The FMS International GP2 team is gearing up for the season opener this weekend in Bahrain, with drivers Antonio Pizzonia and Jason Tahinci champing at the bit to drive their cars in anger after a successful pre-season testing programme.

Antonio and Jason will join 24 fellow GP2 racers on the Bahraini circuit in Sakhir for a 30-minute Friday morning practice session, after a lavish opening ceremony on Thursday night. Qualifying will follow on Friday afternoon, and will take the format of a 30-minute open session. The feature race will get underway on Saturday afternoon, following Formula One qualifying, with the sprint race taking place on Sunday morning, as the main support race to the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The 2007 GP2 series will feature 11 rounds, the first ten of which will shadow the European Formula One races. The series will have its own stand-alone season finale in Valencia, which will take place on 30 September.

Paolo Coloni, Team Principal: "I am very excited at the prospect of the new season and the potential of FMS. We finished last season with two wins, and have worked very hard on improving our organisation to arrive at a high level of performance. We have developed the car well in winter testing and recorded the fastest time at Jerez, as well as setting extremely competitive times at Valencia and Barcelona. The team has done a really good job and so we look forward to the first race to see the result of our hard work. Our organisation has been working at this level of motorsport for many years now, and I hope that this year we can finally achieve the title. I believe we can do that with the driver line-up that we have. I rate Antonio Pizzonia very highly and I am proud to have him in the team. I think that he will be one of the ones to beat this year and he has performed consistently well in winter testing. He is our rookie, and the last two years the GP2 drivers' title has been won by rookies. We have a saying in Italy and that is that 'there is not two without three', and I hope Antonio can be that number three and pick up the trophy. Jason Tahinci did a hard and solid job over the winter. I am sure he will continue to progress, and we expect him to perform well and collect points for the team to contribute to our fight for the teams' title."

Antonio Pizzonia: "Winter testing went well for us, but in testing you never know what people are doing so whatever anyone did in terms of lap times and speed doesn't really matter anymore. It all starts this weekend. We worked hard and improved the car over winter so we have to carry what we learnt into the races, but I am sure it should be a good season. I'm really looking forward to racing again. Last year I only did two races so I was looking for a challenge this in which I could be competitive and fight for race wins and a championship. GP2 was the best option for me and FMS is a strong team so I'm happy I've made the right decision. There's only two circuits on the calendar that I haven't driven, and they are Bahrain and Istanbul. So I'm expecting this weekend to be hard, but hopefully we can do well. After all the testing, the whole team is ready to race now."

Jason Tahinci: "Our results in winter testing were not too bad, but better than that is that we've developed the car, so we're potentially in a much stronger position that what the tests have shown. Last year I came close to scoring a point, but this year I'm in a stronger position in terms of experience and confidence, and knowing the team, so the aim this year is to score as many points as possible for myself and the team. It's been a long winter break so we're all ready to start racing again."