In the latest column for the Carlin team, team principal Trevor Carlin looks back over a busy campaign for his team and talks exclusively about the announcement of a move into GP2 for the 2007 season.
This year has probably been the most hectic year for the Carlin team since we started in 1997. It seems quite unbelievable that we started out doing road shows and pit stop challenges for the Williams F1 team and now we run teams in Formula BMW,
F3,
A1GP, World Series by Renault and, as of this past week,
GP2. The team has grown quite considerably in the last nine years. This year we had a total of 63 employees and competed in 80 races. That will obviously increase next year with
GP2.
At the start of the year we were putting together a bid to enter the 2008 F1 Championship and although that was unsuccessful, we are still positive about the opportunity to enter the championship in the future.
All of the teams put in a great effort this year. We're lucky that we have such a great group of people who are able to look after the different championships and their own projects and somehow it all just comes together. The Formula BMW team had a fantastic start to the season. Winning the first race at
Brands Hatch was a great achievement for Oliver Oakes. Oli's win was a landmark victory for the team, being the 100th win since our first race in 1997.
After a good start, the rest of the season didn't quite fulfil the team's true potential. Oli had a strong season and although he didn't qualify for the Rookie Cup, he was the highest placed new driver, challenging drivers with one or more season's experience. He definitely deserved his place in the McLaren Autosport BRDC final. Niall Quinn also did a great job in his first season, winning five races in the Rookie Cup, to finish third in the Rookie standings.
It was another satisfying year in British
F3, despite having two rookie drivers, both Oliver Jarvis and Maro Engel did well to achieve 19 podium positions between them. Ollie did a great job to finish runner-up in his first season and to go on and win Rookie of the Year. I think some felt that it would be a disadvantage being the only Honda team against Mercedes, but we had a strong finish to the season and all three drivers, Ollie, Maro and Christian Bakkerud won races.
The Macau Grand Prix is one of our favourite events at Carlin, and although it's a nightmare logistically and hard work for the team, it always puts on a great show. Signing Vettel was a bit of a coup this year and we had three other great drivers in Jarvis, Buemi, and Engel. Unfortunately, things didn't quite come together in time and despite the fact that we had the pace, fate conspired against us.
Nevertheless, we came away with a fourth place thanks to a brilliant drive from Sebastian Buemi, and saw some great racing from our other three drivers who battled their way through the field.
Moving up to World Series, we had quite a mixed season. Mikhail Aleshin drove for us all year and improved with every race. He's a very talented driver and did well to cope with the changing dynamics in the team, having four team mates through the season. He drove a couple of really strong races and was unlucky not to win a race.
