Weve had our eyes on Conor Daly, as the next young American with a realistic shot to make it into F1 (see our story on Conor in our November 2010 issue). Now, this 2010 Star Mazda Champion has announced his busy plans for the 2011 season: He will compete in the Firestone Indy Lights series (a part of Mazdas Road to Indy Program) as well as in European GP3. In Indy Lights, he will compete in five races—all road course events that dont conflict with the GP3 schedule—for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. In GP3, hell race a full season for the Carlin team.
Im extremely pleased to have all the plans worked out for 2011, said Daly. Its taken a lot of work and Im extremely thankful to everyone at Mazda who spent a great deal of time making sure my program was in order. It really shows how dedicated Mazda is to their ladder drivers. With the significant changes to the ladder system in 2010, Mazda still stayed devoted to supporting their champions. Im honored to have the support of Mazda for the 2011 season and beyond.
John Doonan, Mazdaspeed Motorsports Team Development Manager, said: Conor has done an outstanding job of delivering the goods, both on-track and off-track, to his business supporters. As we transition into the Mazda Road to Indy beginning with the 2011 season we needed to make sure that Conor could take a step up in his career, while meeting everyones business objectives. Thanks to Mazda, the people at IndyCar, Sam Schmidt Motorsports, and Carlin, Conor should have an outstanding year.
Want to see how busy Conor will be? Check out his 2011 schedule:
Date Series Location
March 27 FIL St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
April 10 FIL Barber Motorsports Park, Alabama, USA
April 17 FIL Long Beach, California, USA
May 8 GP3 Istanbul Park, Turkey
May 22 GP3 Barcelona, Spain
June 26 GP3 Valencia, Spain
July 10 GP3 Silverstone, England
July 24 GP3 Nurburging, Germany
July 31 GP3 Hungaroring, Hungary
Aug 7 FIL Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada
Aug 28 GP3 Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
Sept 4 FIL Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Sept 11 GP3 Monza, Italy