BMW aims to unearth American talent

Following on from launching Formula BMW in the UK recently, the German manufacturer's motorsport director Mario Theissen conceded that it would be a step forward for grand prix racing to have a competitive American F1 driver in the future.

"We will be revealing details in the next few weeks," Theissen said at Indianapolis. "It will be a junior series aimed at 15, 16 and 17-year-olds coming out of karting."

America has not had a competitive F1 driver since Mario Andretti won the world championship in 1978. The last serious attempt was by his son Michael, who failed to impress during his 1993 season alongside Ayrton Senna at McLaren and was ultimately replaced by Mika Hakkinen before the end of the season.

However, both Theissen and his opposite number at Mercedes-Benz, Norbert Haug, stressed that the Formula BMW series would provide a grounding only and that young US drivers hoping to make the grade in F1 should then pursue a single-seater career in Europe, most likely in F3 and F3000.

"I do think it would be a very positive thing for F1 to have an American driver," Haug said, "but the IRL is a very different sort of racing and it is not likely that a driver would do Indy Lights [now the Infiniti Pro Series] and IRL before going to F1. I think they still need to experience the European scene but there is no doubting the importance of the US market to us.

"It is the second most important market for us and obviously having an American driver would raise the recognition and profile of F1 in the USA."