Dutch Driver Daniel de Jong returns to the GP2 Series for his fourth full season. The 23-year-old joins Dutch team MP Motorsport and will be contesting the 2016 GP2 season alongside British Formula Renault 3.5 winner Oliver Rowland.
The 23-year-old is delighted to return to the GP2 Series after venturing into the world of endurance racing: “Last year, we began looking at what the future holds for us”, De Jong says. “We looked into LMP2 pretty seriously, and I did a test that really pleased me. But then I saw the WEC prototypes and GP2 race on the same weekend in Bahrain, and I thought: GP2 is such an amazing category, with cars battling throughout the entire field. That’s why I decided to stay in this hugely competitive championship for one more year before a possible switch to prototype racing.”
De Jong also looks forward to joining forces with his new team mate Rowland and has high hopes for the new GP2 season: “With Oliver as a team mate, we have a fantastic year ahead of us. He is so good and extremely motivated, and we’ve known each other for a long time. Everyone in the team is buzzing with enthusiasm and that feels really great.”
Team Principal Sander Dorsman counts on the experience of their two drivers and the good rapport between them. ” With Oliver and Daniël, we have two drivers that we nurtured ourselves in our Formula Renault 2.0 squad”, he says. “The two have a strong working relationship and get along very well. Daniël had quite an eventful GP2 season in 2015, so with our exciting new driver pairing we are looking forward to a season of stability and, hopefully, success as well.”
De Jong made his GP2 debut in 2012 with Rapax in Valencia in 2012 and drove for the team in three more rounds that year. In 2013, he joined forces with MP Motorsport and contested his first full season in the GP2 Series. In that season he scored his best GP2 result to date, a seventh place in the sprint race of Singapore. The Dutchman remained with the team for two more seasons until an accident at the Belgian Grand Prix Weekend in 2015 forced him to sit out the weekends at Monza, Italy and Sochi, Russia. Afterwards, de Jong returned to the series for the two final rounds in the dessert of Bahrain with the Italian Trident Racing Team and finished the season in 23rd place in the championship.
