ART Grand Prix

For the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Renault Sport Trophy team, called ART Junior Team, see R-Ace GP.
France ART Grand Prix
Founded 1991 (as ASM)
Base Villeneuve-La-Guyard, Yonne, France
Team principal(s) Frédéric Vasseur
Founder(s) Frédéric Vasseur
Nicolas Todt
Current series GP2 Series
GP3 Series
DTM
Former series FR 2.0 France
Formula 3 Euro Series
GP2 Asia Series
Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0
FFSA GT Championship
European Le Mans Series
Blancpain Endurance Series
Current drivers Japan Nobuharu Matsushita
Russia Sergey Sirotkin
Thailand Alexander Albon
Netherlands Nyck de Vries
Japan Nirei Fukuzumi
Monaco Charles Leclerc
France Esteban Ocon
United Kingdom Gary Paffett
Website http://www.art-grandprix.com/
Teams'
Championships
Formula 3 Euro Series:
200409
GP2 Series:
200506, 2009, 2015
GP2 Asia Series:
2008
GP3 Series:
201013, 2015
Drivers'
Championships
Formula 3 Euro Series:
2004: Jamie Green
2005: Lewis Hamilton
2006: Paul di Resta
2007: Romain Grosjean
2008: Nico Hülkenberg
2009: Jules Bianchi
GP2 Series:
2005 Nico Rosberg
2006: Lewis Hamilton
2009: Nico Hülkenberg
2015: Stoffel Vandoorne
GP2 Asia Series:
2008: Romain Grosjean
GP3 Series:
2010: Esteban Gutiérrez
2011: Valtteri Bottas
2015: Esteban Ocon

ART Grand Prix is a French motor racing team that competes in formula single-seaters in Europe. In 2012, it competed in the GP2 Series and GP3 Series as Lotus GP to reflect sponsorship from British sports and racing car manufacturer Lotus.[1] The team competed as Lotus ART in 2011.

Notable ART drivers include Olivier Pla, Jamie Green, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil, Paul di Resta, Romain Grosjean, Lucas di Grassi, Nico Hülkenberg, Jules Bianchi, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Gutiérrez and Nico Rosberg.

Creation

ART Grand Prix was created in 2005 as a collaborative project between Frédéric Vasseur, the principal of ASM Formule 3, and Nicolas Todt, the son of the then Scuderia Ferrari team principal and now Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) President Jean Todt. Vasseur wanted to expand his championship-winning Formula Three team into the newly created GP2 Series that supports Grands Prix in Europe, while Nicolas Todt had expressed an interest in team management. He had become involved in motorsport as a driver manager, and was notable for representing Felipe Massa. Todt took charge of the new team's commercial and promotional interests, while Vasseur managed the day-to-day running of the operation. ART is based at the ASM workshops at Villeneuve-la-Guyard in the département of Yonne, France.

Racing history

Formula Renault and Formula Three

ASM had already competed in European and French Formula Renault 2.0 before expanding its operations to include the Formula 3 Euroseries in 2003. In 2004, the team dominated, with drivers Jamie Green and Alexandre Prémat finishing first and second in the drivers' championship - the latter also winning the 2004 Macau Grand Prix. The trend continued after ART was formed: the team won five straight teams' titles from the award's inauguration in 2005 to 2009, and won the drivers' championships in these years with Lewis Hamilton, Paul di Resta, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hülkenberg and Jules Bianchi respectively. Future Formula One drivers Adrian Sutil, Sebastian Vettel and Kamui Kobayashi also achieved success with the team. In 2010, ART's stranglehold on the championship was broken by French rivals Signature, who fielded Edoardo Mortara to victory in a Volkswagen-powered car, ahead of ART's lead driver Valtteri Bottas, who was the lead Mercedes-powered driver. At the end of the season, ART withdrew from the F3 Euroseries to concentrate on the GP and GP3 Series.

GP2 Series

Pastor Maldonado driving for ART at the Turkish round of the 2009 GP2 Series season.
Jules Bianchi driving for ART during the Silverstone round of the 2011 season.

