here.

Barrie, Ontario resident Kyle Marcelli has signed with AIM Autosport for this weekend’s Star Mazda race at Road Atlanta. Marcelli spent 2008 as a development year in the F2000 Championship; finishing 3rd in the final points tally against a highly competitive field. It’s nice to see Marcelli continuing to develop and take that next step towards 2009 and beyond. He will most likely spend the off-season working on putting together a full Star Mazda program for 2009. The eighteen year old driver will be competing alongside Star Mazda standout John Michael Edwards this weekend in Braselton, Georgia.

Drivers from different junior formula series across the globe have gathered in Le Castellet for a two day GP2 test at Paul Ricard. All drivers in attendance are focused on one thing, a future Formula One ride. In order to have a legitimate shot at that dream, they must make the right impression with the GP2 teams they are testing for. Several drivers have elected to test for more than one team, due to a lack of funded drivers in attendance. Teams were slow to announce their drivers as many of the deals were arranged last minute, in fact, a few teams are yet to announce their drivers for Day #2. The teams are focused on signing their drivers for the GP2 Asia Series (Shanghai is less than three weeks away) and finalize their 2009 contracts.

Here is a list I was able to put together of drivers trying out for GP2/GP2 Asia. The list contains current GP2 pilots hoping to remain on the circuit as well as several rookie drivers trying to attain a spot at the final stop on the motorsports ladder to F1.

Arden: Renger Van der Zande (Day 1), Kodai Tsukakoshi (Both Days), Mika Maki (Day 2)

ART: Oliver Turvey (Day 1), Paul Di Resta (Day 1), Nelson Phillippe (Day 2), Diego Nunes (Day 2)

BCN: Fabio Onidi (Day 1), Bertrand Baguette (Day 1), Dani Clos (Both Days)

Campos: Vitaly Petrov (Day 1), Sergio Perez (Day 1), Ho Pin Tung (Day 2), Jerome D’ Ambrosio (Day 2)

Dams: Sam Bird (Day 1), Kamui Kobayashi (Both Days), James Jakes (Day 2)

DPR: Michael Herck (Both Days), Will Bratt (Day 1), Luca Filippi (Day 2)

Durango: Davide Valsecchi (Both Days), Carlos Iaconelli (Both Days)

FMSI: Andreas Zuber (Both Days), Fabrizio Crestani (Both Days)

iSport: Nelson Phillippe (Day 1), Diego Nunes (Day 1), Marcus Ericsson (Day 2), Oliver Turvey (Day 2)

Piquet: Alberto Valerio (Day 1), Roldan Rodriguez (Day 1), Milos Pavlovic (Day 2), Fabio Onidi (Day 2)

Racing Engineering: Luiz Razia (Both Days), Christian Ebbesvik (Day 1), Markus Niemela (Day 2)

Super Nova: Vladimir Arabadzhiev (Both Days), James Jakes (Day 1), Alberto Valerio (Day 2)

Trident: Chris Van der Drift (Both Days), Narain Karthikeyan (Both Days)

Day 1: Morning Test Results
Day 1: Afternoon Test Results

Day 2: Morning Test Results

It was announced today that Portugese A1GP driver Filipe Albuquerque will be replacing Mario Romancini under the Team Epsilon tent for the two remaining WSR events for 2008. Romancini ran out of money and the team wanted to put someone familiar in the drivers seat to campaign the final two events. Romancini didn’t seem to gel with Epsilon the same way Filipe did and struggled this season in comparison to his efforts in the Brazilian Formula Renault 2.0 and Sudamericano F3 Championships. Filipe had quite a bit of success last year driving for Team Epsilon in the World Series by Renault, claiming a victory at the Hungaroring. It will be interesting to see how he does in the new car.

English driver Martin Plowman has left the F3 Euro Series after signing with Panther Racing to contest the 2009 Indy Lights series. Martin will be moving to Indianapolis within the next few months to prepare for the 2009 season and adapt to life in the States.

The move isn’t a huge surprise for most, Plowman struggled this season as he dedicated 2008 to the development of the Volkswagen Formula 3 program in the F3 Euro Series driving for RC Motorsport. Both the team and the drivers struggled this year and I think Plowman was just ready for a change. This will be a rather large jump for the 20 year old, but it should be a solid career move.

According to the F3 Euro Series Starting Grid; there are several changes to announce.

Stephane Richelmi will be making his F3 Euro Series debut driving for Team Epsilon Sport; also making their series debut. Both Epsilon and Richelmi have experience with the Renault 2.0 cars. Look for the duo to make their first appearance at Barcelona with a Dallara chassis/Mercedes powerplant.

Daniel Ricciardo will be making a guest appearance, driving for SG Formula, courtesy of Red Bull.

