The Football based race series of Superleague Formula will take to Brands Hatch this weekend, running on the iconic GP loop at the Kent circuit.
British drivers Graig Dolby, James Walker and Duncan Tappy will be looking to perform well in front of their home crowd for round seven of the series. Dolby will be particularly keen for a good performance after losing the championship lead last time out to AC Milan driver Yelmer Buurman. With only a few points separating the pair, Dolby could claim back the lead in the championship race on home soil.
Former F1 driver Franck Montagny will return for the Bordeaux team at Brands Hatch having missed the last round in Zolder, being replaced by Jaap van Lagen. Montagny will be looking to add to his first victory earlier in the season at Jarama.
A full complement of 18 cars will take to the tarmac on Saturday, with the French team of Olympique Lyonnais run by LRS Formula returning after withdrawing from round six to work on the car having experienced a number of problems since the season opener. Franck Perera will be behind the wheel for Lyon, taking over from ex F1 and Champ car driver Sebastien Bourdais. Perera has already raced in four events this season for Brazilian team Flamengo.
Elsewhere, Virgin F1 team test driver and current Formula 2 champion Andy Soucek will again take his place in the Sporting Lisbon car after an impressive display at Zolder saw him take a ninth and sixth place in race one and two respectively on his first return to the series since 2008.
Olympiacos team and driver Chris van der Drift will count themselves lucky, after no punishment was handed to them for starting in front of their pole position grid slot for the Super Final last time out in Belgium.
Jonathan Palmer, boss of Motorsport Vision, who own the Brands Hatch circuit has vowed to investigate the safety of the GP loop after a collision in a WTCC support race saw a Seat Leon flip over the barriers landing in the spectator area earlier this month. Thankfully no one was hurt. He stated that there will be no knee jerk reaction but will see what can be learnt from the incident. There were a number of possibilities mentioned as to how the circuit could respond, but putting up debris fencing around the loop was instantly ruled out as being commercially unviable. Another option which seems unpopular among fans was to ban spectators from the GP loop, but this may be unlikely. With investigations still ongoing, there is no news yet of what the outcome may be. Therefore fans will probably not see any changes in the current set up this weekend and should be free to view the racing as normal from this area.