ART Grand Prix was one of several teams to enter the new GP2 Series in 2005. In the team's debut season, it employed F3 Euroseries graduates Alexandre Prémat, of France, and Nico Rosberg, of Germany. Against drivers who had prior experience at this level, from Formula 3000, Rosberg became the inaugural GP2 Drivers' Champion. He showed consistency, with points scoring results at every race meeting, and his championship challenge became stronger as the year progressed. Prémat was 4th in the championship, which was enough to provide ART with the Teams' Championship title. Rosberg's increasingly rapid rise to the top continued when he graduated to Formula One with Williams.

Prémat remained with ART in 2006,[2] and was joined by Britain's Lewis Hamilton.[3] He was a logical choice, having dominated the F3 Euroseries with ASM Formule 3, ART's sister team. Hamilton took an impressive title in his debut season, though his performances faltered slightly mid-season against an increased challenge from the eventual runner-up, Nelson Piquet, Jr.. Prémat was a consistent and reliable number two to Hamilton; his third position in the Drivers' Championship contributed to ART's second consecutive Teams' title.

For the 2007 season, ART signed Michael Ammermüller and Lucas di Grassi. Ammermüller's campaign was hampered by injury, and he was later dropped in favour of Sébastien Buemi, with Mikhail Aleshin also deputising. Di Grassi emerged as the team's leader, his consistent finishing record allowing him to finish as runner-up in the drivers' championship to Timo Glock despite winning only a single race. The points he accumulated also allowed ART to salvage second in the teams' championship, in spite of the fact that the drivers of the team's other car scored a mere ten points between them.

ART's driver line-up changed again for 2008, with the experienced Luca Filippi partnered by series rookie Romain Grosjean. Grosjean quickly established himself as the number one, winning two races and taking several additional podium finishes en route to fourth in the drivers' championship, only 14 points behind champion Giorgio Pantano. By contrast, Filippi was dropped after scoring points just twice in the first half of the year; he was replaced by Sakon Yamamoto, who also failed to trouble the leading runners despite his Formula One experience. The team slipped to fifth in the championship.

The 2009 season saw another complete overhaul of the team's driving strength, with Pastor Maldonado joining from Minardi Piquet Sports and Nico Hülkenberg graduating to the series as the reigning Formula 3 Euroseries champion. The season soon developed into a contest between Hülkenberg and the two Addax drivers, Grosjean and Vitaly Petrov. Grosjean left the series mid-season after being called up by the Renault F1 team, and Hülkenberg prevailed over Petrov with a total of five victories and 100 points. Maldonado started the year brightly with two sprint-race wins in the first half of the season, but his form tailed off later on, restricting him to sixth in the championship. Nevertheless, ART's tally of points was enough for the outfit to win its third teams' championship in five years.

Another clear-out for the 2010 season resulted in the team signing Jules Bianchi and Sam Bird, two rookies from the F3 Euroseries, which Bianchi had won the previous season with ART. The two were closely matched and featured at or near the front of the field for much of the season, but their inexperience precluded them from challenging for the championship as the GP2 Series became more established with a growing number of experienced drivers. They finished third (Bianchi) and fifth (Bird) in the drivers' championship, with ART finishing in third place in the teams' championship.

For the 2011 season, ART reached an agreement with Lotus Cars to run under the Lotus ART moniker. The team switched from its traditional white-and-red livery to a Team Lotus-inspired green-and-yellow scheme, although this was somewhat confusing as Lotus Cars (sponsoring the Renault team) was involved in a legal dispute in Formula One with a new incarnation of Team Lotus (now Caterham) over the use of the name. Team Lotus was also competing with a green-and-yellow livery, whereas Renault (competing as Lotus Renault GP) was running a black-and-gold colour scheme reminiscent of the original Team Lotus's association with John Player Specials. As for the drivers, Bianchi was retained alongside Esteban Gutiérrez, who was promoted to GP2 after winning the inaugural GP3 Series championship with ART. Bianchi retained his third place in the championship but his season was slightly disappointing as he failed to mount a championship challenge despite his greater experience and his status as a pre-season favourite, whilst Gutiérrez played himself in with a single victory on his way to 13th place in the championship. ART again slipped to fifth in the teams' championship.

