Junior Open Wheel Talent

Alexander Rossi has committed to GP3 with ART.  He will be joined by Esteban Gutierrez and Pedro Enrique.  There were a few people who expected Rossi to go straight to GP2 in 2010 but in reality this probably isn’t a bad move, especially when you look at the quality of competition heading to GP3.

Ben Johnston, owner of the Atlantic Championship, is taking a proactive approach to the 2010 season by attending the Autosport Show in England.  He will be offering a test day at Palm Beach International Raceway exclusively for European drivers in February.  Now, if the series could just make an announcement on who will be attending the upcoming test at Sebring on January 23-24, 2010.  I am guessing Zach Veach will be there and perhaps Adam Christodoulou… anyone else?

In World Series by Renault news, Federico Leo will return to Pons Racing for 2010.  No big surprise here, I think most expected him to return for a sophomore season after looking at his 2009 results.  His best finishes of the season occurred during the final two events of the year at Motorland Aragon.  I expect we will see continued improvement in 2010.

Most traditional racing sites are just now reporting that Gianmarco Raimondo has signed with Lucidi Motors to compete in the 2010 Italian F3 championship but Norris McDonald confirmed it on New Year’s Day.  Raimondo, aka G-Mo,  spent the 2009 season in the Formula BMW-Americas series where he finished the year with 1 win and 9 podiums.

It was announced this week that the IndyCar and Indy Lights’ drivers will be testing at Barber Motorsports Park next month.  The schedule has some wondering if the teams will be testing snow tires.

Team JTR (Joe Tandy Racing) plans to launch a racing academy named after the late team owner Joe Tandy who was killed in a street car accident last year.  The academy will help assist up-and-coming drivers.

A few weeks ago, I linked to an article over at Planet-IRL written by Stephanie Wallcraft.  The article looked at a few of the flaws associated with the ‘Road to Indy’ program.  Since that time, a rebuttal has been posted by Tony George Jr. (the Manager of Business Development for the Firestone Indy Lights series) … read it here. It’s a solid read and just goes to show how serious the IRL is about this new program aimed at helping up-and-coming drivers.

Speaking of the ‘Road to Indy‘ … I received a few links and some kind words regarding my coverage of junior formula racing from Tony Johns over at the SBNation IndyCar blog: Pop Off Valve.  Thanks TJ.

I decided to take a short break over the holidays this year.  Subsequently, I’m a little behind on some of the latest junior formula news.  It seems like a good time for another edition of Linkage.

Stephanie Wallcraft, of Planet-IRL.com, wrote an interesting piece yesterday on the flaws associated with the ‘Road to Indy program’.  She brings up some valid points but I think it’s important to remember that the creation of an additional ladder system is definitely a step in the right direction.  I’m hopeful that a few of the issues will be sorted out shortly.  If you haven’t already read it, make sure to out-click on the link above and give her story a read.

Sort of old news by now but Radon Sport has introduced a new F2000 car.  Reportedly, several cars have already been sold and  a few teams plan to utilize them in the 2010 F2000 Championship.  USF1′s Ken Anderson was also involved with this project.

Doug Patterson, of OpenPaddock.net, recently completed his 3-part review of the 2009 Indy Lights season.  You can read them here:  Spring Races, Mid-Season Grind and the Battle for the Championship.

Jon Waldock, of The Feeder Series, added a Formula Renault 3.5 Guide to his site.  It’s a pretty basic summary but a worthy read for those interested in the World Series by Renault.

Brian Stewart Racing is planning to return to the Indy Lights series full-time in 2010.  The team is also planning to field an entry in the USF2000 National Championship.  The team linked to my Indy Lights quiz , so posting some news on their upcoming racing season is the least I can do.  Glad you enjoyed the quiz Brian.

My Spanish is very limited, but it sounds like Pablo Donoso has decided to retire from racing.  Try Google Translation.

Make sure to send me your news and/or ideas for future blog posts:  junioropenwheeltalent at gmail dot com

Time for a Friday edition of Linkage.

Formula BMW
In the past I haven’t given Formula BMW Europe a whole lot of attention (at least not on the blog)— strictly due to workload— but with the disappearance of Formula BMW-Americas in 2010…  that may change.  In any case, here is the Formula BMW-Europe 2010 Schedule.

