The Barwa Addax team have announced via Twitter that they have opted to bring in Dani Clos to race for them in Bahrain this weekend.
The 23-year-old Spanish driver is a veteran of three full seasons in
GP2 with the Racing Engineering team, claiming a sprint win in Turkey in 2010 and a
GP2 Asia win in Italy last year. Clos also won seven further podium positions in GP2, and had his best year in the series in 2010 when he finished in fourth place in the drivers' championship.
Although he tested with Addax after the end of the 2011 season, Clos opted not to return for a fourth year in
GP2 and instead signed up as HRT's reserve and test driver for the 2012 F1 Grand Prix season in February. But Clos has now been drafted in by Barwa Addax after the current championship team struggled in the season opener at Sepang, Malaysia last month.
Addax won the 2011
GP2 team title with drivers Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde: Pic is now an F1 driver with Marussia Racing, while van der Garde is Caterham Racing's F1 test driver as well as leading the team's
GP2 campaign alongside Rodolfo González.
By contrast, the Addax team's current drivers failed to score any points in the opening weekend of 2012. Johnny Cecotto Jr. retired from the feature race and ended up in 22nd place in the sprint, while Josef Kral finished in 14th place in the Saturday event and went on to finish in ninth place in the Sunday morning outing.
However it's Czech racer Kral who will be missing from Sepang, with Clos due to start alongside Johnny Cecotto Jr. at the Sakhir International Circuit.
The team's tweet gave no further details as to why the substitution had been made, whether it was for one or both of the consecutive race weekends scheduled for Bahrain, or was a longer-term change to the driver line-up.
Team boss Alejandro Agag had previously said in a press release before the season opener that he had come close to signing Davide Valsecchi for the season, before the Italian was picked up by the DAMS team to replace 2011 series champion Romain Grosjean.
"We were about to sign him ourselves but he was taken away from under our noses," said Agag.