Premat to drive for France in SA

Premat was scheduled to drive the Indonesian round at Sentul with teammate Lapierre getting back into the cockpit for the following street race round in the South African city of Durban.

However, the Indonesian race was postponed until after the South African round because of the death of series founder Sheikh Maktoum's uncle.

The French team are the one of the few teams alternating their driver line-up regularly and have adopted a rotation policy for both drivers throughout the season, swapping the lead driver before every race meeting. Lapierre drove the last round at Dubai in December, winning the feature race.

A1 Team France Jean-Paul Driot team boss told autosport.com: "There is nothing complicated about it. We have always had the policy of having Alex, then Nicholas, then Alex and so on, so with the Indonesian round being moved it means that Alex will be driving in South Africa and Nicholas in Indonesia. It is a logical move and we are keeping it simple."

Driot also confirmed that this system should stay until the end of the inaugural season, despite there now being an odd number of rounds after the Brazilian round's cancellation. It means that Premat will have driven one more meeting than Lapierre.

"We have know the Brazilian round has been cancelled for some time but nothing will happen to our system as a result," Driot added. "If there are 11 races there are 11 if there are 12 there are 12, whatever that means for our drivers."