DAMS to run South Africa's car

With new rules meaning recognised racing teams can only run two nations in the second season, South Africa have stolen a march on their rivals by securing the squad that ran France to the inaugural title last season.

DAMS will continue to run the French team this season, but their deal with South Africa means that their other race winners from last season, Switzerland and Mexico, will have to look elsewhere for their race operations teams this season.

Both are still finalising their plans for the coming campaign.

"This is a huge coup for us," an A1 Team South Africa spokesperson told autosport.com.

"DAMS were the team to beat in last year's series and we're honoured they have chosen us to for their second team. Hopefully this will help propel us into genuine title contenders in the second season."

South Africa have a packed testing programme running at this week's official Silverstone test, running five drivers.

Honda F1 tester Alan van der Merwe and Formula Renault Eurocup racer Adrian Zaugg are joining last season's drivers Stephen Simpson, Tomas Scheckter and Gavin Cronje at the test.

The team intend to have three full-time drivers for the their race season, and will make a decision following the test.

Simpson, who drove for the team last year, is expected to land one of the seats with the team.