GP3 - Four Years Of Preparation Lead To Daly's Next Step

Noblesville, May 3, 2011: After four years of preparation, MAZDASPEED driver, Conor Daly, is ready for the most significant challenge of his young career, the Formula One support series, GP3. The first of the 16 race series starts this weekend in Istanbul, Turkey, and continues throughout the European Formula One calendar, ending in Monza, Italy in September.

Daly will experience not only a new race series, but the most sophisticated race car he has ever driven, new languages and countries and a whole new race culture. It’s a change of lifestyle that he enthusiastically looks forward to. Daly brings with him a multitude of US road racing championships, but he knows that the challenge of GP3 will be significant.

“I don’t for a minute think that this will be an easy transition. There is no shortcut to gaining more knowledge and experience. I have found it difficult in pre season testing to extract the magical fast lap in the dry and tire management is a whole new element that plays into the weekend decisions; how hard to push the tires and when”, said Daly. “I’m quite happy to spend the early season races learning as much as possible knowing that I will not know most of the circuits before official practice starts. This is the move I have spent the last four years preparing for – lets do it”.

Daly will compete against a truly international field with 30 of the best young drivers in the world from 16 countries and five different continents. The GP3 car is an Italian built Dallara chassis with a 285 HP turbo Renault engine running on Pirelli tires. Daly has completed a total of 14 days of GP3 testing in four different countries with three different teams since the end of the 2010 season.

Ironically, Daly will leave the Firestone Indy Lights Championship as the points leader after winning round three in Long Beach, California, April 17th. Daly is competing in a limited five race Indy Lights program and has proven to be the fastest driver/car combination in each of the three races so far for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Daly will return in August and September to compete in the Firestone Indy Lights championship rounds in Trois Rivieres, Canada and on the streets of Baltimore.

Daly drives for the British based Carlin GP3 team and for Sam Schmidt Motorsports in Indy Lights. He is the reigning Road to Indy Formula Star Mazda champion. His 2011 programs are supported by Mazda, Modspace, Doug Mockett Companies, SAS International, Merchant Services LTD, Callcap and The College Network with additional support from Tom Lange Company, Alpinestars, Arai, Aspin Group and St. Vincent Sports Performance.