Arden International

Arden International is a multiple formula racing team created and run by Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing's F1 team principal. It currently runs teams in the GP2 Series, GP3 Series and the Formula Renault 3.5 series.

It has been competing since 1997 and has raced in Formula 3000 series, the Italian Formula 3000 series, and the A1 GP series for Great Britain.

Due to the Arden's strong business connections and sponsorship, and because Horner is team principal at Red Bull Racing, the team often signs Red Bull Junior Team drivers as a way to pave forward future F1 drivers. Nearly all of the team's early drivers have been Red Bull Juniors, including Michael Ammermüller, Neel Jani, Adrian Zaugg, Filipe Albuquerque, Sébastien Buemi, Lewis Williamson and António Félix da Costa.

History

Formula 3000

Initially created to raise up Horner's career in 1997, in the winter of 1998 family friend David Richards had been approached by Russian oil company Lukoil to enable them to enter motorsports sponsorship. As entries to F3000 were restricted, Richards agreed a deal with Horner that ProDrive would take a 50% stake in Arden, in return for Horner becoming team manager. As a result the team signed Viktor Maslov as a driver under the Lukoil deal from 1999. The team started off poorly and didn't have the pace to qualify for many races.

At the end of 1999, Richrads sold a stake in proDrive to Apax Partners, who didn't wat to cotinue in F3000. Horer hence exercised the option to buy back the ProDrive stake, although to this day Arden are based at and use premises rented from ProDrive. As the years went on, the team began to reap in the results and was the best team of Formula 3000 in its last 3 years, showing new talents to motorsport world like Darren Manning, Tomáš Enge, Björn Wirdheim and Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Björn Wirdheim in 2003 racing at Hungary

The team won the constructors title in 2002, 2003 and 2004. During those years, Wirdheim won the drivers championship in 2003, and Luizzi won it in 2004.

During the teams 8 years in the series, it has scored 359 points, won 16 races and achieved 20 pole positions.

Italian Formula 3000

The team joined the Italian Formula 3000 series for 1999 and 2000. Their first season was poor with only one point to their name, but the 2000 season went significantly better, with Warren Hughes taking two wins, one pole position and three fastest laps for the team, and Darren Manning taking one win, one pole and one fastest lap too. The team finished with Hughes second in the championship, and the team winning it outright 51 points.

A1 GP

Arden operated A1 Team Great Britain in the first season of the A1GP series for 2005-2006. The team fared well in their first season, collecting 8 podium finishes and a single pole position, leaving the team 3rd in the championship with 97 points overall.

GP2

In 2005, the F3000 series was rebranded as the GP2 Series, Arden stayed on for the new series and achieved second place in the teams' championship with Heikki Kovalainen and Nicolas Lapierre, and second place in the Drivers' Championship with Kovalainen, who had 5 wins, 4 pole positions and a fastest lap to his name.

Yelmer Buurman driving at Silverstone.

In 2006, Arden competed in GP2 with Lapierre and the rookie Michael Ammermüller (Neel Jani acted as a substitute for Lapierre when the latter was injured in the race at Monaco). This year, Arden suffered a significant drop in performance, and had only 57 points to show and a single win from Ammermüller, compared to the previous season's 126. Overall the team came fourth in the championship.

For 2007, Arden signed Bruno Senna, nephew of triple F1 champion Ayrton Senna, and A1 Team South Africa driver Adrian Zaugg. Zaugg was replaced for the final round of the season by Filipe Albuquerque. This season was even worse for the team compared to the previous year, only managing 42 points which resulted in a seventh-placed finish in the teams' championship, with Senna finishing ninth overall in the drivers' championship.

For 2008 and the newly founded Asia Series, the team was renamed Trust Team Arden, after its Dutch title sponsor Trust. The duo of Red Bull junior driver Sébastien Buemi and Yelmer Buurman was its race line-up for both championships. For the Asia Series, Adam Khan raced for the first two rounds before being replaced by Buurman. The overall result in the Asia Series was the team finishing second in the championship, with 50 points and one win, and Buemi finishing second in the drivers' championship. Mid-season in the main series, Buurman was replaced by ART Grand Prix outcast Luca Filippi. The season went slightly better than the previous one with the team picking up 50 points, enough to take sixth place, and Buemi picked up two race victories to finish sixth overall in the drivers' championship.

