Daly to make his GP2 debut in Malaysia

Noblesville, IN — American Conor Daly will make his GP2 debut this weekend at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia where he will pilot one of two new team entries for German based, Hilmer Motorsport. Daly conducted three days of testing recently in Barcelona, Spain for the new team and goes to this weekend’s event with high hopes.

The German squad whose Team Principal, Franz Hilmer already owns Formtech GmbH – a supplier for several Formula One teams – joins the thirteen team field in replacement of Ocean Racing Technology.

 

“Conor was recommended to us before we tested in Barcelona and although there was a lot to learn, we were very impressed with him,” said Franz Hilmer. “For a rookie he was fantastic, made no mistakes, and we wanted to have him in our car in Malaysia.”

The first two races of the year in Malaysia are regarded as the toughest of the year because of the extreme humidity and also the risk of monsoon-like downpours. The track surface at Sepang is abrasive and very high energy loads are put through the cars and drivers. A GP2 car is only about 10 seconds per lap slower than a Formula One car in Malaysia, and Pirelli has changed the tire compounds and the construction of its tires to reflect the characteristics of its new Formula One tires. This offers more performance and deliberately increased degradation. This provides a bigger performance gap between the GP2 compounds, which opens up more possibilities for different pit stop strategies. Daly will encounter pit stops for the first time.

 

Live Timing is available on the GP2 Series website at; http://www.gp2series.com/Live-Timing/ for practice, qualifying and the races. The schedule is as follows (all times listed are EDT)

Practice:      Thursday, March 21st at 11:55PM EDT

Qualifying:   Friday, March 22nd at 3:55AM EDT

Race 1:         Friday, March 22nd at 11:15PM EDT

Race 2:         Sun March 24th at 12:15AM EDT

Daly, the 2010 American Formula Star Mazda Champion, is sponsored by: VBrick Systems, Inc., Delavaco Capital Inc., Callcap, Merchant Services LTD, and Tom Lange Company with additional support from; St. Vincent Sports Performance, Alpinestars and Aspin Group.