For the first time in the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 Series season, the Tech 1 Racing team will field two cars when the series arrives at the Nurburgring, with regular driver Marco Sorensen being joined at the team by Mexican teenager Alfonso Celis Jr.
For the first five rounds, Sorensen has been the lone driver for Tech 1, and will be hoping the addition of Celis Jr to the squad can bring the team closer to the front. They have struggled with just one car, especially last time in Moscow when the Danish driver could only finish fifteenth in both races.
Sorensen made his GP2 Series debut at Silverstone last weekend and scored points in both races for MP Motorsport, but it was the first time in 2014 that he raced with a team-mate when he raced with Daniel de Jong.
Seventeen-year-old Celis Jr has been racing so far in the GP3 Series for Status Grand Prix, and becomes the second Status driver this year to race in Formula Renault 3.5, having seen team-mate Richie Stanaway re-join the Lotus team in the series while Matthieu Vaxiviere recovered from injury. Ironically, Vaxiviere is back at Lotus for this round, with Stanaway stepping away from the team.
The Comtec Racing outfit are also back on the grid, and are fielding young British hopeful Cameron Twynham for the rest of the season. The team were last seen at the Monaco round of the series where Italian Andrea Roda drove for them. Before Monaco, Russian Nikolay Martsenko had scored a podium for Comtec in Spain before he was forced to leave the team when he lost his backings.
Celis Jr and Twynham’s arrivals means the field is back up to 22 entries, with only ISR Racing remaining with one entry for Jazeman Jaafar. It is unclear whether Celis Jr will remain at the team after the races in Germany, with races in Hungary, France and Spain still to come.