French team DAMS joins Auto GP

DAMS will be on the grid of the Auto GP maiden season. The french team has found an agreement with the championship organization and, therefore, will field three cars in the racing series that will start in Imola on April 11, awarding an astonishing 1.200.000 euros prize money throughout the season.

For Auto GP it's a prestigious entry, as DAMS is undoubtedly one of the best racing teams in Europe; currently engaged at top level in GP2, GP2 Asia (in which the team won the drivers and teams title in the 08/09 season) and F.Bmw Europe, throughout his racing history the team has succeeded in almost every high powered series. Created in 1988 by Jean-Paul Driot and Rene Arnoux, DAMS won three F.3000 titles between 1990 and 1994, discovering and training talented drivers like Erik Comas, Allan McNish, Olivier Panis and Sebastien Bourdais. Up to the present, the team started in more than 900 races, and in more than 300 of them it cliniched at least the fastest lap, the pole position or a podium finish. Furthermore, DAMS was the winner of the first A1 GP season with Team France and successfully managed on track also the cars of team Switzerland and South Africa.

With the signing of this agreement, Auto GP entered the operational phase of its team selection process, which will end within the end of December.

Enzo Coloni: "Strong and highly skilled teams like DAMS are exactly what we want for Auto GP. We announced that the team selection process would have been based on experience and quality criterias, and the agreement with DAMS is a confirmation of this quality politics. Furthermore, I'm personally very happy that Mr. Jean-Paul Driot and Mr. Eric Boullier decided to engage the team in our series; it's the demonstration that with our choices we're heading the right way".

Jean Paul Driot: "Dams is really happy to be involved in this championship `new concept'. AutoGP will allow young and talented drivers to race a powerful car with a really competitive budget, which is quite necessary in the actual economic situation".

-credit: autogp