SEPTEMBER 29, 2000

Mark Blundell to return to F1 as test driver

Mark Blundell has lost his drive in the CART series after five years in America with the PacWest team. Blundell had been sponsored by Motorola but the company has decided to join Michael Andretti at Team Green and so Blundell has lost his drive with New Zealander Scott Dixon expected to take over at PacWest.

While there are a few drives open in CART for next year, Blundell's record in the United States has not been very spectacular. He has scored only a couple of wins in CART at Portland and Fontana way back in 1997. Blundell is hoping to return to F1 to rebuild a career for himself in Europe. Although he is only 34 Mark was Williams test driver as long ago as 1990. He raced for Brabham in 1991, tested for McLaren in 1992 and then raced for Ligier in 1993. After a spell with Tyrrell and half a season with McLaren in 1995 he went to America.

The current trend in Formula 1 is towards experienced test drivers and Blundell's experience might be very useful for a team such as Williams which has a lot of development work to be done in the next couple of years.