The car that carried Marko Asmer to the 2007 British F3 International Series title is to make its debut on Australian soil after being acquired by the Astuti Motorsport team.
The team will run the ex-Hitech Racing car during an Oran Park test day in the middle of April, with Michael Trimble set to drive the car for its first shakedown with the team then intending to race the car for the remainder of the 2008 campaign.
The car will be powered by a Renault Sodemo engine the same power source utilised to great effect by the team since the 2005 championship season having scored ten wins and multiple podiums for the Melbourne-based team rather than the Mercedes-Benz powerplant used by Asmer last season.
It will be the only latest-specification chassis in Australia powered by the Renault engine as the team looks to run with what it is familiar with on its return to the front of the Kumho Tyres Australian Formula 3 Championships' outright class.
For Astuti Motorsport the Renault engine is a known proposition and has been a very strong performer for us in the past, team boss Sam Astuti said. We have nothing to loose by running a different engine to everyone else. We aren't in contention for the championship and we already have all the parts and infrastructure needed to run the Renault without having to get a new engine so we plan on doing the test day and going from there.
If it runs well and we can get within a few tenths of the teams that have already done up to ten days of testing, which I think is realistic, then we will run the engine for the rest of the year.
If not then it is not difficult to fit either a Mugen Honda or Mercedes Benz engine but at the moment I'm happy with the package we have.
Like the engine decision, Astuti said that the opportunity to have Trimble, now racing in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar series, test the car was a simple one.
