Addax, or Barwa Addax was a Spanish
motorsport
Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...
team owned by the bank Addax Capital, which competed in the
GP2,
GP3 and
GP2 Asia Series.
Team history
GP2 Series
Barwa Addax was formed as a result of
Alejandro Agag purchase of the
Campos Racing GP2 team. Campos Racing was started by former
Formula One driver
Adrián Campos
Adrián Campos Suñer (17 June 1960 – 27 January 2021) was a Spanish Formula One driver. He participated in 21 Grands Prix, debuting on 12 April 1987, without scoring a championship point. He later moved into team management, with more succes ...
in 1998, and competed in the
GP2 Series since its inaugural season in
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
. After the
2008 season, in which Campos won the teams' championship, he elected to step down and pass control of the GP2 team to Agag, a businessman with motorsport interests. Campos Racing continues to compete in the
European F3 Open Championship
The Euroformula Open Championship (formerly the Spanish Formula Three Championship, European F3 Open Championship) is a junior formula racing series based in Spain. It was one of six national and international Formula Three championships in Europe ...
, and in they entered Formula One as
Campos Meta 1
HRT Formula 1 Team, formerly known as Campos Meta 1 and Hispania Racing, was a Spanish Formula One team founded by former driver Adrián Campos. It was sold to José Ramón Carabante before its debut in 2010 Formula One season, 2010, and the ...
before being taken over and renamed Hispania Racing. Agag renamed the team
Addax after the eponymous species of antelope, and retained the name of team sponsor
Barwa International
Barwa Group () is a real estate company based in Doha, Qatar. Established in 2005, it is listed on the Qatar Exchange, with 45% of its shares held by the Qatar Investment Authority, via its Qatari Diar subsidiary.Barwa Group Our Beginning It is pri ...
, a
Qatari
real estate company, for the 2009 season.
Addax signed
2008 GP2 Asia Series season
The 2008 GP2 Asia Series season was the first GP2 Asia Series season. It started on 25 January and ended on 12 April.
Season summary
Romain Grosjean became the champion despite his teammate Stephen Jelley scoring no points, with their team, AR ...
champion
Romain Grosjean and existing Campos driver
Vitaly Petrov for its
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
campaign. Grosjean took the team's first pole position during the opening qualifying session of the season, in
Barcelona. He also took the team's first win, leading home Petrov in a 1–2 finish. Both drivers quickly established themselves as championship contenders.
Following
Nelson Piquet Jr.'s departure from the
Renault F1 team, Grosjean, who was the team's third driver, was drafted in to replace him from the
2009 European Grand Prix
The 2009 European Grand Prix (formally the 2009 Formula 1 Telefónica Grand Prix of Europe) was a Formula One motor race held on 23 August 2009 at the Valencia Street Circuit in Valencia, Spain. It was the 11th race of the 2009 Formula One season ...
onwards. Grosjean's seat was taken by
Durango
Durango (), officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Durango; Tepehuán: ''Korian''; Nahuatl: ''Tepēhuahcān''), is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in ...
driver
Davide Valsecchi. Despite his absence from the final eight races of the season, Grosjean finished fourth in the championship with two wins, a tally matched by Petrov, who was
Nico Hülkenberg's main rival for the championship and eventually finished runner-up. Addax had the consolation of winning the teams' championship in the first season competing with its new name.
For the
2010 season, Petrov graduated to Formula One, also with Renault, and Valsecchi moved to the
iSport International team, so Addax signed second-year drivers
Giedo van der Garde and
Sergio Pérez
Sergio Michel "Checo" Pérez Mendoza (; born 26 January 1990), is a Mexican Auto racing, racing driver who races in Formula One for Red Bull Racing, having previously driven for Sauber, McLaren, Force India, and Racing Point. He won his first ...
.
Pérez quickly assumed the role of team leader, winning five races and establishing himself as eventual champion
Pastor Maldonado's main rival, whilst Van der Garde finished seventh overall with three podium finishes. Addax was narrowly beaten to the teams' championship by
Rapax
Rapax Team was an Italian 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 an ...
, which scored five more points.
Van der Garde remained with the team for the
2011 season, and the F1-bound Pérez was replaced by
Charles Pic, now also in his second year in GP2. Although he did not win a race, Van der Garde scored a consistent string of podium finishes in the first half of the season which established him in second place in the championship behind runaway leader Grosjean, now back in the series and driving for
DAMS. However, he slipped back to fifth in the standings after a poor end to the season and was pipped by Pic, who impressed with three pole positions and two race victories. Despite finishing fourth and fifth in the drivers' standings, Addax won its second teams' championship by virtue of the fact that the top three—Grosjean,
Luca Filippi and
Jules Bianchi—had all been partnered with teammates who scored much fewer points by comparison.
