Dani Clos

Daniel Clos Álvarez
Nationality	Spanish
Born	October 23, 1988 (1988-10-23) (age 23) Barcelona (Spain)
2011 GP2 Series
Debut season	2009
Current team	Racing Engineering
Car no.	7
Starts	57
Wins	1
Poles	1
Fastest laps	1
Best finish	4th in 2010
Previous series
2009–10-2011 2009 2007–08 2005–06 2005–06 2004	GP2 Asia Series Formula Renault 3.5 Series Formula Three Euroseries Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Formula Renault 2.0 Italia Formula Junior 1600 Spain
Championship titles
2006	Formula Renault 2.0 Italia

Daniel Clos Álvarez (born October 23, 1988 in Barcelona) is a Spanish racing driver who is competing in the GP2 Series with Racing Engineering, the team that won the drivers' championship with Giorgio Pantano in 2008.

Career

Karting

Clos was a fairly successful karter at the ICA Junior level of karting, winning firstly the Catalonian district of the Spanish ICA Junior Championship in 2001, beating a field including the brother of former Formula Three Euroseries rival Daniel Campos-Hull, Oliver. Success continued in 2002, when Dani won the Copa Campeones Trophy and finished 10th in the Italian Open Masters, against a top-quality field of drivers including Nico Hülkenberg, Sébastien Buemi, Nelson Panciatici, Oliver Oakes and Buemi's cousin Natacha Gachnang amongst others.^[1]

2003 was by far and away his best year of karting, winning both the prestigious Andrea Margutti Trophy equipped with an MGM Racing Birel beating Miguel Molina and Jules Bianchi to the flag, and the Spanish ICA Junior Championship, along with placings of 6th in the Italian Open Masters and 11th in the European Championship. 2004 saw a move up to Formula A, but he decided to dovetail it with a campaign in the Formula Junior 1600 series in Spain. He would finish 36th in the Formula A European Championship, with a solitary point. He called time on his karting career after a 30th place in the 2005 Margutti Trophy.

Formula Junior 1600 Spain

Clos made the move into single-seaters in 2004, with a campaign in the Formula Junior 1600 championship. Clos adapted to the cars very well, and ended up a solid 4th place in the championship behind Michael Herck, Marco Barba and Arturo Llobell, with one win and four podiums along the way.

Formula Renault 2.0

After just one season racing at 1600cc Formula Renault level, Dani moved up to the two litre cars, with a drive in both the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 for Pons Racing, and the Italian Formula Renault Championship for Facondini Racing. Clos struggled in the pan-European championship, failing to record a finish inside the top ten placings all season. His best finish came during the 11th round of the championship, at Donington Park when he recorded an 11th place finish. He was slightly more successful in the Italian series despite missing three races due to Eurocup commitments, finishing sixteenth in the championship with 28 points beating team-mate Oliver Campos-Hull in the process. His best finishes were a pair of sevenths, coming at Imola in round three, and also at Spa during round six. Clos would return to both series for a second season in 2006.

Clos moved to Jenzer Motorsport for both campaigns in 2006, hoping to give him a little more success than what he had for his previous two teams in 2005. His European campaign landed him in seventh place overall in a tightly-contested championship. He won three races, second only to champion Filipe Albuquerque's tally of four, and these wins came in succession – doing the double at Istanbul Park and winning the first race at Misano. He had originally done the double at Misano, which would have taken his tally to four in succession, however he was disqualified due to his car's diffuser height not complying with Eurocup regulations.^[2] This handed Chris van der Drift his first victory of the 2006 season.

In the Italian championship, Clos got off to a steady start with a second and two third places in the first six races which at the time of the Spa round in early June, Clos was already some way behind championship leader Adrian Zaugg, who had won five of the first six races, and had finished third in the race that he didn't win. However, the rest of the season belonged to Clos. He won eight of the last nine races to overhaul Zaugg and win the championship by 36 points in the end. He recorded four double victories at Spa, Hockenheim, Misano and Monza and finished second in the single-race meeting at Varano.

