The Next Great Brit?

Just prior to Lewis Hamilton’s comfortable victory in Abu Dhabi, another Brit won on the Yas Marina track. This driver won the second non-championship GP2 encounter there on his first weekend racing in the category. His name is James Calado.

For those that follow British Formula 3, the name is a familiar one, after the Brit from Worcestershire finished runner-up in 2010′s championship to Red Bull reserve Jean-Eric Vergne (whose recently dominated the young driver test on the same track). For this year, Calado stepped up to GP3 and, again, finished second in the series, behind Williams test driver Valtteri Bottas, despite only securing the one victory in Valencia.

Having just been confirmed to drive for the illustrious ART GP2 team in 2012 (the outfit that has steered drivers such as Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton to title glory), he competed in the season-ending non-championship rounds in Abu Dhabi. He finished eighth in the first race, which gave him pole for the partially reversed race two grid. That was where he stayed until the end of the 22 laps to score a brilliant victory, despite being under intense pressure from first Antonio Felix da Costa, and later on fellow British F3 graduate Marcus Ericsson.

If this debut victory is anything to go by, he could well be a force to be reckoned with in "F1′s feeder series" in 2012. And who knows, with ART’s connection with Lotus, he could well be on the F1 grid battling with Lewis Hamilton in a few years to come.

 

Nah, he'll end up being one of those british nearly men, like Gary Paffett.

 

hope that u are wrong !

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Well his GP2 career has got off to an excellent start- he won the sprint race in Malaysia.

 

It was a nice drive from him, but he was lucky his 8th place in the feature race gave him pole for the sprint. I suppose it was a good job considering he's a rookie, but to honest I was more impressed with the other rookie: Nasr.

It's too early to say whether he's the next great Brit, however he's probably the best British driver currently in GP2.

 

He showed much improvement towards the end of last year and seems pretty comfortable in gp2 already. He's not stand out amazing but I think he has the talent to be in the mix for a F1 driver sooner or later. Whether or not he can become a top F1 driver only time will tell.

 

The last couple of years he has shown good consistency in the formulas he has driven in. Hope he can mount something serious in this years GP2.

 

Spot on with Felipe Nasr. He dominated the British F3 last year. I just get the feeling though he's going to turn out like Vergne; a fantastic driver in the lower formula's, but out of his depth in F1. I hope thats not the case.

We have a lot of very promising drivers heading towards F1.

I think Bottas deserves Maldonado's seat, and I think Clado, Nasr and Valsecchi all have the best chance of getting into F1

EDIT:http://www.gp2series.com/Standings/Driver/

In fact, looking at the driver standings so far, the top 5 all have a chance of getting into F1. Where the hell has Max Chilton come from?! I saw a race from last season, and he was sitting around the midfield lot.

 

It may be a little mean on them but I feel the current crop in gp2 is pretty poor compared to a couple of years ago. I'm all for Bottas getting a drive, and I fully expect him to replace Senna before the season is out.