The deal with Lotus was extended for the 2012 season, with the team name adjusted to Lotus GP and the colour scheme now altered to match the black-and-gold livery used by the Lotus F1 team, the Renault name having been dropped and the dispute with Caterham solved. With Bianchi moving to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series, another ART GP3 graduate, James Calado, was signed to partner Gutiérrez. The second-year driver improved to third place in the drivers' championship with three victories, albeit someway behind title protagonists Davide Valsecchi and Luiz Razia, whilst Calado impressed by winning twice and finishing fifth overall as the season's top rookie driver. In 2014, the team finished 3rd in the constructor's championship whilst rookie Stoffel Vandoorne finished as GP2 runner-up.

The team entered the 2015 season with Vandoorne and Nobuharu Matsushita as their drivers. The team scored eight victories, with Vandoorne claiming the driver's title at Sochi, and claimed its first Team Championship since 2009.

The team will go into the 2016 season with Matsushita and Sergey Sirotkin racing with them.

GP3 Series

ART signed up for the first season of the new GP3 Series, the feeder category of GP2, in 2010. The team immediately replicated its success in other series, with Esteban Gutiérrez becoming the inaugural champion. Team-mates Alexander Rossi and Pedro Nunes finished fourth and 24th respectively, and ART won the teams' championship. The 2011 season saw ART's success continue, with the championship distilling into a battle between its two leading drivers, ART F3 Euroseries graduate Valtteri Bottas and James Calado, with the former winning by seven points. The remaining seat was initially taken by Nunes, but he was dropped after a disappointing run and replaced by Richie Stanaway, who also scored points and helped ART to its second straight teams' championship. All three of ART's 2012 drivers were competitive, securing a third straight teams' championship, but neither won the drivers' title: Daniel Abt's late-season charge brought him up just short of victor Mitch Evans, whilst his early-season rival Aaro Vainio fell away to take fourth, and Conor Daly was also a consistent frontrunner in sixth place overall.

2014 saw ART race with Alex Fontana, Dino Zamparelli and GP3 debutant Marvin Kirchhöfer. By losing the titles to Alex Lynn and Carlin, 2014 also marked the first time ART failed to win the constructor's title.

For 2015, Kirchhöfer will be retained with Alfonso Celis, Jr. joining from Status Grand Prix and 2014 European Formula 3 champion Esteban Ocon making his GP3 debut with the team. The team secured the constructor's title in Bahrain, with Ocon securing the championship.

Formula one entry bid

ART launched an entry into Formula One as one of many candidates to fill in the 13th slot for the 2011 Formula One season with a possible partnership from the now-defunct Toyota Racing Grand Prix team. Also the team announced that it was going to phase out its Formula 3 operation because it wanted to focus only on GP3 and GP2. The 2010 Formula 3 season proved to be ART Grand Prix's last.[4] ART Grand Prix announced their entry bid for F1 on 13 May 2010.[5]

On 24 June 2010, Autosport magazine said that ART were set to become the 13th team for 2011. However, on 7 July 2010, ART announced in its official statement withdrawal of its entry bid. ART declared in its official statement that "ART Grand Prix had forged strong bonds with several technical and financial partners but with unfavourable economic conditions they could not gather the necessary guarantees to ensure the stability of the project in the long term." As revealed by one of the Formula One insiders during the Czech TV NOVA live coverage of the 2010 British Grand Prix, one of the crucial partners was Michelin, who did not succeed in their efforts to become an official Formula One tyre supplier from 2011.

