Rapax Team

Rapax
Founded	2010
Founder(s)	Gianfranco Sovernigo; Valter Sovernigo
Folded	2017
Base	Veggiano, Padua, Italy
Team principal(s)	Gianfranco Sovernigo; Andrea Bergamini
Former series	FIA Formula 2 Championship; GP2 Series; GP2 Asia Series
Noted drivers	Stefano Coletti; Sergey Sirotkin; Nyck de Vries
Teams'; Championships	GP2 Series:; 2010
Drivers'; Championships	GP2 Series:; 2010: Pastor Maldonado
Website	http://www.rapaxteam.com/

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 and GP Racing merged to create "Minardi Piquet Sports". In 2008, the team dropped "Minardi" from their name.^[2] In early 2009, the team was sold and rebranded as Piquet GP, but changed its name again in November to Rapax Team, once all remaining ties to part-owner Piquet were cut.

History

During 2009, the team was sold and all remaining ties with part-owner Nelson Piquet were severed. The team was rebranded "Rapax" (Latin for "predator") at the beginning of 2010, after the Legio XXI Rapax Roman legion. Pastor Maldonado rejoined the team, alongside Luiz Razia. Maldonado won six races on his way to the drivers' championship, and Razia backed him up with 11th place overall, allowing Rapax to win the teams' championship for the first time, and in the first year of its new identity.

For 2011, Maldonado graduated to Formula One with the Williams team and Razia moved to the new Caterham Team AirAsia; Rapax signed Fabio Leimer and Julián Leal to replace them. Leimer won a single race but was unable build on it, restricting him to fourteenth place in the drivers' championship, whilst Leal did not score at all; Rapax dropped to tenth in the teams' championship.

In 2012, the team improved to ninth overall through the combined efforts of Tom Dillmann, Stefano Coletti, Ricardo Teixeira and Daniël de Jong. Dillmann was the most successful with a single victory, but was dropped for budgetary reasons mid-season and replaced by De Jong. De Jong's Auto GP racing commitments also resulted in him missing the final two races of the championship, for which he was replaced by Scuderia Coloni refugee Coletti. By contrast, Teixeira competed in all but one round of the season, but failed to score any points.

For 2013 the team kept Coletti and signed with Simon Trummer. Coletti took three race wins and improved to the fifth place in the standings. While Trummer had six point-scoring finishes on his way to the 20th place in the driver standings.

Trummer was retained for the 2014 GP2 Series. He was joined by Adrian Quaife-Hobbs. The team had suffered a weak season, with just one podium that Quaife-Hobbs had collected.

The team had completely changed their line-up for the 2015 GP2 Series, signing with Sergey Sirotkin and Robert Vișoiu.^[3]^[4] The team had scored its first win since 2013 Monaco round with Sirotkin in the 2015 Silverstone round.^[5] Sirotkin was also the first Rapax driver since Maldonado who had finished in the top-three in the driver standings with the team. For the last two rounds of the season Visoiu was replaced by Gustav Malja.^[6]

Malja remained with the team for the full 2016 GP2 Series campaign.^[7] Arthur Pic completed the team line-up.^[8] Malja had podiums at Spa and Monza, while Pic finished on podium at Hockenheimring. Pic was replaced by Johnny Cecotto Jr. in the two final rounds. Rapax ended ninth in the team standings.

In 2017, the GP2 Series was rebranded to FIA Formula 2 Championship. The team had started the season with Cecotto and Nyck de Vries.^[9] De Vries won the Sprint Monaco F2 race — the first race win for the Rapax since Sirotkin in 2015.^[10] At Spielberg Cecotto was replaced by Sergio Canamasas.^[10] Rapax field two new drivers at Spa, signing with Louis Delétraz and Roberto Merhi.^[11] René Binder had a one-off round appearance for Rapax at Jerez.^[12] Despite not having a permanent driver line-up, results shown by De Vries helped the team to achieve fifth place in the teams standings — the highest position since they took the teams' championship back in 2010. But the team decided to stop their racing activity and leave the FIA Formula 2 Championship.^[13]