Star Mazda
James Kovacic, who ran in the 2009 Formula BMW-Americas series, was recently awarded the AMSF International Rising Star Award and is currently discussing his options for 2010 with several Star Mazda teams.  The AMSF (Australian Motor Sport Foundation) scholarship wants Kovacic to compete in Star Mazda… so the 16-year-old is planning to drive in next month’s Official Star Mazda test at Sebring International Raceway.

Doug Patterson over at OpenPaddock.net has put together a review of the 2009 Star Mazda season:  Getting Started, The Mid-Season Grind, and the Battle for the Championship.

F2000 Championship
Ralph Firman, who founded Van Diemen, is planning to supply a new chassis to the F2000 Championship in 2010.  The chassis was designed by Firman’s new company RFR (Ralph Firman Racing)… which opened its doors in 2008.

For anyone that missed “Blogger Night” on Trackside with Curt Cavin and Kevin Lee last night, make sure to check it out.  You can listen to the podcast here.

Team Autotecnica, of Formula BMW fame, will join the Star Mazda championship full-time in 2010, they also plan to do some F2000 races.  Several teams have committed to running F2000 races in 2010 (via press release) but no one will commit to a series.

Indy Lights competitor Stefan Wilson had the chance to sample a F1 car earlier today at Silverstone after winning the 2007 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.

Cooper Tires will continue their support of junior formula racing by sponsoring the USF2000 National Championship in 2010.

The off-season is upon us, but that doesn’t mean the news has stopped.  There have been quite a few press releases hitting my inbox this week and I think it seems like a good time for another edition of “Linkage”.

Brooks Associates Racing, who won the 2008 Atlantic Championship, will return to competition in 2010 via the Indy Lights series after taking a year hiatus due to financial concerns.  They purchased their car from Guthrie-Meyer Racing who disbanded after being suspended indefinitely by IRL officials early this season.

In other Indy Lights news, it looks like Team E is planning a return in 2010.

I meant to provide a link on this last month, Chris Estrada over at Indy Racing Revolution wrote a piece on the new USF2000 National Championship.  It’s always nice to see IndyCar bloggers give the feeder series some attention.

Speaking of feeder series, I just found this site.

The RRDC (Road Racing Drivers Club) received a grant from the FIA Motor Sport Safety Development Fund and will be hosting free workshops for young drivers.  They have organized a real solid group of field experts and panelists to speak at the Young Driver’s Symposium at the PRI trade show.  Looks like a pretty good opportunity for up-and-coming drivers.

In Star Mazda news, Corey Lewis won Round #1 of the Formula Mazda Winter Tour after Jorge Goncalvez was penalized one spot for accelerating too soon at the start of the race.

Alexander Rossi is no longer the only American sampling GP2 this off-season as Jake Rosenzweig turned the 13th quickest time in today’s Paul Ricard test.  Rosenzweig drove for Carlin Motorsport this season in the F3 Euro Series.  I didn’t do a formal write-up on this , but Alexander Rossi deserves some press after finishing inside the top-five in both GP2-Asia races last weekend in Abu Dhabi.  It was his GP2-Asia series debut.

As “Tweeted” on Twitter, today is one of those days where you just get bombarded by open wheel news and rumors.  I’ve had a lot of stuff hit my email inbox over the last two days, so rather than rush to get a story out for each…  I’ve decided to disclose a bunch of news all at once via a “Linkage” post.

NWR to IndyCar/GP2?

Marshall Pruett posted a story yesterday on SpeedTV.com that Atlantic team Newman-Wachs Racing might make the move to GP2 or the IndyCar Series for 2010.   Fellow blogger Matt Chamois, of The Other Side, followed up on the story this morning.  It might be just me, but it seems like there are a lot of “ifs” associated with the move.  I have an email out to NWR team owner Eddie Wach’s right now, so I will likely post a follow up story on this later.

Testing News

Star Mazda regular Anders Krohn recently tested a Ferrari 430.  In open wheel news, he plans to do a 100-mile F2000 race with Liberty Motorsports Chuck Lessick.  Lessick was Krohn’s lead mechanic at Andersen Racing during the 2008 F2000 Championship— where the duo won the overall title.  Krohn will likely return to the Star Mazda Championship in 2010, but nothing official has been announced.

Speaking of Liberty Motorsports, Bobby Caldwell recently completed a F2000 test with the team.