Complete series results

GP2 Series

Year Car Drivers Races Wins Poles F.L. Points D.C. T.C.
2005 Dallara-Mecachrome Germany Nico Rosberg 23 5 4 4 120 1st 1st
France Alexandre Prémat 23 2 1 2 67 4th
2006 Dallara-Mecachrome United Kingdom Lewis Hamilton 21 5 1 7 114 1st 1st
France Alexandre Prémat 21 1 0 1 66 3rd
2007 Dallara-Mecachrome Brazil Lucas di Grassi 21 1 0 0 77 2nd 2nd
Switzerland Sébastien Buemi 11 0 0 2 6 21st
Russia Mikhail Aleshin 4 0 0 0 3 25th
Germany Michael Ammermüller 6 0 0 1 1 26th
2008 Dallara-Mecachrome Italy Luca Filippi 10 0 0 0 5 19th 5th
Japan Sakon Yamamoto 10 0 0 0 3 23rd
France Romain Grosjean 20 2 1 2 62 4th
2009 Dallara-Mecachrome Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 20 2 0 1 36 6th 1st
Germany Nico Hülkenberg 20 5 3 6 100 1st
2010 Dallara-Mecachrome France Jules Bianchi 20 0 3 1 52 3rd 3rd
United Kingdom Sam Bird 20 1 1 4 48 5th
2011 Dallara-Mecachrome France Jules Bianchi 18 1 1 0 53 3rd 5th
Mexico Esteban Gutiérrez 17 1 0 1 15 13th
2012 Dallara-Mecachrome United Kingdom James Calado 24 2 2 1 160 5th 2nd
Mexico Esteban Gutiérrez 24 3 0 5 176 3rd
2013 Dallara-Mecachrome United Kingdom James Calado 22 2 0 2 157 3rd 5th
Germany Daniel Abt 22 0 0 0 11 22nd
2014 Dallara-Mecachrome Belgium Stoffel Vandoorne 22 4 4 4 229 2nd 3rd
Japan Takuya Izawa 22 0 0 1 26 18th
2015 Dallara-Mecachrome Belgium Stoffel Vandoorne 21 7 5 7 341.5 1st 1st
Japan Nobuharu Matsushita 21 1 3 1 68.5 9th
2016 Dallara-Mecachrome Japan Nobuharu Matsushita
Russia Sergey Sirotkin

* Season still in progress.

GP3 Series

Year Car Drivers Races Wins Poles F.L. Points D.C. T.C.
2010 Dallara-Renault United States Alexander Rossi 16 2 0 1 38 4th 1st
Mexico Esteban Gutiérrez 16 5 3 7 88 1st
Brazil Pedro Nunes 16 0 0 0 4 24th
2011 Dallara-Renault Brazil Pedro Nunes 12 0 0 0 0 32nd 1st
New Zealand Richie Stanaway 4 1 0 0 7 20th
Finland Valtteri Bottas 16 4 1 2 62 1st
United Kingdom James Calado 16 1 1 2 55 2nd
2012 Dallara-Renault Germany Daniel Abt 16 2 0 0 149.5 2nd 1st
United States Conor Daly 16 1 0 0 106 6th
Finland Aaro Vainio 16 1 1 0 123 4th
2013 Dallara-AER United States Conor Daly 16 1 1 1 126 3rd 1st
Argentina Facu Regalia 16 1 1 2 138 2nd
United Kingdom Jack Harvey 16 2 0 1 114 5th
2014 Dallara-AER Switzerland Alex Fontana 18 0 0 1 43 11th 2nd
Germany Marvin Kirchhöfer 18 1 2 4 161 3rd
United Kingdom Dino Zamparelli 18 0 0 2 126 7th
2015 Dallara-AER Mexico Alfonso Celis Jr. 16 0 0 0 24 12th 1st
Germany Marvin Kirchhöfer 18 5 1 1 200 3rd
France Esteban Ocon 18 1 2 4 253 1st
2016 Dallara-Mecachrome Monaco Charles Leclerc
Japan Nirei Fukuzumi
Thailand Alexander Albon
Netherlands Nyck de Vries

* Season still in progress.

