Piquet GP

Piquet GP, formerly known as Minardi Piquet Sports or Minardi by Piquet Sports and Piquet Sports, is a motor racing team. The team's history can be traced back to when the GP Racing team was founded in 1997, and also to when Piquet Sports was created in 2000 by triple world champion Nelson Piquet. In 2007, Piquet Sports and GP Racing merged to create "Minardi Piquet Sports". In 2008, the team dropped "Minardi" from their name.[1] In early 2009, the team was sold and rebranded as Piquet GP, but changed its name again in November to Rapax Team, once all remaining ties to part-owner Piquet were cut.

Brazil Piquet GP
Founded1997 (as GP Racing)
2000 (as Piquet Sports)
Founder(s)Tancredi Pagiaro (GP Racing)
Nelson Piquet (Piquet Sports)
Folded2009
BaseVeggiano, Padua, Italy
Former seriesGP2 Series
GP2 Asia Series
Formula 3000
Italian Formula 3000
A1 Grand Prix
British Formula Three Championship
Formula 3 Sudamericana
Noted driversItaly Thomas Biagi
Italy Fabrizio del Monte
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado
Brazil Diego Nunes
Italy Fabio Onidi
Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr.
Italy Davide Rigon
Teams'
Championships
Euroseries 3000:
2007
Drivers'
Championships
Formula 3 Sudamericana
2002: Nelson Piquet Jr.
British Formula Three Championship:
2004: Nelson Piquet Jr.
Euroseries 3000:
2007: Davide Rigon
Euroseries 3000:
2007: Davide Rigon

History

GP Racing

GP Racing was founded in 1997 by Tancredi Pagiaro to compete in the Italian Formula Three Championship. The team then debuted in the FIA International Formula 3000 championship in 1998 with French driver, Cyrille Sauvage, only managing two points. In 1999 they expanded to two cars with Italian, Fabrizio Gollin in one car and Giovanni Montanari, Gastón Mazzacane and Laurent Delahaye sharing the second. However none of the drivers managed to score points

Towards the end of 1999, GP Racing entered the Italian F3000 with just a single car driven by Thomas Biagi. Despite only competing in the last 3 races, Biagi scored enough points to end the season 4th in points. In 2000, Swiss driver Gabriele Gardel joined the team in a second car alongside Biagi. It was a somewhat disappointing season with Biagi only ending the season 5th with Gardel failing to score. GP Racing came 6th in the teams championship. Both Biagi and Gardel continued with the team in 2001. Biagi had a much better season taking the GP Racing's first win at Donington Park on his way to 2nd in the championship. Gardel came 9th overall while the team came 2nd in the teams championship. 2002 was once again a peak season: GP Racing came 4th out of the 14 teams that participated on the constructor’s classification with Alessandro Piccolo and Martin Basso. In 2003 for the third consecutive year, GP Racing competed in Euro 3000 Series Championship with promising young talents behind the wheel: Italian Fabrizio Del Monte, Russian Roman Rusinov and young Belgian Maxime Hodencq who replaced Rusinov for the last two races. Once again, it was a positive season for the team: Del Monte was second in the driver’s classification and GP Racing was third in the constructor’s title. In 2004, GP Racing confirmed its position at the top in Superfund Euro 3000 as well with Tor Graves joining Del Monte and Hodencq in a third car for the team. The title slipped out of Del Monte’s hands during the last race by one point only. The Italian had already conquered three wins, various podiums and was in the lead for 9 out of 10 races. An unfortunate collision with Graves at the start of the last round took the joy of winning the much deserved title away from Fabrizio and GP Racing. Hodencq scored 3 points on the way to 11th overall while Graves failed to score.

In 2005 GP Racing participated in the Italian F3000 Championship with the Lola BO2 driven by Fabrizio Del Monte and by the débuting Juan Caceres who ended the season 5th. Alex Lloyd and Toni Vilander also raced for the team later in the season after Del Monte left. GP Racing took 3rd in the teams championship. The team also participated in the LMES Championship with Promec (only one race in Monza).

