James Rossiter

James Rossiter (born August 25, 1983) is a racing driver from England.

When Rossiter was 14, he started karting in TKM and Rotax Max karts. He only competed in 20 karting events over 3 years when he graduated to single-seaters. In 2001, Rossiter tested a Formula Palmer Audi at the racetrack owned by former racing driver Jonathan Palmer, Bedford Autodrome. In the off-season between 2001 and 2002, he tested for Falcon Motorsport and their Formula Renault team in Guadix, Spain. He was offered a race drive for 2002, but had to get the right licence to compete. In early 2002, he did this, taking part in 4 Ford Fiesta and MG F races, to earn his racing licence.

Rossiter made a slow start to his single-seater career, with only a best of 4th place in Formula Renault, but improved for the Winter Series, finishing 4th in the championship. He won the first two rounds of the Winter Series from the pole at Donington Park, and was publicly praised by Niki Lauda, whose son Matthias was also competing.

Rossiter then switched teams for the 2003 season, moving to the Fortec Motorsport team. Rossiter made a vast improvement finishing 3rd overall, behind champion Lewis Hamilton and Alex Lloyd. He only had one race win and pole position, both of which came at Thruxton. He tested Formula 3 cars in the winter at Croft and Pembrey for Manor Motorsport, Alan Docking Racing and Fortec. He also tested a Formula 3000 car at Jerez, testing alongside Nico Rosberg and Nelson Piquet Jr for Arden International.

Rossiter graduated into F3 in 2004 with the same team, Fortec. He finished 3rd in the championship behind Piquet and Adam Carroll, with 3 wins at Silverstone, Knockhill and Brands Hatch. Rossiter also competed in Macau, where he did not finish; and at Zandvoort where he finished 4th, just 9.334 seconds behind winner Alexandre Prémat.

In 2005, Rossiter left Britain behind, and went into the Formula 3 Euroseries with Signature-Plus as team-mate to Loïc Duval and finished 7th in the championship, albeit 121 points behind the dominating champion Lewis Hamilton. He was also added to the roster of Honda Racing F1 team development drivers. For 2006, Rossiter moved up to the World Series by Renault with Pons Racing, finishing joint 13th in the championship with the highlight of his season coming at the Monaco Grand Prix support round where he finished 2nd.

For F1|2007, Rossiter was initially retained as one of Honda's test drivers, alongside Christian Klien. [cite news| title = Klien gets the Honda test job| publisher = Grandprix.com| url = http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17773.html| date = 2006-11-15| accessdate = 2006-11-15] However, on May 14 2007, Rossiter was announced as a test driver for Super Aguri. [cite news | first = | last = | author = | coauthors = | url =http://www.manipef1.com/news/2007/index.php?id=944 | title =Rossiter joins Super Aguri as tester | work = | publisher =Manipe F1 | pages = | page = | date =2007-05-14 | accessdate =2007-05-14 | language = ]

James will make his first appearance in the ALMS in the ARX-01b Acura powered LMP2 car with Andretti Green Racing at Road America, alongside newly hired primary driver Franck Montagny.

“I’m really looking forward to driving the XM Acura for Andretti Green Racing in the ALMS and in the United States. I’m looking forward to the new challenge as well as racing with Franck (Montagny). I really just want to enter into this with the goal of learning as much as possible. AGR has a great history as a great team, so hopefully we can do some great things together.”

He stayed on for 3 races, claiming overall victory at Belle Isle, Detroit alongside Frank Montagny.

References

External links

* [http://www.jamesrossiter.com/ James Rossiter Official Site]