CVC, the private equity firm which owns Formula One motor-racing, has bought into the sport’s feeder series GP2 in a deal estimated to be worth about £150m.
GP2 was launched in 2005 but soon raced to prominence after it was won last year by F1’s latest superstar Lewis Hamilton. Races are held during an F1 weekend on Europe’s most famous circuits such as Monaco and Silverstone.
The race series is run through Kent-based GP2 Motorsport which was owned by Bruno Michel, the business partner of Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore who founded the series.
Following the sale, Mr Michel was joined on GP2’s board by Nick Clarry, CVC’s UK managing director and board member of more than 10 key companies in the F1 Group. Ecclestone isn’t a GP2 director but his private investment vehicle, Formula One Promotions and Administration, owns its intellectual property. Caroline Reid and Christian Sylt, Telegraph.co
The GP2 Series has announced that it will have the same 13 teams for the next five-year period, between 2008 and 2012. What was not announced is that the series has been taken over recently by CVC Capital Partners, which has added the championship to its Formula 1 empire.
This formalises the link between F1 and GP2 which up to now has been much more casual. Whether it will help the news is another matter as GP2 was invented to keep costs down but ended up costing almost twice as much as Formula 3000.
The interesting thing now will be to see whether or not the GP2 Asia Series will go ahead but with the recent deal between A1GP and Ferrari, there is probably less of a need for GP2 Asia, as A1GP will be more closely linked with the F1 world than has been the case. Our sources say that GP2 Asia is really struggling for teams because they need to find drivers with budgets and there are not enough of them out there. GrandPrix.com
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