Formula Three Euroseries

After his title win, Dani moved up to the Formula Three Euroseries for the 2007 season, signing up to drive for Signature-Plus. Clos had a solid, yet unspectacular first season with a championship position of 13th, with thirteen points. His best result was a fourth place during the reverse-grid round sixteen in Barcelona – the race now infamous with one of the biggest startline crashes in Euroseries history, in which nine cars were eliminated.^[3] He also finished fifteenth during the Masters of Formula 3 event at Zolder, finishing some four seconds behind the eventual Euroseries champion Romain Grosjean and some 42 seconds behind winner Hülkenberg.^[4]

Clos returned to the series for a sophomore season in 2008, this time moving to Prema Powerteam. However, he ended up one place lower than what he was in 2007, finishing 14th with a total of 16.5 points. He only recorded six points-scoring finishes during the season, two of which were podium finishes coming at Pau (3rd)^[5] and 2nd in the rain-shortened race at Le Mans.^[6] He would have finished level on points with Jon Lancaster on 19 points had he been awarded 5 points rather than 2.5 at Le Mans. He also recorded a fastest lap in round 2 at Hockenheim, and started round 4 at Mugello from pole, thanks to the reverse-grid system.

Formula Renault 3.5 Series

Clos made his debut in Formula Renault 3.5 Series at Le Mans for Epsilon Euskadi, replacing Adrián Vallés, who was busy driving the Liverpool F.C. car in Superleague Formula at Zolder.^[7] In his first race, he moved from 20th on the grid, to finish tenth and pick up a championship point. He also picked up the bonus point for progressing the most spots during the race, with ten. He continued in the series at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, picking up a point for qualifying third in his group. A ninth place finish was his best result of the weekend, which also included an incident with team-mate Chris van der Drift. He was replaced by Keisuke Kunimoto for the final two rounds.

GP2 Series

Clos driving for Racing Engineering at the Catalunya round of the 2009 GP2 Series season.

Clos driving for Racing Engineering at the Monza round of the 2011 GP2 Series season.

Having tested for both GP2 Series teams and ones in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series, Clos was signed by the Racing Engineering team for the 2009 GP2 Series on February 8, 2009.^[8] He scored his first points and podium in the final race at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, ending up 21st overall. In the off-season, he contested two rounds of the GP2 Asia Series for Trident Racing. He continued with Racing Engineering into the 2010 season.^[9] Clos became a regular podium contender in 2010, scoring points in every round and had one retirement at the Monaco sprint race. He won his maiden GP2 race at the Turkish sprint round, and as of the Hungaroring race occupied third in the championship.^[10] At the Belgian round of the championship, he suffered a compressed vertebra in a collision at the start of the feature race, and did not take part in the sprint race.^[11] Clos has remained with Racing Engineering for the 2011 season; his team-mates thus far have been Christian Vietoris and Álvaro Parente. The team also competed in the GP2 Asia Series for the first time, in which Clos, partnered with Nathanaël Berthon, scored a race win at Imola to finish ninth in the championship. In the main series, he finished ninth in the championship with a best finish of two second places.

Formula One

Clos has been employed on a few occasions as a test driver for the WilliamsF1 team, the first of these came in September 2008, when he participated in a day's testing at Jerez in Spain.^[12] He tested again in December 2008 at the same circuit, for another day's testing.^[13]

Racing record

Complete GP2 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	DC	Points
2009	Racing Engineering	ESP FEA Ret	ESP SPR 19	MON FEA Ret	MON SPR Ret	TUR FEA 12	TUR SPR 7	GBR FEA 13	GBR SPR Ret	GER FEA 16	GER SPR 8	HUN FEA 11	HUN SPR 11	VAL FEA Ret	VAL SPR Ret	BEL FEA 10	BEL SPR Ret	ITA FEA 15	ITA SPR Ret	POR FEA 9	POR SPR 3	21st	4
2010	Racing Engineering	ESP FEA 3	ESP SPR 6	MON FEA 3	MON SPR Ret	TUR FEA 8	TUR SPR 1	VAL FEA 5	VAL SPR 7	GBR FEA 3	GBR SPR 3	GER FEA 4	GER SPR 6	HUN FEA 16	HUN SPR 7	BEL FEA Ret	BEL SPR DNS	ITA FEA Ret	ITA SPR 12	ABU FEA 4	ABU SPR 4	4th	51
2011	Racing Engineering	TUR FEA 8	TUR SPR 15	ESP FEA 6	ESP SPR 2	MON FEA Ret	MON SPR 18	VAL FEA 4	VAL SPR 5	GBR FEA 6	GBR SPR 2	GER FEA 7	GER SPR Ret	HUN FEA 10	HUN SPR Ret	BEL FEA 6	BEL SPR 6	ITA FEA 13	ITA SPR 7			9th	30

