The
GP2 Series finale and prize-giving celebrations may be only just two weeks ago, but already it's back to work for the teams as they prepare for November's
GP2 Final race and also embark on a winter program of development in preparation for the 2012 season - which will see
GP2 and
GP2 Asia merged into one series.
The teams will have two days of testing at the 4.428km Circuito de
Jerez on 28-29 September, and are keen to try out different drivers as well as new technical developments.
The iSport International team has already announced that they will run 2011
GP2 driver Jolyon Palmer and Auto GP's Carlos Iaconelli on the Wednesday, and
F3 driver Tom Dillmann and Formula Renault 3.5's Nathanael Berthon on the Thursday.
"We will be running a driver evaluation program with all drivers, running through qualifying simulations and full fuel race simulations to get a good idea of their strengths and weaknesses," said iSport's chief engineer Gavin Jones. "It will be the first time at
Jerez with the new car and Pirelli hard tyres, so will be a good challenge for the team and drivers to find the best set-up to produce the fastest times."
Palmer will also test for the
GP2 championship-winning team Barwa Addax on the Thursday, and said that the two days were "a great chance to develop, learn and prove my potential, and I am grateful to both teams for providing the opportunity to join them."
The 20-year-old British driver ran a full rookie season in
GP2 this year with Arden, and his former team mate for the year - Josef Kral - will be trying out one of the Trident Racing cars on Wednesday. He'll relinquish the car to former iSport driver Sam Bird on the Thursday, while former Rapax driver Julian Leal gets to run in the other Trident car on both days.
"We're really satisfied with our driver line-up for the test at Jerez," said Luca Zerbini, Trident's managing director, adding that having three drivers already experienced in
GP2 "will allow us to complete a huge amount of work in the two days."
Zerbini added that he planned to run a different, younger slate of drivers for the next scheduled test session in Barcelona. "We plan to have also some younger racers looking to make their championship approach," he confirmed. "We'll keep following our tradition of relying on the talent of promising youngsters."
As for Arden, they have called up GP3 and Formula 3 Euro Series' Nigel Melker for the
Jerez test session. The 20-year-old from the Netherlands said that he was looking forward to working with Arden and that "I really like the mentality of the team."