Results

GP2 Series

Year	Car	Drivers	Races	Wins	Poles	Fast laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
2010	Dallara GP2/08-Mecachrome	Pastor Maldonado	20	6	0	5	87	1st	1st
2010	Dallara GP2/08-Mecachrome	Luiz Razia	20	0	0	1	28	11th	1st
2011	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Fabio Leimer	18	1	0	1	15	14th	10th
2011	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Julián Leal	18	0	0	0	0	27th	10th
2012	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Stefano Coletti	22	0	0	2	50	13th†	9th
		Tom Dillmann	14	1	0	0	29	15th
		Daniël de Jong	8	0	0	0	0	26th
		Ricardo Teixeira	22	0	0	0	0	29th
2013	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Stefano Coletti	22	3	1	5	135	5th	7th
2013	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Simon Trummer	22	0	0	0	20	21st	7th
2014	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Adrian Quaife-Hobbs	22	0	0	0	30	13th	9th
2014	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Simon Trummer	22	0	0	0	26	17th	9th
2015	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Sergey Sirotkin	21	1	1	1	139	3rd	6th
		Robert Vișoiu	18	0	0	0	20	17th
		Gustav Malja	3	0	0	0	1	25th‡
2016	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Gustav Malja	22	0	0	0	53	13th	9th
		Arthur Pic	18	0	0	0	36	14th
		Johnny Cecotto Jr.	4	0	0	0	18	18th

† Includes points scored for Scuderia Coloni.
‡ Includes points scored for Trident Racing.

FIA Formula 2 Championship

Year	Car	Drivers	Races	Wins	Fast laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
2017	Dallara GP2/11-Mecachrome	Nyck de Vries	22	1	2	114	7th†	5th
		Sergio Canamasas	14	0	0	21	14th†
		Johnny Cecotto Jr.	8	0	0	16	16th
		Louis Delétraz	22	0	0	16	17th†
		Roberto Merhi	8	0	0	16	18th†
		René Binder	2	0	0	0	28th

† Shared his position and results with another team.

