Gutierrez joins Team Mexico

The 17-year-old, who was recently crowned the Formula BMW Europe champion, will serve as Team Mexico's rookie driver throughout this season with a graduation to the race seat planned in the future.

The team's spokeswoman, Rosa Elena Torres, said: "We feel very proud to have him in the team. Esteban will participate in the rookie sessions in preparation for competing later in the A1GP races."

Gutierrez tested the A1GP last year and was only prevented from joining the team for the end of last season by the regulations of Formula BMW, which prevented him from entering another championship.

Now that he has been cleared to join Team Mexico, he is looking forward to representing his country and to driving the much more powerful A1GP car.

"I'm delighted to be a part of this and grateful to Team Mexico for allowing me to be involved," he said. "It's going to be an unforgettable experience.

"This is something new for me with a more powerful car in comparison to the one I have been driving. it's really demanding physically and I've been training for a long time to prepare for this."

Gutierrez will make his debut for the team in the rookie sessions at the season opener at Zandvoort in two weeks.

"I don't know the Zandvoort track yet, and that's going to be interesting because I don't know the car either," he added. "I think it's a difficult track but hopefully I will be able to help the team to set up the car.

"This is going to be a matter of a lot of learning and I hope I can race later too."