Honda’s protégé continues with ART for his second season in GP2 Series, this time with Sergey Sirotkin at his sides.
The GP2 French team, ART Grand Prix, confirms Nobuharu Matsushita’s continuation with them.
After legendary partnership McLaren-Honda’s come-back in 2015 in F1, ART –close to McLaren- engaged themselves to have two drivers who represent this partnership for 2015, Vandoorne standing for McLaren and Matsushita standing for Honda.
Despite an irregular 2015 season where he faced a lot of problems and was far from his teammate, Matsushita is still confirmed for 2016 alongside Sirotkin. Matsushita had a sole victory which was Hungary’s sprint race, and climbed 3 times on the podium. He finished 11th in the rankings.
“I would like to thank Honda and ART Grand Prix for giving me this opportunity to continue racing in GP2 Series. ART Grand Prix won the championships last year, and I am so honored to be part of such an amazing team again. As a member of HFDP, Honda Formula Dream Project, aiming to be the top-world-class driver, I will give my best to win the drivers and the team championship in my second GP2 season.”
Sébastien Philippe, team manager:
“I am truly delighted to start our 3rd year of partnership together with Honda with this reinforcement of our collaboration. Firstly, Nobuharu will partner Sergey Sirotkin in the GP2 Series. He had an incredible year in 2015 when he did not know Europe or the championship, the team and the car, but nevertheless he secured one win, several podiums and made massive improvements all year long. As a driver and on a personal level, we have no doubt at all that he has all the assets needed to fight for the title in 2016.”
