Team History Page
Last Modified :01/26/1998 23:07:35
Team Information
Guinness Grand Prix
Guinness Grand Prix was established on January 9th 1997 when the two
owners finally agreed on the contract. The team owners are experienced
GP2 racers from the RIA GP2 League in which they are drivers. The owners
started their racing careers in different teams but decided to form an
Irish team and straight away, got backing from Guinness'. Tom Cosgrave
who initiated the merger was team owner/driver at Cosgrave Grand Prix and
Seán Downey was a driver with the McLaren-Pumpkins team. The team
name was decided by the co-owners of the team soon after they signed the
deal to merge their teams. This Irish team has begun a new era for F1 racing
in Ireland. Like Jordan, the team started small. Before January 9th it
didn't exist, now it does and it's in the top car racing league in the
world.
As soon as the new team was announced most of the big engine manufacturers
contacted the team wanting to supply us with their best engines. After
the owners had thought about it, they decided to use Jaguar engines for
the '97 season. It was easy to find sponsors for the team also but Nike
proved to have the best logo and provided the team with the most money.
Q8 Oils approached Tom Cosgrave with an offer to supply the team with fuel
during the season. Tom accepted the offer and so the team was ready to
race. Oh wait we don't have a car yet.
The team manager (Paddy "Big" Pynt) hired Desmond Igner (his friends
call him Des) to come up with a car design. The car was decided after a
number of meetings between Des, Tom and Seán and so the GGP1 was
born. Now we're ready to race.
On June 23rd 1997 the team launched the GGP2. This latest car was developed
by Desmond Igner with a lot of help from the great Pat Painter. This new
car will got it's first race in the French Grand Prix on June 29th.
Team Colours

Guinness Grand Prix Personnel
|
Team Owners |
Seán Downey and Tom Cosgrave |
Team Manager |
Paddy "Big" Pynt |
Cars Designer |
Desmond Igner (His friends call him Des) |
Drivers |
Seán Downey (Ace) and Tom Cosgrave (Amateur) |
Test Driver |
Position Vacant |
Legal Advisor |
Sue Often |
Investigators |
the Guinness Investigative Team (fondly known as the GIT) |
Chief of the GIT |
Gearld Ignatious Trent (fondly known as GIT) |
Public Relations Officer |
Jack Pressman |
League and E-Mail Cup Information
The team took part in it's first GP2 League race on March 9th 1997. The
league is run by the RIA in Sacramento, California, USA. This league started
small in August 1996 with a mini-series consisting of four races. As more
people became interested in joining the series the RIA under the control
of Randall C. Harris decided to finish the mini-series and start a 10 race
Mini-League. This Mini-League proved very popular and had about 200 entrants.
The Mini-League will finish on March 2nd 1997 just in time for the Championship
to start on March 9th. This new full season has over 400 drivers entered.
Entries for this season are taken at the following link.
The E-Mail Cup is a great GP2 competition run by Ben Welch. Unfortunately
entries are no longer taken for the Cup but go to the following link for
details and news.There is a new and exciting email competition being organised
- check it out.
Copyright ©Guinness Grand Prix 1997