For the
2012 season, Pic graduated to F1 with
Marussia and Van der Garde moved to the
Caterham Racing team as part of his deal to become the
Caterham F1 team's reserve driver; Addax signed the unfancied pairing of
Johnny Cecotto Jr. and
Josef Král to replace them. Having previously scored a meagre four points over more than two years of GP2, Cecotto made a breakthrough with Addax, winning the feature races at
Monaco (from pole position) and
Hockenheim. However, his inconsistency limited him to ninth overall in the drivers' championship. On the other side of the garage, Král was replaced by
HRT F1
HRT Formula 1 Team, formerly known as Campos Meta 1 and Hispania Racing, was a Spanish Formula One team founded by former driver Adrián Campos. It was sold to José Ramón Carabante before its debut in 2010, and then to investment group Th ...
third driver
Dani Clos
Daniel Clos Álvarez (born 23 October 1988) is a Spanish professional racecar driver who was, in 2012, the test driver for the now defunct HRT Formula One team.
Career
Karting
Born in Barcelona, Clos was a fairly successful karter at the IC ...
for four races after the first round of the championship, and then endured a run of twelve races without scoring, before taking his own first series victory in the sprint race at
Monza
Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...
. He was then replaced for the final two races of the championship by rookie
Jake Rosenzweig
Jake Rosenzweig (born April 14, 1989 in London) is an English-born American racing driver.
Career
Karting
Much of Rosenzweig's early karting career was contested in the United Kingdom, with him competing in Super 1 karting championships. In 200 ...
, who, like Clos before him, failed to score. As a result of this inconsistent season, Addax dropped to eighth place in the teams' standings.
GP2 Asia Series
Addax also took over Campos Racing's entry in the
GP2 Asia Series. In the
2008–09 season, Petrov and Pérez finished fifth and seventh respectively in the drivers' standings, with three wins between them, whilst Addax finished third in the teams' standings. For the
2009–10 season, the team ran the drivers it would employ for the main series (Pérez and Van der Garde) at some rounds, but also fielded
Max Chilton,
Luiz Razia and
Rodolfo González at others; the changes restricted the team to tenth in the championship. For the final GP2 Asia season in
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
, Addax reverted to running its main series drivers (Van der Garde and Pic) throughout. Van der Garde took two podium finishes to finish third overall, but Pic failed to score any points.
GP3 Series
Addax was one of ten teams granted entries for the inaugural
GP3 Series championship in
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
. It was one of only two existing GP2 teams to compete in GP3 as well, the other being
ART Grand Prix. The team's three drivers were
Felipe Guimarães
Felipe "Lopes" Guimarães (born March 22, 1991, in Anápolis, Goiás) is a Brazilian racing driver.
After a childhood in karting, Guimarães transitioned to the extremely competitive Formula Three Sudamericana series at the age of 16 and finishe ...
,
Pablo Sánchez López
Pablo is a Spanish form of the name Paul.
People
* Pablo Alborán, Spanish singer
*Pablo Aimar, Argentine footballer
*Pablo Armero, Colombian footballer
* Pablo Bartholomew, Indian photojournalist
*Pablo Brandán, Argentine footballer
* Pablo Bren ...
and
Mirko Bortolotti. None of the three featured strongly, with two podium finishes between them the team's best results, and they finished 16th, 30th and 11th in the championship respectively. Addax finished eighth in the teams' championship.
For the
2011 season, Addax recruited
Dominic Storey,
Gabriel Chaves
Gabriel "Gabby" Chaves (born 7 July 1993) is a Colombian-American racing driver, currently competing in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Michelin Pilot Challenge. He raced in the IndyCar Series and is the 2014 Indy Lights Champion. ...
and
Dean Smith. Chaves was the only driver to complete the season, as Storey was replaced by
Tom Dillmann after two rounds of the championship, and
Vittorio Ghirelli took Smith's seat for the final round. On this occasion, Smith was the best of the five, scoring two podium finishes and setting a fastest lap to take 12th overall; Chaves was 19th and Storey 37th; Dillman and Ghirelli were 14th and 25th having also competed for other teams. Addax again finished eighth in the teams' championship, but with eight more points than in 2010. Addax elected to withdraw from the GP3 Series following the conclusion of the 2011 season.
Staff (2009)
* Founder Adrian Campos-Suñer
* Team Principal & Owner Alejandro Agag
* Team Manager Alberto Longo Álvarez de Sotomayor
*
* Chief Financial Officer Jose Julio Rosell
* Technical Director Chrys Murphy
*Chief Logistic Caterina Sarrión
* Press Officer Antonio Moralejo
* RRPP Marta Viscasillas
* Track Engineer Emilio Lozano
* Track Engineer Peter Wyss
* Track Engineer Phillip Gautheron
* Chief Mechanic Enrique Colomina
* Mechanics: Vicente Andreu, Daniel Lluch, Miguel Angel Rovira, Javier López & Gustavo Pochetino
Results
GP2 Series
In detail
(
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
GP3 Series
In detail
(
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
Notes
References
External links
Official website
{{s-end
Spanish auto racing teams
GP2 Series teams
GP3 Series teams
Auto racing teams established in 2009
2009 establishments in Spain
Auto racing teams disestablished in 2013
2013 disestablishments in Spain