The twelfth season of the GP2 Series kicks off this weekend at Barcelona as the Circuit de Catalunya hosts the first round. Once again, the 2016 grid is highly competitive with multiple race winners and podium finishers hoping to shine and out-best their rivals. Racing will most definitely provide some edge-of-your-seat action.

Amidst the more seasoned drivers, six rookies have joined the field including three GP3 graduates: Luca Ghiotto, Marvin Kirchhofer and Jimmy Eriksson - all of them scored wins, podiums and pole positions in the sister Series. The Italian from Trident fought all season long last year for the GP3 crown and finished runner-up just eight points behind the Champion.

"It's exciting to have the GP2 and GP3 seasons beginning on the same weekend," said Pirelli's Racing Manager Mario Isola, "something that hasn't happened for five years.

"Although our tyres for both championships are different in terms of compound and structure to those we supply for Formula One, they are designed to share many of the same characteristics so that the young drivers develop skills that will be valuable if they make it to the top. They know Barcelona better than most circuits, and have spent a portion of their pre-season testing programmes at the track working out how to get the most from their tyres there. However, the temperatures ought to be higher than those they experienced then, so nothing can be taken for granted. The warm weather combined with the fast corners and rough surface means wear and degradation is high, so tyre management and strategy will be key to a good result, particularly in GP2 with the performance gap between the soft and the medium."

Notes

There will be a total of eleven Rounds this season.

Sepang is back on the calendar (tenth round). The last time the Series went to Malaysia was in 2013 with Fabio Leimer and Stefano Coletti as
race winners with Racing Engineering and Rapax respectively. The Monegasque driver had started from pole position.

For the first time, the GP2 Series will go to Baku, Azerbaijan (third round of the season).

PREMA Racing is a newcomer for this season and will race with rookie Antonio Giovinazzi and Red Bull protégé Pierre Gasly.

The 2016 grid is made of 4 pole sitters (Sergey Sirotkin, Alex Lynn, Raffaele Marciello and Pierre Gasly), 6 race winners (Nobuharu Matsushita,
Sergey Sirotkin, Alex Lynn, Mitch Evans, Raffaele Marciello and Arthur Pic) and 10 podium finishers (Matsushita, Sirotkin, King, Lynn, Evans, Marciello, Markelov, Pic, Canamasas and Gasly).

This first round at Barcelona marks the start of the twelfth season of the GP2 Series.

Status Grand Prix will not take part in Round 1.

In 2015, pole position was set by Stoffel Vandoorne in a 1:29.273 (+0.4s ahead of Lynn). The Feature race was won by Vandoorne ahead of Mitch Evans (RUSSIAN TIME) and Alexander Rossi (Racing Engineering). The Sprint race was won by Lynn (DAMS) ahead of Vandoorne (ART Grand Prix) and Gasly (DAMS).

During the pre-season tests last March at Barcelona, Gasly set the best lap time of the three days in a 1:27.386.

The 6 rookies are: Philo Paz Armand, Luca Ghiotto, Marvin Kirchhofer, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nabil Jeffri and Jimmy Eriksson.

Entry List

ART Grand Prix: Nobuharu Matsushita and Sergey Sirotkin
Racing Engineering: Norman Nato and Jordan King
DAMS: Alex Lynn and Nicholas Latifi
Pertamina Campos Racing: Mitch Evans and Sean Gelael
Russian Time: Raffaele Marciello and Artem Markelov
Rapax: Gustav Malja and Arthur Pic
Trident: Philo Paz Armand and Luca Ghiotto
Status Grand Prix: TBA
Carlin: Sergio Canamasas and Marvin Kirchhofer
Prema Racing: Antonio Giovinazzi and Pierre Gasly
MP Motorsport: Oliver Rowland and Daniel de Jong
Arden International: Nabil Jeffri and Jimmy Eriksson