High expectations for Scuderia Coloni

The GP2 Main Series is ready to get off: next weekend in Barcelona 26 drivers and 13 teams will be on track to re-start the fight for the championship in the first one of the eleven season events. It will be a tough one-two because immediately after the Spanish races all the teams will be on the road again to reach Monte Carlo, where the following weekend the most prestigious and glamourous event of the season will take place.

Scuderia Coloni is ready to fight, aiming to extend the strip of good results the team obtained in the last rounds of 2009 and in the GP2 Asia races. The Italian outfit took full advantage of the winter testing in order improve the feeling between the team and the new drivers for 2010, Alberto Valerio and Vladimir Arabadzhiev. The brazilian driver will be racing his third season in the series and with already one win in the championship he will work together with the team to make the most of his experience. Meanwhile, Arabadzhiev will learn race by race like every rookie does, but during the winter preparation he already showed that he has what’s needed to succeed.

From a technical standpoint, the team can count on a very proven workgroup, with James Robinson and Alex Zoechling leading the engineering side. Robinson won two F.1 World Championship as a race engineer, with Piquet at Williams in 1987 and with Senna at McLaren in 1991, while Zoechling one of the strongpoints of the group, being at the third season with the Italian squad.

The Barcelona weekend will start on Friday at 11:55 with the session of free practice, followed by qualifying at 15:55. The inaugural race of the season is set to kick-off on Saturday at 15:40, on a 37-lap distance. The final race of the weekend will start on Sunday at 10:35.

Paolo Coloni: “We did a really good training for the season, working hard with all the guys in the team both in GP2 Asia and in winter testing. Looking at the technical side I’m very happy: we have Alex Zoechling who is with us from a long time, so he perfectly knows our working methods, and we also have James Robinson, an engineer trusted and appreciated by a lot of F.1 champions. Also for the drivers, we think that we have the right balance: Valerio is very skilled and experienced, so we expect that he will not only be quick on track but he will also help the team in the development work during the weekends. On the other side, Arabadzhiev will have to face the usual rookie challenges, but he won one of the Auto GP maiden races in Brno, so we already know that he’s in really good shape for the start of the season”.