GP2/WSR 2014 Silly Season Updates - MotorSportsTalk

We don’t spend a ton of time at MotorSportsTalk focusing on the GP2 Series and/or World Series by Renault, but considering they’re the two top feeder series into Formula One, we do want to recap who’s lining up where at this stage in the offseason before their 2014 seasons start.

Starting with GP2, some of the F1 aspirational names already confirmed for the 2014 season include McLaren reserve Stoffel Vandoorne and Caterham reserve Alexander Rossi. I spoke to Rossi about his hopes for this year at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, when he raced in the DeltaWing prototype.

“I think you always have a shot (to advance), but the best kind of B-plan option is GP2 for another year and I’m quite pleased with that,” said Rossi, who won his first GP2 race at Abu Dhabi in November. “With the same team, keeping the continuity is a positive thing. We have very high expectations for the next year.”

Here’s the quick rundown of confirmed team/driver combinations in GP2:

Carlin: 3-Julian Leal
DAMS: 7-Jolyon Palmer, 8-Stephane Richelmi
ART Grand Prix: 9-Stoffel Vandoorne, 10-Takuya Izawa
Hilmer Motorsport: 11-Daniel Abt
Rapax: 14-Simon Trummer
Arden International: 16-Rene Binder, 17-Andre Negrao
EQ8 Caterham Racing: 18-Rio Haryanto, 19-Alexander Rossi
MP Motorsport: 20-Daniel De Jong
Campos Racing: 26-Arthur Pic

Those seats not confirmed include both seats at Russian Time (Nos. 1, 2), Racing Engineering (Nos. 5, 6), Trident Racing (Nos. 22, 23), Venezuela GP Lazarus (Nos. 24, 25) and second seats at Carlin (No. 4), Hilmer (No. 12), Rapax (No. 15), MP (No. 21) and Campos (No. 27).

The 2013 champion, Fabio Leimer, does not have his plans set for 2014; series runner-up Sam Bird will run selected TUDOR United SportsCar Championship races with Starworks Motorsport in North America. The GP2 season begins April 5-6 at Bahrain.

Meanwhile in WSR, the series won by new McLaren recruit Kevin Magnussen last year, there’s still more seats to be filled before its first test Feb. 25-27 at Motorland Aragon. Confirmed team/driver combinations are below:

Teams (country):  

Arden Motorsport (GBR): William Buller, Pierre Gasly
DAMS (FRA): Norman Nato, Carlos Sainz Jr.
Fortec Motorsports (GBR): Oliver Rowland, Sergey Sirotkin
International Draco Racing (ITA): Pietro Fantin
ISR (CZE): Jazeman Jaafar
Lotus (CZE): Matthieu Vaxiviere
Strakka Racing (GBR): Will Stevens, Matias Laine

Teams still needing to confirm both seats are: AV Formula (ESP), Carlin (GBR), Comtec Racing (GBR), Pons Racing (ESP), Tech 1 Racing (FRA) and Zeta Corse (ITA). Draco, ISR and Lotus still have to confirm their second seats. The WSR race season opens April 12-13 at Monza.

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An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”