Trident Racing has announced that Daniele Rossi is to join the team ahead of the new GP2 season as part of a strengthening of the team's backroom staff.

After six years working with the likes of RC Motorsport and Carlin in the World Series, Rossi will switch to the GP2 arena as the Trident squad continues to put together a team it feels will help challenge for honours during 2008.

"Daniele Rossi is with no doubt one of the best engineers on the European scene,” team principal Alessandro Alunni Bravi said. “He proved, by working with RC and Carlin, to have great resources from both a technical and a personal perspective. His long-time commitment will help Trident Racing to face the upcoming three years of racing.

“He'll be joining Graziano Michelacci and Matteo Frolino, both coming from Toro Rosso F1, completing a dream line-up. We hope that this new agreement will help us to complete a further step forward; all we have to do is start working hard to prepare the 2008 season in the best possible way."

Rossi himself admitted he was looking forward to the challenge of switching his focus away from the World Series and said he was ready to progress to the GP2 arena.

"After six years in the World Series Renault, I was feeling ready to face a new challenge and, in the European motorsport's panorama, the GP2 Series is, besides F1, the top level,” he said. “The meeting I had with Trident Racing was quite convincing, and I felt that their professional approach to the sport was very similar to the one I used to have. With such a number of things in common, it felt like a very natural choice to me.

"The GP2 Series has a mix of great factors: the best drivers around, very fast and powerful cars. Plus, this type of racing requires an highly-professional kind of preparation, close to the one seen in Formula 1, and nothing can be left to fate. You must evaluate every single thing that might be happening during the weekend, and that's so challenging.”