Mortara leading at the race in Turkey

Arden again took part in the Asia Series for the 2008–09 season, signing Luiz Razia and Mika Mäki. For the second round of the championship, held at the Dubai Autodrome, Mäki was replaced by Renger van der Zande, who was subsequently replaced for the rest of the season by Edoardo Mortara. Razia scored the team's only win of the campaign, which allowed Arden to finish sixth in the teams' championship. For the 2009 main series season, the team signed F3 frontrunners Sergio Pérez and Mortara. This was also another poor season for the team, as it finished well down the order in eighth place overall with only Mortara managing a single win.

For the 2009-10 Asia Series season, Arden signed Charles Pic and Rodolfo González. After the first round, González was replaced by Javier Villa for the rest of the season. This was the team's most successful outing in the Asia Series, with an end result of 37 points and second in the teams' championship. Villa finished fourth overall in the drivers' championship with 19 points, and Pic finished fifth with a single race victory. For the 2010 main series, the team kept Pic and resigned González. However, the success from the Asia Series did not quite continue into the main series as the team eventually finished seventh with one win, courtesy of Pic. Arden finished with fewer points than in 2009, but still managed to beat the previous teams' championship result of eighth position.

Jolyon Palmer driving at Monza in 2011.

For the 2011 GP2 Asia Series and 2011 GP2 Main Series seasons, the team signed Josef Král and Jolyon Palmer. The year was the team's worst so far in its GP2 history, as neither driver managed a win, pole or fastest lap in either series, and the team ended up finishing tenth in the Asia series and eleventh in the main series.

As the GP2 Asia Series had joined together with the GP2 main series in 2012, there was no longer two separate series. The team signed former 2008–09 Asia season driver Luiz Razia and former MW Arden GP3 sister team driver Simon Trummer for the 2012 season. Razia won the feature race of the first round in Malaysia, picked up two 2nd place finishes during the two Bahrain rounds, and won again at Catalunya, Valencia and Silverstone. He finished the season as runner-up to champion Davide Valsecchi, whilst Trummer had a best race finish of seventh place to take 23rd in the drivers' championship. Arden finished third in the team's championship; its best result since 2005.

GP3

From 2010 onwards, they have operated a GP3 Series team with Mark Webber, the team is called MW Arden. This builds on the fact that Mark Webber races for Red Bull Racing, which is run by Arden Team Owner and Team Principal of Red Bull Christian Horner. They signed Michael Christensen, Miki Monrás and Leonardo Cordeiro for their debut season. Their first venture into the new series proved difficult as they only accumulate 18 points for the whole season with 2 fastest laps, leaving them 9th in the championship.

For 2011, the team completely refreshed their line up by signing Mitch Evans, Simon Trummer and Lewis Williamson. The season overshadowed the previous as the team came second overall in the constructors championship with 69 points, and both Williamson and Evans scoring 1 win each and coming 8th and 9th in the drivers championship respectively. This would also be the season where the team picked up its first pole positions with 2 from Evans and 1 from Williamson.

For 2012, they retained Evans, and partnered him with David Fumanelli and Matias Laine. Evans former team mates Simon Trummer and Lewis Williamson had moved to the GP2 sister team, and the new Formula Renault team Arden Caterham respectively. At the first round in Spain, Evans won the feature race. At the third round in Valencia, Evans managed to collect pole position and went on to win another feature race.

Evans went on to win the championship in the 2012 season.

Formula Renault 3.5

For 2012, Arden International entered an agreement with Caterham to join the Formula Renault 3.5 series as a joint team known as Arden Caterham. For their first season, they signed former GP3 driver for MW Arden Lewis Williamson, and one of Caterham F1's test drivers, Alexander Rossi.

Rossi scored his first podium finish with a third place finish at the one race round at Monaco. After 3 rounds, Williamson was dropped by the team and the Red Bull Junior Driver Programme for failing to score a single point and was replaced by António Félix da Costa who had also replaced him at the Junior Programme too. On his debut, Da Costa scored two points with a ninth place finish during the first race at the Nürburgring

Drivers who graduated to F1

The following drivers who have competed for any of Arden International series teams have successfully graduated to F1:

• Vitantonio Liuzzi:

Competed for Arden's F3000 team in 2004. He joined Red Bull Racing in 2005, Scuderia Toro Rosso from 2006 to 2007, Force India from 2008 to 2010 and finally HRT for 2011. Since 2012, he is without an F1 drive even though he is listed as a driver on the HRT website. His best finish in Formula One is a 6th place at both the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix and the 2010 Korean Grand Prix. He currently races in the International Superstars Series.

