After a successful debut campaign in 2005,
Formula One's latest feeder series has a lot to live up to but, if anything, GP2 appears well-placed to go one better this year.
The field shows a welcome blend of new faces and old hands, but largely without the pay drivers who populated the back of the field at each round last year. Add in one new team, and a raft of technical changes designed to enhance the already spectacular racing, and 2006 is looking good.
Leading the way after dominating the second half of last season is ART Grand Prix, the off-shoot of the ultra-successful ASM F3 team that many are already tipping for a place in F1 in the future. With Nicolas Todt and Frederic Vasseur at the helm, the team scooped both driver and team titles in 2005, and has assembled an equally strong line-up to cover the loss of inaugural champion
Nico Rosberg.
While Alex Premat remains on board for a second season in the series, despite reports of a threat from
Timo Glock, ASM's latest F3 champion
Lewis Hamilton arrives to fill the seat vacated by Rosberg after his move to
F1. If anything, it is the young Briton, still supported by Mercedes as he has been since his karting days, that has set the timesheets alight in testing, although Premat has had the added distraction of hopping between GP2 and A1 Grand Prix cars throughout the winter, as he helped France lift the latter title and cap a successful season.
Hamilton has shown few problems in adapting both to the increased power of GP2 or the unfamiliar tracks on which the series has run its controlled testing programme, and should be a threat from the off in Valencia. Premat, meanwhile, needs to stamp his authority early on, both to quell his team-mate's enthusiasm and mark himself out as the next man worthy of an F1 seat.