GP2 Series

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Chassis Engine Tyres	Drivers	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	T.C.	Points
2010	GP2/08 Mecachrome B		CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	IST FEA	IST SPR	VAL FEA	VAL SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	HOC FEA	HOC SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	YMC FEA	YMC SPR					1th	115
		Luiz Razia	7	2	7	5	5	2	Ret	Ret	Ret	15	Ret	13	10	Ret	16	10	Ret	10	7	2
		Pastor Maldonado	6	3	2	11	1	6	1	4	1	4	1	20†	1	DSQ	1	Ret	Ret	Ret	17	9
2011	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		IST FEA	IST SPR	CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	VAL FEA	VAL SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	NÜR FEA	NÜR SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR							10th	15
		Fabio Leimer	Ret	20	8	1	9	7	Ret	14	15	11	DSQ	8	11	11	Ret	Ret	7	2
		Julián Leal	19	Ret	17	14	Ret	Ret	11	9	22	21	14	9	20	Ret	Ret	Ret	16	Ret
2012	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		SEP FEA	SEP SPR	BHR1 FEA	BHR1 SPR	BHR2 FEA	BHR2 SPR	CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	VAL FEA	VAL SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	HOC FEA	HOC SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	MRN FEA	MRN SPR	9th	44
		Ricardo Teixeira	21	24	17	13	23	20	Ret	23	20	Ret			18	15	DSQ	16	19	20	18	15	20	18	17	21
		Tom Dillmann	18	11	6	10	8	1	22	12	11	Ret	Ret	12			9	Ret
		Daniël de Jong											16	9	Ret	13			15	19	13	11
		Stefano Coletti																					8	4	13	8
2013	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		SEP FEA	SEP SPR	BHR FEA	BHR SPR	CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	NÜR FEA	NÜR SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	MRN FEA	MRN SPR	YMC FEA	YMC SPR			7th	155
		Stefano Coletti	3	1	2	3	4	1	6	1	21†	10	3	19	16	20†	13	23	Ret	13	12	24	20†	9
		Simon Trummer	9	6	9	14	19	16	13	23	24	16	14	9	6	7	12	11	Ret	16	16	13	13	7
2014	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		BHR FEA	BHR SPR	CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	RBR FEA	RBR SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	HOC FEA	HOC SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	SOC FEA	SOC SPR	YMC FEA	YMC SPR			9th	56
		Adrian Quaife-Hobbs	10	6	9	9	9	8	24	18	13	15	14	8	2	12	11	21	11	8
		Tio Ellinas																			21	14
		Kevin Giovesi																					19	20
		Simon Trummer	7	2	12	Ret	Ret	18	20	20	25	18	6	14	11	13	18	17	19	11	15	21	17	16
2015	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		BHR FEA	BHR SPR	CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	RBR FEA	RBR SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	SOC FEA	SOC SPR	BHR FEA	BHR SPR	YMC FEA	YMC SPR			6th	159
		Sergey Sirotkin	12	14	16	10	5	3	2	4	1	8	3	3	9	6	Ret	5	4	21	5	4	13	C
		Robert Vișoiu	5	7	18	23	15	13	11	9	12	11	9	7	15	16	9	Ret	17	18
		Gustav Malja																			16	13	16	C
2016	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	BAK FEA	BAK SPR	RBR FEA	RBR SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	HOC FEA	HOC SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	SEP FEA	SEP SPR	YMC FEA	YMC SPR			9th	107
		Gustav Malja	9	10	14	12	10	Ret	13	16	22	19	13	14	6	8	8	2	3	7	9	5	Ret	14
		Arthur Pic	13	Ret	10	9	Ret	8	9	18	14	11	5	Ret	4	3	14	22†	Ret	11
		Johnny Cecotto Jr.																			13	9	7	2

GP2 Final

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Chassis Engine Tyres	Drivers	1	2	T.C.	Points
2011	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		YMC FEA	YMC SPR	8th	0
		Dani Clos	Ret	9
		Mihai Marinescu	17	Ret

GP2 Asia Series

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Chassis Engine Tyres	Drivers	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	T.C.	Points
2009–10	GP2/05 Renault B		YMC1 FEA	YMC1 SPR	YMC2 FEA	YMC2 SPR	BHR1 FEA	BHR1 SPR	BHR2 FEA	BHR2 SPR	12th	0
		Vladimir Arabadzhiev			13	10	17	7	12	9
		Daniel Zampieri			Ret	15	11	8
		Luiz Razia							Ret	13
2011	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		YMC FEA	YMC SPR	IMO FEA	IMO SPR					8th	9
		Fabio Leimer	10	6	6	2
		Julián Leal	Ret	17	16	18

FIA Formula 2 Championship

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Chassis Engine Tyres	Drivers	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	T.C.	Points
2017	GP2/11 Mecachrome P		BHR FEA	BHR SPR	CAT FEA	CAT SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	BAK FEA	BAK SPR	RBR FEA	RBR SPR	SIL FEA	SIL SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	SPA FEA	SPA SPR	MNZ FEA	MNZ SPR	JER FEA	JER SPR	YMC FEA	YMC SPR	5th	137
		Nyck de Vries	10	6	10	Ret	7	1	2	Ret	13	16†	DNS	7	3	3
		Louis Delétraz															14	12	7	4	17	12	10	Ret
		Johnny Cecotto Jr.	15	9	17	10	8	2	Ret	14
		Sergio Canamasas									15	9	5	4	Ret	Ret
		Roberto Merhi															7	6	11	5			16	10
		René Binder																			15	17