• Heikki Kovalainen:

Competed for Arden's GP2 team in 2005. He joined Renault as a test driver in 2006, then raced a full season for them in 2007. He then raced for McLaren for 2008 and 2009 where he recorded his first race win in Hungary. He then joined Team Lotus for 2010 and 2011, who changed their name to Caterham F1 for 2012, which he currently still races for.

• Bruno Senna:

Competed for Arden's GP2 team in 2007. He joined HRT for their debut season in 2010. He was left without a drive afterwards before being signed as Lotus Renault GP's third driver in 2011, who then was promoted to race driver from the Belgian Grand-prix onwards. For 2012 he currently races for Williams F1. His best finish is 6th place at the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix.

• Sébastien Buemi:

Competed for Arden's GP2 team in 2008 for both the Asia and Main series. He joined Scuderia Toro Rosso for the 2009 season, and stayed with them up until 2011 before being dropped. He is currently Red Bull Racing's test driver for the 2012 season and will be competing for Toyota Motorsport at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. His best finish in Formula One is 7th place at both the 2009 Australian Grand Prix and the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix.

• Sergio Pérez:

Competed for Arden's GP2 team in 2009. He joined Sauber in 2011, and is currently still racing for them in 2012, where he scored his first podium at the Malaysian Grand-prix.

• Charles Pic:

Competed for Arden's GP2 Asia team for the 2009-10 season, and the main series for 2010. He Joined Marussia for 2012.

So far, only Kovalainen has won a race in F1, the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix, and he has also appeared on the podium 3 other times. He is also the highest placing driver in the drivers championship with 7th in both 2007 and 2008 with Renault and McLaren respectively. Pérez is the only other driver to score a podium finish with a 2nd place finish at 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix.

Complete series results

GP2 Series

GP2 Series Results
Year	Car	Drivers	Races	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
2005	Dallara-Mecachrome	Heikki Kovalainen	23	5	4	1	105	2nd	2nd
		Nicolas Lapierre	23	0	1	1	21	11th
2006	Dallara-Mecachrome	Michael Ammermüller	21	1	0	0	25	11th	4th
		Nicolas Lapierre	17	0	0	1	32	9th
		Neel Jani	4	0	0	0	0	25th
2007	Dallara-Mecachrome	Bruno Senna	21	1	0	0	34	8th	7th†
		Adrian Zaugg	19	0	0	0	10	18th
		Filipe Albuquerque	2	0	0	0	0	32nd
2008	Dallara-Mecachrome	Sébastien Buemi	20	2	0	0	50	6th	6th‡
		Yelmer Buurman	10	0	0	0	5	20th
		Luca Filippi	10	0	0	0	1	19th
2009	Dallara-Mecachrome	Sergio Pérez	20	0	0	1	22	12th	8th[1]
		Edoardo Mortara	20	1	0	2	19	14th
2010	Dallara-Mecachrome	Charles Pic	20	1	1	0	28	10th	7th†
		Rodolfo González	20	0	0	0	4	21st
2011	Dallara-Mecachrome	Josef Král	18	0	0	0	15	15th	11th
		Jolyon Palmer	18	0	0	0	0	28th
2012	Dallara-Mecachrome	Simon Trummer	24	0	0	0	4	23rd	3rd
		Luiz Razia	24	4	0	3	222	2nd

† Ran under a Dutch license.
‡ Involved as Trust Team Arden under a Dutch license.
[1] Involved as Telmex Arden International under a Dutch license

GP3 Series

GP3 Series Results
Year	Car	Drivers	Races	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
2010	Dallara-Renault	Michael Christensen	16	0	0	0	0	31st	9th
		Miki Monrás	16	0	0	1	17	10th
		Leonardo Cordeiro	16	0	0	1	1	27th
2011	Dallara-Renault	Mitch Evans	16	1	2	0	29	9th	2nd
		Simon Trummer	16	0	0	0	9	18th
		Lewis Williamson	16	1	1	0	31	8th
2012	Dallara-Renault	Mitch Evans	16	3	4	2	151.5	1st	2nd
		David Fumanelli	14	0	0	0	47	11th
		Matias Laine	16	1	0	1	111	5th

