Roberto Merhi back to Formula 3 for Spa British round and Macau

The 23-year-old Spaniard, winner of the 2011 F3 Euro Series before moving to the DTM with Mercedes in 2012-13, will return to the category in Belgium with a Double R Racing Dallara-Mercedes.

In order to compete at Macau, he has to contest an F3 race in the current calendar year.

Double R team boss Anthony 'Boyo' Hieatt said: "Roberto loves F3, he loves Spa and he's got a two-month break in the FR3.5 calendar and wants to stay sharp.

"He wants to do it because he's desperate to do Macau, and I'd love to have him in the car there because I've always thought he's a megastar. And he's a Mercedes-backed driver, so it ticks all the boxes."

Merhi, who partners Double R regulars Andy Chang and Camren Kaminsky, is one of 14 drivers on the British F3 entry list for Spa.

Carlin is running two of its F3 European Championship drivers - Ed Jones and Sean Gelael - in their regular cars.

The race marks the return to competition for Anglo-Emirati Jones, who broke a vertebra in a qualifying shunt at Pau in May.

The new-spec Volkswagen engines in their cars are faster than the older powerplants run by the rest of the field, but Carlin has chosen not to register Jones or Gelael for points.

Carlin will also field Sam MacLeod, winner of four races with Fortec Motorsport earlier this season, in an older-spec Dallara-VW alongside Peter Li.

This leaves Fortec down to two cars, for championship leader Martin Cao and Matt Rao.

Performance Racing joins the fray, with European F3 regular John Bryant-Meisner returning to his old team for the Spa weekend.

In addition, there are four competitors from the German F3 Cup.

Motopark will field Malaysian Nabil Jeffri and Dutchman Indy Dontje, while Italian team ADM Motorsport is running Russian Nikita Zlobin and Chinese racer Kang Ling, who steps up from Formula Renault ALPS to make his F3 debut.