As posted earlier today, the Indy Lights “Champion’s Test” was cancelled, but will likely be rescheduled for a later date.

Last week I posted a Indy Lights Testing Update –which has recently been outdated with the above announcement.  It now appears that Pippa Mann and Stefan Wilson will test for Sam Schmidt Motorsports at Kentucky Speedway on October 22nd-23rd.  Martin Plowman will be testing for AFS/AGR.  It’s likely that another driver will be testing with AFS, but I’m yet to receive the official confirmation.

More Rungs on the Ladder

The Jim Russell Championship is continuing its support for today’s up-and-coming drivers by offering the 2010 JRC Champion a fully-funded ride in the FIA Formula Two Championship.  It’s great to see so many companies stepping up to help bridge the gap from karting to the upper echelons of open-wheel racing.

Karting News

Italian Motors driver Remo Ruscitti has announced his intention to run in the KF3 division at the upcoming WSK event at the South Garda Karting facility in Lonato, Italy.

Speaking of the WSK, Championship Karting International (CKI) will now be run under the WSK banner in 2010.

Indy Lights

In case you haven’t noticed, the entry list for this weekend’s Homestead-Miami 100 is short a few names.  Most notably, two female names.  Ana Beatriz is reportedly still battling funding woes and will not compete in the Indy Lights series’ finale.  Logan Gomez will fill the empty seat.  Leilani Munter, who was scheduled to make an appearance at Chicagoland… err… I mean Homestead will once again be watching from the infield.

Now, I have yet to receive confirmation on this, but there are also rumors (stemming from a caller on Curt Cavin’s radio show)  that both Tom Dyer and Ali Jackson were turned down for the Indy Lights finale.  Both drivers have adequate experience on ovals, so if this rumor is true… it makes you ask “What For?”.  Tom Dyer passed his Indy Lights rookie test last July at Kentucky Speedway and received fairly rave reviews from Butch Meyer– who, at the time, was the Indy Lights technical director.

It appears Gustavo Yacaman is back for the series finale after declaring the season was over back in late August— following a crash at Infineon Raceway.

GP2

American Alexander Rossi has been testing a GP2 car this week at Jerez.  He will also be testing the BMW-Sauber F1 car at Jerez in December.  Rossi spent the first day with Piquet GP— finishing 15th in the morning session and 12th in the afternoon session.  He spent Day-3 testing with DAMS— finishing 21st in the morning session and 9th in the afternoon session.

Another name on the list that might peak your interest is 5x Rally World Champion Sébastien Loeb.  It’s no secret that Loeb wants to make a full-time switch to open wheel racing, so stay tuned for future updates.  Loeb was 18th in the morning session and 25th in the afternoon session.

F3

Alexander Rossi, mentioned above in the GP2 testing, will also test a F3 car late this month at the Circuit du Val de Vienne in France.

Liam Kenney has been training at Pitfit in Indianapolis for an upcoming F3 test/tests.  Kenney is currently in discussion with 3 teams and is eyeing another European campaign in 2010.  Stay tuned for updates.

Stunt Driving

Team USA Scholarship recipient Brett Smrz has been doing some “stunt driving” for the upcoming movie Wichita and had the opportunity to meet Tom Cruise.

Atlantic Championship

As previously reported on my Twitter account, Genoa will skip the Atlantic Championship season finale due to finacial concerns.  Top rookie Frederic Vervisch will finish the season 4th— whether or not he shows up for Laguna Seca.

Formula One
Bleacher Report published a piece on “The 10 Drivers Who Really Deserve to be in F1“… I like the concept, but I’m not sure I agree with all the choices.

Last Friday, Peter Windsor wrote a piece for The New York Times entitled “The Making of a U.S. Formula One Team“.  It’s a decent read that details the background of USF1, including Peter and Ken’s shared love of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.

Karting
Top Kart USA pilot Chris Wehrheim will be traveling overseas next month to race in the KF2 division of the WSK International Series.  The event is scheduled to take place October 29th-November 1st at the South Garda Karting facility in Lonato, Italy.

Formula 3 Euro Series
Team Motopark Academy recently became the first “rookie” team to win a F3 Euro Series race without any previous F3 experience. The win came at the hands of Renger van der Zande.

