Javier Villa

Date of birth: 10/5/1987
Place of birth: Colunga – Asturias – Spain
Weight: 62 kg
Height: 171 cm
Nationality: Spanish

At the age of 18, Javier Villa was in 2006 the youngest member of the GP2 Series, the second division in the top league of four-wheel stars: Formula One. However, when it is fuel pumping through a young drivers veins and there is a well-balanced head on those shoulders, age becomes unimportant, because the brimming talent soon dazzles anyone who crosses his path.

After 21 racs disputed on ten different circuits, the youngster in the category took the victory in 2007 on three occasions, a score only surpassed by the later-to-be Champion of the 2007 GP2 Series, Timo Glock. The Repsol driver showed amazing maturity and skill in his single-seater, demonstrating that the faith the Spanish oil company had placed in the young 15-year-old Asturian driver was well worth it.

Thanks to the Repsol Racing for Spain programme, Javier Villa’s initial path met that of Repsol in 2003, when the oil company decided to help and promote new promising talents from Spain in the world of car racing. Villa participated in the Spanish Formula Junior Championship, and the following year he made the leap to Formula 3. The Repsol driver became Champion in the Spanish Junior F3 Cup, and finished ninth in the overall Spanish F3 Championship. One year later, Villa finished third in the general classification, a result which, side by side with Repsol, gave him the chance to rise to the GP2 series by the 2006 season.

That year Javier Villa was the youngest driver on the GP2 grid. Repsol helped him to become a member of the best Formula One school, and as an eager student he is, he concentrated on learning within the Racing Engineering team the secrets of each circuit which must one day see his dream come true: to compete along with the world’s best in the most prestigious motor racing championship of them all: Formula One.

During his second year, the Repsol driver was still the youngest in the category, though his teammates already knew that this Asturian driver does not back down easily. During the season, better training sessions would have given him hope for better positions in the first of the two Grand Prix races held every weekend. However, when the red lights blinked off, the Repsol unleashed his talent. Thanks to his spectacular comebacks he managed to finish scoring points and getting good times for the Sunday morning sprints.

Sixth in the final classification, the Repsol driver took three victories throughout the season, the first on the French Magny-Cours circuit. After finishing seventh in the long Saturday race, he was on the front row of the Sunday sprint, and climbed to first position halfway through the race, winning his first victory since his arrival to the GP2 Series.

In Barcelona he almost made it, with a well-deserved eighth position in Saturday’s race, which placed him in first position on Sunday’s grid, a race where he was finally second. In July he won two more victories, in Nürburgring and Hungaroring, each preceded by an eighth position in the Saturday race. The final touch came in the last race disputed in Valencia, where he was up on the podium again in second position.

Right now, Javier Villa is a valuable future asset for Spanish motor racing, and though he is again the youngest in the GP2 Series, he knows what it is to wear the Repsol colours on the podium’s highest step. Villa is no longer simply a bet for the future, but a driver who is prepared to be up at the top.