Just as the whole season, the GP3 Series season finale in Monza was fair to middling for the Arden International team. In the last race, Arden pilot Mitch Evans from New Zealand put up a furious battle against the other drivers in the leading group. In lap 11, Evans was in the lead, he was tapped by James Calado, who re-joined the circuit via the kerbs.
From then on, the Kiwi could only watch the race with Antonio Felix da Costa finishing first, followed by Rio Haryanto, Nico Müller and his teammate Simon Trummer on position five.
Once Calado had been given a 20-second post-race penalty, Trummer and Evans were credited with fourth and fifth positions. The Arden International GP3 team sees an educational season come to an end with Evans taking the 9th and Trummer the 18th place in the drivers’ ranking. However, the good performance of Silverstone winner Lewis Williamson, who finished the season on 8th position in the drivers’ ranking, secured the team the second place in the team ranking: all in all, not totally satisfactory, but the season demonstrated what potential the team’s rough diamonds have.
The same applies to the GP2 Series. After a year that was patchy at best, Josef Kral and Joylon Palmer reached 15th and 18th place in the overall ranking. The team ended 11th. However, Arden envisages greater plans for 2012 – excitement is guaranteed!
For many years, SONAX has been active as official team sponsor of Arden International. The racing team entered the current GP2 Series with two promising talents – the Czech Josef Kral and the Briton Joylon Palmer. In the GP3 Series, Arden works closely with Mark Webber to prepare the young drivers for their next step into the GP2 Series. Just as in the GP2, standardised chassis from Dallara and engines from Renault are used.
(http://www.arden-motorsport.com)