Peter Elkmann will be replacing Martin Plowman at RC Motorsport. The 27 year old brings a ton of experience to RC Motorsport, so it will be good to see him back in a race car. It will be interesting to see if he can help RC sort out some of their gremlins. He won an F3 Euro Series race in 2006, driving for Jo Zellar…. Unfortunately, funding issues caused him to sit out most of the season and focus on his karting efforts in the European Superkart Championship.

Brendon Hartley, British F3 hotshoe, will make his return to the F3 Euro series. Hartely will be pitted under a familiar tent in the paddock; Carlin Racing.

Richard Phillipe will replace Tom Dillmann, driving for SG Formula. Dillmann had been running for Jo Zeller Racing.

This has been an interesting week for Indy Lights drivers and teams. I have several tidbits to provide…

The biggest surprise is Dillon Battistini’s move from Panther Racing to Team Moore Racing. Dillon had a very good start to the season, claiming one pole position and four victories…all with Panther Racing. Dillon’s relationship with Panther seemed to be quite good as the team even put him in an Indy Car at Kentucky for a day of testing and evaluation. Although neither Panther Racing or Dillon will comment on the situation, it may be safe to assume that the departure has something to do with Battistini’s Indy Car hopes for 2009.

Michael Crawford Motorsports has decided to shut their doors after this weekend, reportedly due to several drivers leaving the team without paying their bills. Tom Dyer is driving for MCM this weekend at Chicagoland, making his second Indy Lights start. MCM has worked hard on their program and it’s a shame to see it disappear. Michael Crawford doesn’t seem to be affected much as a new opportunity awaits…. Just today he was announced as the new manager of HVM’s Indy Lights effort for 2009. (more to follow) It appears that Keith Wiggins of HVM just bought out MCM’s Indy Lights Program.

HVM Racing, largely known for their years in the Champ Car World Series, has announced their interest in a Indy Lights Program for 2009. Team owner Keith Wiggins is looking to expand on his new Indy Car program by adding a two car effort in the Indy Lights series for 2009, as stated above; Michael Crawford will serve as the general manager for the team. Wiggins is looking for a way to help driver’s pursuing an Indy Car ride, while closely monitoring the talent first hand.

Bobby Wilson will drive for Panther Racing this weekend. He spent 2008 driving for Team E, in their series debut. According to inside sources, Team E elected to skip both Infineon and Chicagoland in an effort to save money for their 2009 assault fielding two cars. Wilson also skipped Infineon, most likely due to funding issues, so it’s good to see him back in a car this weekend.

Wade Cunningham has signed with Integra Motorsports for the weekend and Pablo Donoso will join Mo’s Gold this weekend. With all the team changes, it appears several drivers are evaluating their options for 2009….should they return for another season of Indy Lights racing.

The Indy Lights season finale will be televised live tomorrow on ESPN 2.

The much anticipated championship battle between Rafa Matos and Richard Antinucci looks to be dimming slightly. Matos came out today with an incredible qualifying effort, picking up the pole position and adding a point to his championship lead (now up to only four points). I will say that I could visibly see Rafa’s fire during qualifying as he attacked the 1.5 mile oval. Antinucci qualified a decent ninth, but failed to make much improvement after this morning’s practice sessions. We all know that a solid qualifying effort doesn’t necessarily mean you have the best race car (in traffic), so tomorrow’s SunRichGourmet.com 100 will be an interesting race. Make sure to watch all the live coverage on ESPN 2.

Here is your starting line-up.

Sergei Afanasiev of Russia has signed with KTR to drive alongside Siso Cunill in the World Series by Renault. Afanasiev has been running in the International Formula Master Series this year and has produced one victory, one pole position and two podiums driving for JD Motorsport. The 20 year old has shown improvements this season, most recently by finishing fifth in Germany after starting at the back of the grid. He had quite a bit of success in a Formula Renault 2.0 car (Switzerland Series) in 2006, claiming 2nd in the overall championship. It will be interesting to see if Cunill and Afanasiev can work together, aiding KTR’s development of the new car.

Paolo Maria Nocera has been chosen by RC Motorsport to join Claudio Cantelli under the team tent for the remainder of the World Series by Renault season. Paolo moved up to the GP2 series earlier this season but only completed one race before being released by BCN Competition (replaced by Adrian Valles). The Roman driver hasn’t had a ton of success, with the exception of his efforts in the F3 Italian Series driving for Lucidi Motors, where he claimed the 2007 Championship. He seemed to really gel with Lucidi Motors.

GP2 might have been a bit of a jump for the 23 year old pilot, despite spending the last 5 seasons in cars. The move to RC Motorsport and the World Series by Renault should be a good opportunity for him to show his speed and stay sharp. It will be interesting to see what 2009 holds for this determined driver.