Complete former series results

GP2 Asia Series

GP2 Asia Series Results
Year Car Drivers Races Wins Poles F/Laps Points D.C. T.C.
2008 Dallara-Mecachrome United Kingdom Stephen Jelley 9 0 0 0 0 24th 1st
France Romain Grosjean 10 4 4 4 61 1st
2008–09 Dallara-Mecachrome Japan Sakon Yamamoto 11 0 0 0 13 9th 4th
France Nelson Philippe 2 0 0 0 0 34th
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 5 0 0 0 7 15th
Germany Nico Hülkenberg 4 1 2 1 27 6th
2009–10 Dallara-Mecachrome Sweden Marcus Ericsson 2 0 0 0 0 24th 5th
France Jules Bianchi 6 0 1 0 8 12th
United Kingdom Sam Bird 8 0 0 1 12 7th
2011 Dallara-Mecachrome France Jules Bianchi 4 1 0 2 18 2nd 2nd
Mexico Esteban Gutiérrez 4 0 0 0 4 11th

Formula 3 Euro Series

Formula 3 Euro Series
Year Car Drivers Wins Poles F.L. Points D.C. T.C.
2003 Dallara F303-Mercedes HWA France Alexandre Prémat 1 2 2 50 7th N/A†
France Olivier Pla 0 3 0 74 3rd
Canada Bruno Spengler 0 0 0 34 10th
United Kingdom Jamie Green 0 0 0 6 20th
2004 Dallara F303-Mercedes HWA France Alexandre Prémat 3 4 3 88 2nd N/A†
United Kingdom Jamie Green 7 6 8 139 1st
France Eric Salignon 3 2 3 64 6th
2005 Dallara F305-Mercedes HWA United Kingdom Lewis Hamilton 15 8 10 172 1st 1st
Germany Adrian Sutil 2 1 3 94 2nd
2006 Dallara F305-Mercedes HWA Germany Sebastian Vettel 4 1 5 75 2nd 1st
United Kingdom Paul di Resta 5 3 1 86 1st
Netherlands Giedo van der Garde 1 1 0 37 6th
Japan Kamui Kobayashi 0 1 1 34 8th
2007 Dallara F305-Mercedes HWA Japan Kamui Kobayashi 1 1 0 59 4th 1st
France Romain Grosjean 6 4 7 106 1st
Germany Nico Hülkenberg 4 2 3 72 3rd
France Tom Dillmann 0 0 0 23 9th
2008 Dallara F308-Mercedes HWA Germany Nico Hülkenberg 7 6 7 85 1st 1st
United Kingdom James Jakes 1 1 2 19 13th
France Jules Bianchi 2 2 1 47 3rd
United Kingdom Jon Lancaster 1 0 2 19 12th
2009 Dallara F308-Mercedes HWA France Jules Bianchi 9 6 7 114 1st 1st
Finland Valtteri Bottas 2 0 1 62 3rd
Mexico Esteban Gutiérrez 0 0 0 26 9th
France Adrien Tambay 0 0 0 0 23rd
2010 Dallara F308-Mercedes HWA Finland Valtteri Bottas 2 1 4 74 3rd 2nd
United Kingdom Alexander Sims 1 0 0 63 4th
France Jim Pla 1 0 0 13 10th

† ART Grand Prix competed under the name ASM Formule 3 from 2003 to 2007.[6]

Timeline

Current series
GP2 Series 2005–2015
GP3 Series 2010–2015
Formula Renault 3.5 Series 2012–2015
Former series
International Formula 3000 1997-2004
Italian Formula 3000 1999-2000
A1 Grand Prix 2005-2007
GP2 Asia Series 2008-2011

References

  1. Geoni, Filiberto (10 January 2012). "Lotus ART change name to Lotus GP". GP2 Fanatic (Filiberto Geoni). Retrieved 10 January 2012.
  2. Premat renews with ART, autosport.com (5 January 2006).
  3. Hamilton confirmed at ART, autosport.com (19 January 2006).
  4. ART pulls out of Formula 3
  5. http://www.thef1times.com/news/display/01036
  6. "Champions ASM renamed ART". autosport.com. 2007-11-28. Retrieved 2007-11-28.

External links

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