Monday, 14th January 2008

Teenager Herck to partner Valles for inaugural 'winter' series.

Fisichella Motor Sport International has finalised its driver pairing for the inaugural GP2 Asia Series after adding rookie Michael Herck alongside the more experienced Adrian Valles.

Herck graduates to the F1 feeder series after testing with FMSI over two days at Jerez in October, but has limited track time at this level, having run extensively in F3 before graduating for four races in the World Series by Renault.

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The 19-year old Monaco-domiciled Romanian began racing karts in France in 1999, taking nine championship and cup wins during a four-year career before moving up to single-seaters racing in 2004, winning both the Italian Formula Renault 1600 and Spanish Formula Junior 1600 championships. Two more series championships came his way the following year, when he picked up the Austrian and Central European Zone F3 trophies, before moving on to the Euroseries in 2006 and taking a podium finish. His four WSbR races came last year.

"I am very proud to be joining the most prestigious series after Formula One, and it will be a special moment to compete in the races [alongside F1] in Malaysia and Bahrain," Herck admitted, "Fisichella Motor Sport is a great name in racing and I had a good feeling with the team when I tested at Jerez.

"It's going to be important for me to learn about the car and the series, but I am in the best place to do that in such a good team which has a good record of success and car reliability. I know the season will be tough, because GP2 attracts the best drivers in the world, but I will be focused on driving many kilometres, learning the circuits quickly and working closely with the engineers."

"Michael tested for us in Jerez and did a very good job," team principal Paolo Coloni commented, "That, combined with the performance he showed in his last test in the
World Series by Renault, gave us very good motivation to work with us. He was consistently in the top two fastest in the World Series test and I think he has a very promising future."

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