DAMS signs Rowland, retains Latifi for GP2 2017

Rowland, 24, moves to DAMS after having spent his first season in GP2 with Dutch outfit MP Motorsport.

The Racing Steps Foundation-backed Briton was a frontrunner in Formula Renault 2.0 and a champion in Formula Renault 3.5 prior to his switch to GP2.

He headed the drivers' standings five rounds into his rookie GP2 campaign, but eventually dropped down to ninth by the season's end.

"The overall aim is to go and dominate the championship, that’s my personal target and it is shared by the team," Rowland said.

"Last year was my first year and with the tyres it was sometimes difficult, but there were lots of positives and I had some good results. Going into this year, I’ve got a lot better with my approach going into each race, so I’m looking forward to putting it into place."

Latifi, 21, was teammate to Alex Lynn at DAMS last year, having joined GP2 after stints in Formula 3 and FR3.5.

The Canadian was runner-up in the Barcelona season opener, but scored only six points throughout the rest of the campaign, ending up 16th overall.

Both Rowland and Latifi became affiliated with the Renault F1 team last year. The former was brought into the marque's new young driver program after dominating FR3.5, while Latifi was given a test driver role.

"Our big goal is to be consistently running at the front and having a better result in the championship than we did last year," Latifi said.

"I’m really happy to be in this team for the second season in a row, because I already have an established working relationship with everybody. That will help me a lot, especially as you don’t get a lot of track time in GP2 and you’re always having to adapt to the conditions.

"I know where we have to improve and the team knows where I have to as well."

The pair ran with DAMS for all three days of the 2016 post-season GP2 test in Abu Dhabi, which Latifi topped.

A major force in the series during the Dallara GP2/11 era, DAMS had helped Romain Grosjean, Davide Valsecchi and Jolyon Palmer to GP2 titles – but the French outfit had arguably its worst campaign with the car last year.

Lynn, who had stayed on with the team for a sophomore year and was widely expected to challenge for the title, could only finish sixth overall in the end, although he did score three sprint race wins.

2017 GP2 driver line-up so far:

Team	Drivers
Prema Racing	Charles Leclerc  Antonio Fuoco
Racing Engineering	Louis Deletraz  Gustav Malja
Russian Time	Artem Markelov
ART Grand Prix	Nobuharu Matsushita  Alexander Albon
DAMS	Oliver Rowland Nicholas Latifi
Campos Racing	TBA
MP Motorsport	Sergio Sette Camara
Trident	TBA
Rapax	TBA
Arden	Sean Gelael  Norman Nato