In 2006, GP Racing linked-up with Gian Carlo Minardi to form the Minardi Team by GP Racing, which competed with good results in the new Euroseries 3000. Caceres stayed on with the team alongside Christiano Rocha though neither would complete the season. Despite having somewhat of a revolving door with no less than 6 drivers racing throughout the season, the team secured 2nd in the teams championship. Roldan Rodriguez, Diego Nunes, Davide Rigon and Fausto Ippoliti would complete the season while Rocha returned to the team in a third car. Rocha finished the season in 4th while Rodriguez and Caceras were 6th and 7th respectively.

Piquet Sports

Piquet Sports was created primarily for Nelson Piquet Jr. to race in single-seater Formulae.

Piquet Sports was founded in 2000 by Brazilian Nelson Piquet, a triple Formula One World Drivers' Champion, for his son Nelson Piquet Jr. with Filipe Vargas, the team manager, setting up the operation.[1] The team's first competition was the South American Formula Three Championship where Piquet Jr. took second in his first race and won four races later in Cascavel. The young Brazilian finished 5th in the championship with 77 points, while Piquet Sports finished fourth in the team's championship, also scoring 77 points.

"One day Nelson said, 'The first time Nelsinho sits in a race car, it'll be run by you'"

Felipe Vargas[1]

The team stuck with competing in the South American championship the following year, which they took a majority thirteen of a possible eighteen wins scoring a total of 296 points as Piquet Jr. and Piquet Sports took the Drivers' and Teams' titles respectively, with the Brazilian having a margin of over a hundred points from his nearest rival Danilo Dirani. The team's racing interest went across the Atlantic for 2003 as the team entered the British Formula 3 Championship. The team performed well in their début season, with Piquet Jr. taking six wins over the year with a further five podiums brought his points tally to 231 points, putting him third in the final standings for the Drivers' Championship behind Alan van der Merwe and Jamie Green.

The team's racing involvement was split in 2004 with the team entering Piquet Jr. for a second season in the British championship while bringing their attention back to the South American championship, entering fellow Brazilian Alexandre Sarnes Negrão. Both Piquet and Negrão took their respective championship crowns, taking a total of sixteen wins between them.

Andreas Zuber driving for Piquet Sports at the Silverstone round of the 2008 GP2 Series season.

The team graduated into the newly formed GP2 series, which replaced Formula 3000 as the feeder series of Formula One. The team entered their two champions Piquet Jr. and Negrão for their debut season in the category. British team HiTech Racing formed an association with the team's GP2 activities but this was terminated midway through 2005. The team finished sixth in their debut season with Piquet scoring a single win at Spa-Francorchamps.

2006 saw Piquet produce their most competitive season to date, with the Piquet Jr. taking four wins and challenging Lewis Hamilton to that year's title. The Brazilian, however, lost out by twelve points to the Brit and the team also lost out to Hamilton's ART Grand Prix team in the Teams' Championship.

Piquet Jr. left the squad at the end of 2006 to join Renault Formula One team as the team's test driver.

Merger of GP Racing and Piquet Sports

Piquet Sports merged with GP Racing ahead of the 2007 season to create "Minardi by Piquet Sports". Spaniard Roldán Rodríguez was employed to replace Piquet Jr. The newly named team enjoyed little, if any, success in 2007 GP2 Series season with Negrão failing to take the mantle of team leader and only scored a single podium position. The team finished the year with 22 points and outside the top ten in the Teams' Championship. In the Euro Series 3000 GP Racing won both the drivers and teams championship both with Davide Rigon and Diego Nunes completing a championship 1-2.

For 2008, the Minardi name was dropped from the team's title. 2008 saw the team gain some success, with Italian Marco Bonanomi taking a win in the newly formed Asia series and new signing Pastor Maldonado, winner of the previous season's race in Monaco, taking the team's first pole position in the series at the opening round in Catalunya.

2008 would be the team's final year in the Euro Series 3000. Fabio Onidi joined the team alongside the returning Roldan Rodriguez who shared the lead car with Pastor Maldonado and Fabrizio Crestani. Onidi just lost out on the drivers title by 2 points to Nicolas Prost while Crestani ended up 5th. The team also lost out to Bull Racing by 8 points in the battle for the teams championship.

For the 2009 season, the team was renamed Piquet GP and Rodriguez returned to the team alongside Durango exponent Alberto Valerio.

