Now is the hybrid winter of our F1™ discontent, made glorious @GP2_Official summer by this sun of Jerez (Oct 6- 8).

And for the first time in GP2’s short history (Formula 3000’s naturally aspirated successor is currently in its early teens!) the next generation of Formula 1 stars in tight millennial Snapchat pants and boner iPhones in their pockets will compete on the Spanish tarmac in the World Motorcycle Capital: who will come out on top or lay down the law? Obviously.

I personally associate Jerez to me fave café con leche and sherry. Oh, and how can we forget the amazing Hnos Rubio and fine dining at the Pit Stop restaurant under the grandstand X-1. What a blissful experience! It’s worth noting Jerez is also home to Racing Engineering GP2 team, a tight-knit team of like-minded people wearing conventional black pants that engineer racing, in a good way of course.

For a brief moment here at the luxury Iberian mph dot com Iberian offices we thought maybe this intriguing “GP2/GP3 to Jerez” announcement could be a major rehearsal before GP1 is launched (mind you, we singe-handedly launched GP4 not so long ago, click HERE).

GP1 would be a great idea, by the way.

Alas, no GP1 on the horizon for the time being; but together with the international racing community, we’re now hearing GP2 is about to become FIA F2. Maybe, possibly…

Since you filed slowly, languidly into the Iberian mph dot com hall, let’s talk a little bit about the history of GP2 in Jerez.

The year was 2013; we were doing low-paid media work for an obscure American motorsport magazine. On this occasion, we were tasked with interviewing the moody Jake Rosenzweig who was scheduled to test in Jerez with Barwa Addax, the stuff of GP2 legends.

The budget was tight (ours, that is) and the magazine’s Texan editor had no idea where Europe was; it meant we had to take an overnight bus from Lisbon to Seville and then from Seville to Jerez instead of driving our own vehicle. Hello, future sponsors, hello!

We made it to Jerez stoned out of our minds around sunrise and proceeded straight to one of the many local coffee shops to get even higher on two cafés con leche. We had another one at the aforementioned Pit Stop bar and another one during the lunch break. Jonathan Palmer, present at the track to follow his son’s progress, certainly noticed the effects that caffeine had caused. We were starting to look like Layne Staley (picture MTV unplugged).

We somehow managed to interview JWR Racing and get the job done.

Paddock inspection was a lot of fun, with Tom Dillmann, the 2016 Formula V8 3.5 champ and a crazy spectacular racing driver, sitting on the pit wall looking rather desperate for whatever reason (remember we’re talking about 2013). TD never responds to our tweets and we probably know why: he remembers us from Jerez because he gave us the evils of a lifetime, if such an expression can be used. Tom, we were out there only to take a few innocent pics!

Perhaps, that memorable test also marked the beginning of the future Nasr-Palmer GP2 tensions.

Palmer is incidentally still having the last laugh: with order and progress at Renault F1, he has every chance to do well in 2017 and become a bit of a sub-Jenson. Nasr, well – poor chap, F1 life isn’t dandy for him! And all that suffering after he made Sauber rich, as Sergio pointed out in Sergio’s Column (click HERE).

GP2 is all any gearhead can dream of: loud, violent, politically incorrect, feisty drivers, good-looking cars looking good on the track; two action-packed races per weekend.

And now, with addition of Jerez, GP2 got its old-school circuit mojo back.

Please now take a few light years to enjoy our photos from the test below.

Paddock walk.

Action shots.

Go to https://iberianmph.com/2020/03/24/ciao-bella/ for more pics.