Notes and references

^ ^a ^b "Rapax — GP2 Series - ©2010". GP2 Series. GP2 Motorsport Limited.
^ "The Renaissance Men of GP2", Autosport Magazine pg. 40–41. May 8, 2008 Issue (Vol. 192, No. 6)
^ Khorounzhiy, Valentin (17 February 2015). "Sirotkin makes GP2 switch with Rapax". formulascout.com. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
^ "Robert Visoiu completes Rapax 2015 line up". GP2 Series. GP2 Motorsport Limited. 6 March 2015. Archived from the original on 9 March 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
^ Allen, Peter (4 July 2015). "Sergey Sirotkin takes first GP2 victory in Silverstone feature race". formulascout.com. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
^ Allen, Peter (16 November 2015). "Malja back in GP2 for final two rounds, replacing Visoiu at Rapax". Paddock Scout. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
^ "Rapax to field Gustav Malja for 2016 season". gp2series.com. GP2 Motorsport Limited. 16 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
^ "Rapax and Arthur Pic join forces for 2016 GP2 Series". gp2series.com. GP2 Motorsport Limited. 28 January 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
^ "Rapax to race with Cecotto and De Vries". 11 March 2017. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
^ ^a ^b Khorounzhiy, Valentin (6 July 2017). "Marciello returns to single-seaters for Red Bull Ring F2 round". Motorsport.com. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
^ Vega, Jacobo (17 November 2017). "Ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi back to Formula 2 again". Autosport.
^ "Binder joins Rapax for Jerez F2 round". GPUpdate.net. SportUpdate. 3 October 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
^ Suttill, Joshua (29 December 2017). "ASSESSING THE 2018 FORMULA 2 DRIVER MARKET". readmotorsport.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018. Russian Time and Rapax have exited the series but will be replaced by Formula V8 3.5 teams Charouz Racing and Fortec Motorsport, as well as the returning Carlin.

External links

Official website

Achievements
Preceded by ART Grand Prix	GP2 Series Teams' Champion 2010	Succeeded by Addax Team

[team-1] "Rapax — GP2 Series - ©2010". GP2 Series. GP2 Motorsport Limited.

[Autosport_Article-2] "The Renaissance Men of GP2", Autosport Magazine pg. 40–41. May 8, 2008 Issue (Vol. 192, No. 6)

[3] Khorounzhiy, Valentin (17 February 2015). "Sirotkin makes GP2 switch with Rapax". formulascout.com. Retrieved 3 December 2017.

[4] "Robert Visoiu completes Rapax 2015 line up". GP2 Series. GP2 Motorsport Limited. 6 March 2015. Archived from the original on 9 March 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.

[5] Allen, Peter (4 July 2015). "Sergey Sirotkin takes first GP2 victory in Silverstone feature race". formulascout.com. Retrieved 3 December 2017.

[6] Allen, Peter (16 November 2015). "Malja back in GP2 for final two rounds, replacing Visoiu at Rapax". Paddock Scout. Retrieved 19 November 2015.

[7] "Rapax to field Gustav Malja for 2016 season". gp2series.com. GP2 Motorsport Limited. 16 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.

[8] "Rapax and Arthur Pic join forces for 2016 GP2 Series". gp2series.com. GP2 Motorsport Limited. 28 January 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2016.

[9] "Rapax to race with Cecotto and De Vries". 11 March 2017. Retrieved 11 March 2017.

[Motorsport.com-10] Khorounzhiy, Valentin (6 July 2017). "Marciello returns to single-seaters for Red Bull Ring F2 round". Motorsport.com. Retrieved 6 July 2017.

[11] Vega, Jacobo (17 November 2017). "Ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi back to Formula 2 again". Autosport.

[12] "Binder joins Rapax for Jerez F2 round". GPUpdate.net. SportUpdate. 3 October 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2017.

[13] Suttill, Joshua (29 December 2017). "ASSESSING THE 2018 FORMULA 2 DRIVER MARKET". readmotorsport.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018. Russian Time and Rapax have exited the series but will be replaced by Formula V8 3.5 teams Charouz Racing and Fortec Motorsport, as well as the returning Carlin.

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