Formula Renault 3.5 Series

World Series by Renault
Year	Car	Drivers	Races	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Podiums	Points	D.C.	T.C.
2012	Dallara-Renault	Alexander Rossi	17	0	0	4	1	63	11th	2nd [1]
		Lewis Williamson	5	0	0	0	0	0	32nd
		António Félix da Costa	12	4	0	2	6	166	4th

^ Collaboration with Caterham known as Arden Caterham.

Complete former series results

GP2 Asia Series

GP2 Asia Series Results
Year	Car	Drivers	Races	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
2008	Dallara-Mecachrome	Adam Khan	4	0	0	0	0	28th	2nd †
		Yelmer Buurman	6	0	0	0	13	9th
		Sébastien Buemi	10	1	0	1	37	2nd
2008-09	Dallara-Mecachrome	Luiz Razia	11	1	1	0	9	13th	6th
		Mika Mäki	2	0	0	0	0	29th
		Renger van der Zande	1	0	0	0	0	31st
		Edoardo Mortara	8	0	0	0	11	11th
2009-10	Dallara-Mecachrome	Charles Pic	4	1	1	0	18	5th	2nd ‡
		Rodolfo González	2	0	0	0	0	29th
		Javier Villa	6	0	0	1	19	4th
2011	Dallara-Mecachrome	Josef Král	4	0	0	0	8	10th	10th
		Jolyon Palmer	4	0	0	0	0	19th

• † Involved as Trust Team Arden under a Dutch License.
• ‡ Ran under a Dutch license.

A1 GP Series

A1 Grand Prix results
Year	Car	Team	Drivers	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Points	T.C.
2005-06	Lola-Zytek	A1 Team Great Britain	Robbie Kerr	0	1	0	89	3rd
			Darren Manning	0	0	0	8

Viktor Maslov in the Arden garage, 2001

International Formula 3000 Series

International Formula 3000 Championship Results
Year	Car	Drivers	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
1997	Lola-Zytek Judd	Christian Horner	0	0	0	1	21st	16th
1998	Lola-Zytek Judd	Kurt Mollekens	0	0	0	19	6th	7th [1]
		Christian Horner	0	0	0	0	33rd
1999	Lola-Zytek	Marc Goossens	0	0	0	0	NC	NC ‡
		Viktor Maslov	0	0	0	0	NC
2000	Lola-Zytek	Darren Manning	0	1	1	10	8th	8th †
		Viktor Maslov	0	0	0	0	32nd
2001	Lola-Zytek	Darren Manning	0	0	0	9	11th	9th †
		Viktor Maslov	0	0	0	0	25th
2002	Lola-Zytek Judd	Tomáš Enge	3	4	5	50	3rd	1st
		Björn Wirdheim	1	1	0	29	4th
2003	Lola-Zytek Judd	Björn Wirdheim	3	5	7	78	1st	1st
		Townsend Bell	0	0	0	17	9th
2004	Lola-Zytek Judd	Vitantonio Liuzzi	7	9	3	86	1st	1st
		Robert Doornbos	1	0	1	44	3rd

Italian Formula 3000 Series

Italian Formula 3000 results
Year	Car	Drivers	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Points	D.C.	T.C.
1999	Lola T96/50-Zytek	Viktor Maslov	0	0	0	1	18th	11th †
2000	Lola T96/50-Zytek	Warren Hughes	2	1	3	37	2nd	1st †
		Darren Manning	1	1	1	14	6th

• † Involved as Arden Team Russia
• ‡ Involved as Lukoil Arden Racing
• [1] collaboration with KTR team

Timeline

	1990s			2000s										2010s
	97	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Formulas	International Formula 3000								GP2 Series
												GP2 Asia Series
			Italian F3000													WSbR
									A1GP					GP3

External links

• Arden-motorsport.com, official team website.
• GP2series.com, team info at GP2 Series website.
• GP3series.com, team info at GP3 Series website.
• WorldSeriesByRenault.com, team info at WSBR (Formula Renault 3.5 Series) website.