Mansells complete Atlantic test

The British pair, who finished 10th and 17th respectively in the British Formula Three championship this year, are two of several drivers team owner Derrick Walker is testing before committing to his team's line-up in 2008. Last week Star Mazda drivers Alex Ardoin and Ron White drove Walker's car.

Walker said: "Greg and Leo are trying to figure out what they want to do next year and hopefully this test is giving them a good insight into our Atlantic cars. But I have to say, as of now, there hasn't been a whole lot of discussion about doing a deal. We'll see."

Leo Mansell stated: "What a great experience. The Atlantic car had so much grip and it does exactly what you want it to. For a driver that's fantastic.

"Walker Racing is by far the most professional outfit we have worked with by a mile. Every change we made, we continued to move forward."

Greg echoed his brother's sentiments. "Today was brilliant. The Atlantic car was a handful, the ground effects and the natural progression from a Formula Three car to the Atlantic car was amazing, and for it to still be a handful was great.

"Walker Racing was fantastic to work with. It was definitely refreshing to work with such a professional team that works so well together. It felt like I was working with an F1 team and I had to keep reminding myself it was an Atlantic team."

This year Walker Racing drivers Ryan Lewis and Simona de Silvestro finished 12th and 19th respectively, but Walker, who ran Simon Pagenaud's title-winning car in 2006, is known also to be looking at the best of the Atlantic rookies from 2007.

"As you'd expect, the ideal blend is talented rookies with talented second-year drivers. I actually think it makes a lot of sense to run three cars," said Walker, "and four is feasible so long as there is sufficient funding."

"I was really pleased to be able to test Nigel's sons in our Atlantic cars. We are getting a lot more interest from Europe ever since the introduction of the new car, which offers good competition at a reasonable cost and the two million dollar Championship prize for a driver to move up to Champ Car.

"Leo and Greg got a really good appreciation for the Mazda Atlantic car and they both did a very good job indeed. It will be great to see them in Atlantics next year as I think they would do very well in the series," commented Walker.

Greg and Leo's father Nigel, who won the Champ Car title in 1993, just a year after taking the Formula One World Championship, was delighted to watch his sons in action.

Nigel commented: "It has been a lovely couple of days. It is such a joy to see a professional team work like Walker Racing and to see my boys go around in two identical cars that are very well matched is very rewarding for the team and myself.

"The times the boys were doing and overall experience has definitely given us an awful lot to think about."