Controversies

During their existence so far in motor racing, Piquet Sports have been involved some controversies over the years, most notably in 2002 when Piquet Jr. won that year's title. A number of teams protested at the team for "illegal testing" over the course of the season, Piquet Sports argued that the newly installed mudflaps on the Dallara made it a "prototype" model – the team escaped punishment.[1]

Results

GP2 Series

GP2 Series Results[2]
Year Team name Car Drivers Races Wins Poles Fast laps Points D.C. T.C.
2005 United Kingdom Hitech Piquet Sports Dallara GP2/05-Mecachrome Brazil Nelson Angelo Piquet 23 1 0 0 46 8th 6th
Brazil Alexandre Sarnes Negrão 23 0 0 0 4 19th
2006 Brazil Piquet Sports Dallara GP2/05-Mecachrome Brazil Nelson Angelo Piquet 21 4 6 3 102 2nd 2nd
Brazil Alexandre Sarnes Negrão 21 0 0 0 13 13th
2007 Brazil Minardi Piquet Sports Dallara GP2/05-Mecachrome Brazil Alexandre Sarnes Negrão 21 0 0 0 8 20th 11th
Spain Roldán Rodríguez 21 0 0 0 14 17th
2008 Brazil Piquet Sports Dallara GP2/08-Mecachrome Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 20 1 2 4 60 5th 3rd
United Arab Emirates Andreas Zuber 20 0 0 1 32 9th
2009 Brazil Piquet GP Dallara GP2/08-Mecachrome Spain Roldán Rodríguez 20 0 0 0 25 11th 7th
Brazil Alberto Valerio 20 1 0 0 16 15th
  • D.C. = Drivers' Championship position, T.C. = Teams' Championship position.

GP2 Series

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Chassis
Engine
Tyres
Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 T.C. Points
2005 GP2/05
Renault
B
SMR
FEA
SMR
SPR
CAT
FEA
CAT
SPR
MON
FEA
NÜR
FEA
NÜR
SPR
MAG
FEA
MAG
SPR
SIL
FEA
SIL
SPR
HOC
FEA
HOC
SPR
HUN
FEA
HUN
SPR
IST
FEA
IST
SPR
MNZ
FEA
MNZ
SPR
SPA
FEA
SPA
SPR
BHR
FEA
BHR
SPR
6th 50
Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr. 14† 6 5 2 11† 5 3 Ret DSQ Ret Ret 3 8 15† 10 4 6 3 Ret 1 14 Ret 15
Brazil Alexandre Negrão Ret 13 8 15 12† Ret Ret Ret 13 19 16† Ret 18 8 15 12 19 Ret 13 7 7 12 9
2006 GP2/05
Renault
B
VAL
FEA
VAL
SPR
SMR
FEA
SMR
SPR
NÜR
FEA
NÜR
SPR
CAT
FEA
CAT
SPR
MON
FEA
SIL
FEA
SIL
SPR
MAG
FEA
MAG
SPR
HOC
FEA
HOC
SPR
HUN
FEA
HUN
SPR
IST
FEA
IST
SPR
MNZ
FEA
MNZ
SPR
2th 115
Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr. 1 4 5 2 Ret 19† 4 2 12† 4 5 4 2 13 DNS 1 1 1 5 2 6
Brazil Alexandre Negrão 13 7 Ret 11 7 7 7 18 Ret Ret 12 5 Ret 16 9 5 Ret 8 Ret Ret Ret
2007 GP2/05
Renault
B
BHR
FEA
BHR
SPR
CAT
FEA
CAT
SPR
MON
FEA
MAG
FEA
MAG
SPR
SIL
FEA
SIL
SPR
NÜR
FEA
NÜR
SPR
HUN
FEA
HUN
SPR
IST
FEA
IST
SPR
MNZ
FEA
MNZ
SPR
SPA
FEA
SPA
SPR
VAL
FEA
VAL
SPR
11th 22
Brazil Alexandre Negrão Ret 15 Ret DNS 15 Ret Ret Ret 18 12 10 Ret 13 7 2 14 Ret 19† 16 15 18
Spain Roldán Rodríguez Ret 12 4 Ret Ret 16 9 8 11 10 9 6 3 11 8 Ret 8 15 10 Ret 17
2008 GP2/08
Renault
B
CAT
FEA
CAT
SPR
IST
FEA
IST
SPR
MON
FEA
MON
FEA
MAG
FEA
MAG
SPR
SIL
FEA
SIL
SPR
HOC
FEA
HOC
SPR
HUN
FEA
HUN
SPR
VAL
FEA
VAL
SPR
SPA
FEA
SPA
SPR
MNZ
FEA
MNZ
SPR
3th 92
United Arab Emirates Andreas Zuber 3 Ret 3 Ret 11 17 5 8 7 11 11† 2 2 7 Ret Ret DSQ Ret Ret 10
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 12 Ret Ret Ret 2 Ret 3 7 Ret 15† 6 17 5 18† 2 Ret 3 1 2 4
2009 GP2/08
Renault
B
CAT
FEA
CAT
SPR
MON
FEA
MON
FEA
IST
FEA
IST
SPR
SIL
FEA
SIL
SPR
NÜR
FEA
NÜR
SPR
HUN
FEA
HUN
SPR
VAL
FEA
VAL
SPR
SPA
FEA
SPA
SPR
MNZ
FEA
MNZ
SPR
ALG
FEA
ALG
SPR
7th 41
Spain Roldán Rodríguez Ret Ret 11 Ret Ret 17 12 9 2 Ret Ret 13 5 Ret 5 2 13 7 5 Ret
Brazil Alberto Valerio 15 13 Ret Ret 4 6 1 7 Ret 17 Ret 21† 17 10 Ret 12 Ret 11 Ret 7

