GP3: New series 'logical step' for Atech CRS
CRS Racing team boss Chris Niarchos insists that a move into the new GP3 Series is a logical step for the ever expanding team during the 2010 season.
CRS has teamed up with Atech Grand Prix to enter GP3 under the Atech CRS banner, which will add a second single-seater programme to the CRS resume alongside Formula Renault UK.
It will allow CRS to provide young drivers with another step in their development as they seek to move up from Renault competition and Niarchos said the tie-up with Atech was a logical move to make.
"It brings an extra step for drivers who are leaving Formula Renault and are wondering what to do next," he said. "Right now, we develop great customers and help them to develop as drivers and then we let them go which is just daft. There is no other business in the world where you take a talented person and work with them for three years and then let them go and say 'Have a nice life, see you around'.
"It's idiotic that we wouldn't have that extra step but hopefully next year we'll have another step beyond that. In a perfect world for CRS, we'd have three single-seater programmes and three GT/tin-top programmes and that would be the perfect scenario for me."
However, Niarchos added that he has no aspirations to head to the pinnacle of single-seater racing and chase a place in F1, insisting he was happy to continue building the CRS empire in a sensible manner.
"It's funny as people have asked me if I would ever go to Formula 1 and I wouldn't as it would change my dynamic in the team and I don't want that," he said. "F1 is another world again and the money and commitment levels from everyone are totally different. You live F1, you don't do it at any level other than the best because otherwise you will waste a lot of peoples time and money in a huge way.
"I wouldn't even consider it at the moment. I have three kids under twelve and my existing businesses which are very important to me. In F1, I would be away from home 35 weeks of the year and I am away enough as it is. It wouldn't work, so F1 is a no-goer for me at this point."