* Season in progress.

Complete GP2 Asia Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	DC	Points
2009–10	Trident Racing	ABU1 FEA	ABU1 SPR	ABU2 FEA Ret	ABU2 SPR 13	BHR1 FEA	BHR1 SPR	BHR2 FEA 14	BHR2 SPR 12	27th	0
2011	Racing Engineering	ABU FEA Ret	ABU SPR 22	ITA FEA 7	ITA SPR 1					9th	8

References

1. ^ "Italian Open Masters ICA Junior 2002". driverdb.com. http://www.driverdb.com/standings/238-2002. Retrieved 2009-02-08. ^{[dead link]}
2. ^ "Clos' loss is Van der Drift's gain". automobilsport.com. 2006-07-17. http://www.automobilsport.com/race-categories--24,32662,Clos-loss-is-Van-der-Drifts-gain,news.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 
3. ^ "Renger van der Zande lets Prema cheer". Formula Three Euroseries. 2007-09-23. http://www.f3euroseries.com/newsausgabe.php?id=1727. Retrieved 2009-02-08. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ "Zandvoort Masters of Formula 3 @ Zolder". raceresults.nu. 2007-08-05. http://www.raceresults.nu/uitslagen/2008/Masters%20of%20Formula-3/Masters%20of%20Formula%203%20-%202007/F3%20-%20Race.pdf. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 
5. ^ "Maiden win for Mortara and Volkswagen in Formula 3 Euro Series". Formula Three Euroseries. 2008-06-01. http://www.f3euroseries.com/newsausgabe.php?id=1999. Retrieved 2009-02-08. ^{[dead link]}
6. ^ "Robert Wickens wins at Le Mans in the rain". Formula Three Euroseries. 2008-10-05. http://www.f3euroseries.com/newsausgabe.php?id=2171. Retrieved 2009-02-08. ^{[dead link]}
7. ^ Elizalde, Pablo (2009-07-14). "Clos, Mortara join series for Le Mans". autosport.com (Haymarket Publications). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76959. Retrieved 2009-07-14. 
8. ^ "Racing Engineering sign Clos for '09". autosport.com. 2009-02-08. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73177. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 
9. ^ Elizalde, Pablo (2010-03-02). "Racing Engineering completes line-up". autosport.com (Haymarket Publications). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81818. Retrieved 2010-03-14. 
10. ^ Straw, Edd (2010-05-30). "Clos claims first GP2 win in Turkey". autosport.com (Haymarket Publications). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/84019. Retrieved 2010-07-19. 
11. ^ O'Leary, Jamie (2010-08-28). "Clos to miss Spa sprint race". autosport.com (Haymarket Publications). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/86215. Retrieved 2010-08-30. 
12. ^ "Williams to test Spaniard Clos next week". gpupdate.net. 2008-09-11. http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/198031/williams-to-test-spaniard-clos-next-week/. Retrieved 2011-02-01. 
13. ^ "Clos to join Williams in Jerez". gpupdate.net. 2008-12-05. http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/204252/clos-to-join-williams-in-jerez/. Retrieved 2011-02-01. 

External links

• Clos' official website
• Career statistics, from Driver Database

Sporting positions
Preceded by Kamui Kobayashi	Italian Formula Renault champion 2006	Succeeded by Mika Mäki

Persondata
Name	Clos, Dani
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	October 23, 1988
Place of birth	Barcelona (Spain)
Date of death
Place of death