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