British team in ambitious US plan

Exactly where and when CART will race in Europe next year has yet to be announced, but rounds at Brands Hatch, Spa-Francorchamps and Estoril could be on the cards. Brand Motorsports claims that it will compete in "the two planned European rounds".

Team boss Martin Kendrick said: "We are assembling a race team with the technical and engineering expertise to enable Brand Motorsports to compete in top level racing programmes in Europe and beyond and have already identified drivers to compete for us in the European CART rounds.

"The Brand Group is already very active in North America and the IRL in 2004 will present us with a powerful marketing platform from which to further grow our business.

The Brand Group is a market leader in the satellite communications business. Kendrick is an amateur racer who began developing his plan to build an F3000 team around a year ago. The ground-work for the American plans began three months ago.

"A key element in the success of our communications business, which is now a global leader, has been strategic foresight and a discipline for long term planning. Our short term goal on the track is to establish ourselves at the front of the 2003 F3000 International Championship grid. However, that is just the beginning.

"Brand is not a racing competitor but a motorsport business and has made a significant investment in top calibre engineering personnel, state-of-the-art premises and equipment. As part of a planned growth strategy the IRL represents an opportunity to further develop our business in 2004 whilst next year's proposed European CART races will provide excellent preparation."