Chris Copeman

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History - Driving Career

Chris Copeman joined the GPGSL during Season 4 and initially started out as a test driver for Devil Fox Racing. When the team left the series at the end of the season he formed the Christel racing group and applied to have Christel VXR entered as an official team. At the beginning of season 5 the team was placed 6th on the official waiting list.

It was during season 5 of the GPGSL that Copeman signed for Southern Cross Racing and duly went on to finish 5th overall in the Test drivers Championship. However, it was during this season that Copeman graduated to a race seat.

Due to inactivity issues within the VSM racing team, team boss Ricardo Van Smirren was left looking for two new racing drivers and opened up the two available seats in his team to anybody who was interested on a "First Come, first serve basis". Chris Copeman and John Maverick were immediately signed up and became the new faces of VSM. Even though he had now signed as a race driver Copeman remained comitted to his long term goal of becoming a team boss within the GPGSL and continued to state that his graudation to a race seat was simply to learn the ropes in the GPGSL and to ready himself for becoming a team boss. During his time with VSM Copeman scored 16 points, finishing 9th on his debut at Abu Dhabi, and finished 26th of 29 in the Season 5 championship.

Team Ownership

Towards the end of Season 5 the GPGSL ruling body announced a slew of rule changes that would forbid team owners to be race drivers. The knock on effect of this ruling meant that many drivers had to either leave the series or become test drivers and as a number of race drivers gave up thier teams to focus on their racing careers Copeman's dream was realised and his Christel VXR team was granted official entry for Season 6.

Copeman immediately announced that the team would be racing with backing from blue chip sponsors Apple Computers and Coca Cola and that the team would use VXR racing branded Vauxhall power plants. Unfortunately driver negotiations were less fruitful for Copeman and he endured a long and frustrating pre-season in which drivers proved hard to tie down to racing contracts. Copeman at one point commented that he felt dissapointed at the fact that a number of drivers had turned down a race seat to stay as a test driver at a one of the front running teams.

The first signing was Connor Steer, a complete GPGSL rookie, he signed on alongside VSM Boss Rico Van Smirren as test driver. Copeman later signed on as a VSM test driver for season 6 stating that Christel VXR and VSM had entered into a mutually benefitial agreement that would allow Van Smirren to play a key role in the development of the team.

Copeman eventually signed two season 4 test drivers to his race seats, Juliano Muller was first to sign and was followed by Jack Elleker, however Elleker then caused controversy as he announced two days after signing that he would be leaving the team after having recieved an "offer he could not refuse". Copeman infuriated by the decision, took the case to the GPGSL and the ensuing court case ruled in Copeman's favor forcing Elleker to honor his contract or take a perf reduction. This also led to the introduciton of a similiar rule to the GPGSL official rule book.

GPGSL Season 6

Christel VXR launched the CVXR001 at thier new Norfolk base just ahead of Season 6. So far the team has performed well, Jack Elleker has put in a number of noteable drives through the field and has twice picked up a bonus point for most places gained. Juliano Muller has struggled somewhat to match his team mates pace and was actually replaced for the 3rd round of the Championship by tester Connor Steer after Muller was inactive from the series.

Copeman has been openly critical of the boost system used within the GPGSL stating on a number of ocassions that he feels the boosts have no positive effect on performance and actually implying that whenever his team has used them they seem to be more of a hinderance than a help.

As of the South American Grand Prix the team stodd 10th of 11 teams in the Constructors race with 44 points. Chris Copeman sits only 15th in the testers table and has admitted, albeit off the record, that when VSM leave the GPGSL next year he may not continue on as a driver, again reiterating that he believes his overall involvement in the GPGSL should be more as a team owner than a driver.

After signing Michael Pedersen for the Season7 and the remainder of Season6 Chris guided VXR to a 9th place finish in the constructors championship. Even though is a testing seat open at Christel VXR Copeman has officially ruled out taking it up and looks set to either carry on testing at VSM or retire from being a driver completely.

GPGSL Season 7

With Christel VXR performing well above expectations Chris Copeman again made clear that he is no hurry to return to racing/testing and is much happier in the team manager role. He did however comment that he would be interested in developing the career of his younger brother should he wish to follow that path at a later date.