Vasseur says he has no time for ART with F1 job

New Renault Formula 1 racing director Frederic Vasseur admits he will have "zero" time to spend on his GP2 and GP3 title-winning outfit ART Grand Prix.

McLaren F1 reserve Stoffel Vandoorne became the fourth ART driver to win the GP2 title last year, with Mercedes junior Esteban Ocon also becoming the third to lift the GP3 silverware with the team.

Vasseur (LEFT), who founded the team as ASM in Formula 3 in 1996, has since been appointed to lead Renault's return to F1 as a factory outfit. When asked how much time he will spend on ART's GP2, GP3 or Mercedes DTM programs this year, Vasseur said: "Zero.

"My weekend off, I will keep an eye on it, but otherwise zero. I think I will be a bit busy and it will be too difficult to focus on something like [GP2 at grand prix weekends], to be honest.

"You can keep an eye on it, but at the end of the day if you are not involved it makes no sense to try to do something more. I think I will have a lot of work to do on the Renault project and I will not want to be disturbed."

Of the 22 drivers on this year's F1 grid, eight have raced with ART at some stage of their junior careers – Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Gutierrez and Marcus Ericsson. A further 11 ART alumni have started grands prix, something Vasseur is proud of.

"It was my former business to bring the guys from the junior series to F1," he said. "It's a nice situation to have."

ART will field 2015 race winners Nobuharu Matsushita and Sergey Sirotkin in GP2 this year, and four cars in GP3, led by Formula 3 convert and new Ferrari junior Charles Leclerc (pictured, TOP).

Originally on Autosport.com