Oliver Jarvis set to fly the Union Jack in China

Oliver Jarvis steps up to the plate this weekend as the 22-year-old from Cambridge leads A1 Team Great Britain’s charge in the third round of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, hosted on Sunday 12th November on a specially designed 3.1km street circuit in China’s capital city, Beijing.

Jarvis, winner of the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award in 2005, is set to make his first career A1GP start in China having fulfilled rookie duties over the opening two rounds of this year’s global competition in Holland and the Czech Republic before handing over to Darren Manning and Robbie Kerr respectively for the races.

With a track record that includes winning the 2005 Formula Renault UK Championship and a highly impressive campaign in this season’s British Formula Three Championship, where he finished runner-up in the standings with three wins and top rookie honours, Oliver’s pedigree should make for an exciting A1GP debut as he looks to build on A1 Team Great Britain’s solid start to the season courtesy of Manning and Kerr, the team sitting joint fourth in the Nations Standings alongside Canada and the Czech Republic on 11 points while Germany leads after two rounds with 20.

Looking ahead to the challenges of representing Great Britain for the first time in an A1GP event and the unknown quantity of the Beijing street circuit Jarvis commented:

"It’s great to be heading into an A1GP event knowing I’m going to be in action throughout the whole weekend. I’m delighted that the team has given me the opportunity to prove myself in China and it’s one I intend to seize with both hands! I’ve enjoyed participating in the rookie sessions but it’ll be something special to finally line-up on the grid knowing I’m racing for Great Britain.

"Obviously one of the main challenges for this weekend is getting to grips with the track. It’s a level playing field as nobody’s raced there before so it’ll be down to who can get their car hooked up to the demands and characteristics of the track fastest ahead of qualifying on Saturday. Street races don’t normally lend themselves to too much overtaking, usually making qualifying even more important than normal, but last year’s A1GP race in South Africa proved otherwise. I can’t wait to get going!"

A1 Team Great Britain Team Principal John Surtees is equally keen to see Oliver step up from rookie duties to fully fledged A1GP driver this weekend:

"Oliver without doubt has proved himself worthy of the chance to represent Great Britain and we’re looking forward to monitoring his progress in China. He’s been a great asset to the team in the rookie sessions and we felt he should be given the opportunity to measure up against the opposition in race conditions. We’ll be expecting him to be up to speed quickly and he does of course have some street racing experience from his time in F3. I’m confident he’ll do a good job and build on the foundations already put down by Darren (Manning) and Robbie (Kerr) in the first two races!"

Sunday’s Sprint race starts at 11am in Beijing (3am GMT) with the Feature starting at 3pm local time (7am GMT). Sky Sports 3 will broadcast all the action from China starting at 6am GMT on Sunday 12th November – please check www.skysports.com  for further details.

www.a1teamgbr.com

-A1 Team GBR ,Stuart Morrison -