Fisichella Motor Sport International has revealed that, like some of its GP2 Series rivals, it will expand its operations by entering the new Formula BMW Europe Championship in 2008.

The amalgamation of the burgeoning British and German national FBMW championships to form the new European competition has landed the series a place on the support bill at seven Formula One weekends, leading to attention from outside those teams already engaged in the category. New GP2 champion iSport International has already confirmed that it will be chasing an entry for 2008, and FMSI's involvement is unlikely to be the last from the higher echelons.

"I am delighted that we are strengthening our racing activities by entering this new and exciting championship," team figurehead Giancarlo Fisichella commented, "Formula BMW Europe provides us with an ideal platform to evaluate and develop new talents, who may then graduate one day to our GP2 team."

FMSI's programmes in GP2 Series and the new GP2 Asia Series will be unaffected by the expansion, although it has made no comment about its participation in the Euro F3000 championship.

"This is a new venture we have been working very hard on for some time," team principals Paolo Coloni and Enrico Zanarini said in a statement, "We were very happy to receive confirmation this week from BMW of our team entry and we will now push ahead with our engineering development and driver evaluation programmes."

FMSI's FBMW outfit will operate from its Passignano headquarters near Perugia in Italy, and the team has already recruited a team of engineers to begin work on the project.