Euroseries 3000

Euro Series 3000
Year Car Drivers Wins Poles Fast laps Points D.C. T.C.
1999 Lola T96/50-Zytek Italy Thomas Biagi 0 1 0 16 4th 6th
2000 Lola T96/50-Zytek Italy Thomas Biagi 0 0 2 15 5th 6th
Switzerland Gabriele Gardel 0 0 0 0 24th
2001 Lola T96/50-Zytek Italy Thomas Biagi 1 2 0 32 2nd 2nd
Switzerland Gabriele Gardel 0 0 1 5 9th
2002 Lola B99/50-Zytek Italy Alessandro Piccolo 1 2 2 28 4th 4th
Argentina Martin Basso 0 0 1 10 8th
Italy Giovanni Montanari 0 0 0 1 14th
2003 Lola B99/50-Zytek Russia Roman Rusinov 0 1 0 6 9th 3rd
Belgium Maxime Hodencq 0 0 0 0 24th
Italy Fabrizio Del Monte 1 0 1 31 2nd
2004 Lola B99/50-Zytek Italy Fabrizio Del Monte 3 1 1 45 2nd 3rd
Belgium Maxime Hodencq 0 0 0 3 11th
Thailand Tor Graves 0 0 0 0 16th
2005 Lola B02/50-Zytek Italy Fabrizio Del Monte 0 0 0 15 8th 3rd
United Kingdom Alex Lloyd 0 0 0 5 16th
Finland Toni Vilander 1 1 1 23 4th
Uruguay Juan Caceras 0 0 0 20 5th
2006 Lola B02/50-Zytek Brazil Christiano Rocha 1 0 0 51 4th 2nd
Spain Roldán Rodríguez 1 2 2 36 6th
Brazil Diego Nunes 0 0 0 6 15th
Uruguay Juan Caceras 0 2 0 28 7th
Italy Davide Rigon 0 0 0 8 14th
Italy Fausto Ippoliti 1 0 0 15 12th
2007 Lola B02/50-Zytek Italy Davide Rigon 5 4 6 108 1st 1st
Brazil Diego Nunes 4 1 1 77 2nd
2008 Lola B02/50-Zytek Spain Roldán Rodríguez 2 0 0 26 8th 2nd
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 1 0 1 11 12th
Italy Fabrizio Crestani 3 0 2 49 5th
Italy Fabio Onidi 2 0 6 58 2nd
  • D.C. = Drivers' Championship position, T.C. = Teams' Championship position.

Notes and references

  1. "The Renaissance Men of GP2", Autosport Magazine pg. 40–41. May 8, 2008 Issue (Vol. 192, No. 6)
  2. GP2 entrylist and complete results Archived 2008-01-19 at the Wayback Machine speedsportmag.com

See also

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