Formula BMW
Formula BMW-Americas drivers’ James Kovacic and Michael Lewis found their way to a podium finish in Round 12 of the Formula BMW Pacific Series.  The event was held in Marina Bay, Singapore.  Both drivers were making a guest appearance in the series courtesy of Team Eurointernational.  Kovacic finished on the podium in Round 11 as well.

It’s time for another edition of Linkage.  There has been a lot of junior formula news surfacing over the last week … all of which deserves some press.

Current F2000 Championship race driver Jonathan Scarallo made his return to the Bertil Roos racing series over the weekend in an effort to pick up some additional off-season seat time.  Per his twitter account; @JScarallo,  his return was a success as he found himself with two poles and two wins.  Aside from his open wheel endeavors, Jonathan recently completed a test in a World Challenge GT- Pontiac GTO at Pocono.

Speaking of Twitter, make sure to tune into my account, @JOWT, for up-to-date karting and open wheel news.  I typically will post something on Twitter prior to updating here… simply due to time constraints.  If you follow every tweet, you might even come across some college hockey news or perhaps a few complaints about why my golf handicap never seems to improve.   I know you are all immensely interested in those details.

In other testing news, Genoa Racing recently held a test for Frederic Vervisch, Dane Cameron and Greg Mansell in an Atlantic car at Gingerman.

Speaking of Greg Mansell … a few weeks ago I speculated that he had left his WSR team; Ultimate Signature Racing due to discontent with the team.  Apparently, Greg wasn’t the only unhappy driver in the Ultimate camp as former teammate Miguel Molina has also left the team, stating “breach of contract” issues.  I’m not sure what’s really going on behind the scenes here, but USR has decided to sit out the remaining events on the 2009 World Series calendar.

In Formula BMW news, the FBMW-Pacific series has quite the entry list for next weekend’s Marina Bay race in Singapore.  Eurointernational will be fielding Gabby Chaves, James Kovacic, Giancarlo Vilarinho, and Michael Lewis from the FBMW-Americas series.

As previously reported, Adam Christodoulou (Star Mazda) and Chris Miller (2009 F2000 Champion) competed in the Molecule Pro Formula Mazda Challenge at Laguna Seca.  Miller, who plans to compete in the final two events of the 2009 Star Mazda Championship; Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca, adapted to the car quite adamantly and finished both races inside the top-five.  Christodoulou swept both events in a dominating performance.

Former shifter kart star and current Indy Lights competitor James Hinchcliffe awarded Enrico Menotti as the inaugural winner of the Hinchtown.com Canadian Karting Award.  Menotti has been focusing on Rotax Senior and Rotax DD2 competition via the Florida Winter Tour and the Canadian National Karting Championships this season.

Speaking of Rotax competition, Oklahoma Motorsports Complex is hosting the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Nationals this weekend in Norman.  This event will determine which 10 drivers will represent America at the Rotax Grand Finals in Egypt.    If you live near Norman, Oklahoma… I strongly recommend the trip.

Gianmarco Raimondo, who finished 3rd in the 2009 Formula BMW-Americas championship, was scheduled to fly to Italy today for a Formula 3 test.  Raimondo won his first race of the season last weekend in the series’ finale.

There was some big news this week for the F2000 Championship series, they are now affiliated with and endorsed by USF1.

Due to CIK-FIA concerns over driver safety and good sportsmanship (clean driving)….  all karts will be equipped with onboard cameras for this weekend’s World Cup event at Sarno.  I like the idea, but they might run into some controversy if they start implementing late penalties.  My guess is there will be a lot of “racing dad’s” requesting that the CIK-FIA investigate so-and-so’s race footage.  All in all, it should make for some decent ‘Video of the Day’ features.

I’m sure most of you have already read these, but in case you missed it…  I wrote a brief synopsis on each of the Team USA Scholarship Nominees.

• Connor De Phillippi
• Liam Kenney
• Chris Miller
• Timmy Megenbier
• Ben Searcy
• Brett Smrz
• Court Vernon

Professional golfer Martin Kaymer injured himself recently in a freak go kart accident and Auto Racing Daily is labeling it as possibly “the most expensive go kart experience in history“.

The Atlantic Championship drivers will get to experiment with a “Power to Pass” button at Road Atlanta in a trial run for the possible 2010 addition.  With the high downforce of the Atlantic cars, this might not be a bad idea.  The series will also continue it’s alignment with the ALMS and IMSA sanction for 2010.