F-PAC: Atlantic Racing Team signs Antunes

Atlantic Racing Team signed today Swiss driver Jimmy Antunes for the 2011 Formula Pacific Series.

"While the ink is not dry yet on the agreement, we are really delighted to announce to the public that Jimmy has signed with us and is back with our team for 2011. Jimmy was running in his first ever formula car season in 2010 with Daltec-Atlantic Racing under the guidance of Lucas Strackerjan, in the LO-Lista junior series. Two guest appearances in the then called FBMW Pacific series convinced him to come back to Atlantic Racing Team fulltime in 2011.

We were right from the beginning really impressed with his performance, cool headed approach to problems, his good humour and relaxed personality. It seems nothing can really shatter his believe and confidence level in himself!

Our three day January test with him in Sepang went well; times were seen as secondary and of no importance to our program. Funny as it was, he was always in the middle of the time sheet even when we tried the slower set ups. Jimmy Antunes is for sure natural talent and with some more testing and coaching -- I think we will have again a true front runner! Drivers like him you do not see everyday and we credit Lucas, our engineer with having seen Jimmy's potential when he worked with him in the LO-Lista series last year." says Ingo Strackerjan, Manager of the team's operation in Asia.

"Now with Jimmy being with us, we can concentrate not only on testing but also want to select now one more driver. For that we positioned two of our newly acquired cars also at the Zhuhai, China A1GP track (ZIC) for testing. With this it also means that drivers can now test with us in Europe, Sepang or Zhuhai under different weather and track configurations and choices.

Our main two team sponsors -- Branson Lifestyle and Kartbahn Racing -- will give again, for the second year now, financial support to the team and drivers." explains Ingo; "And we are extremely proud to be associated with them for the second year as true team sponsors. One day in the near future it might just be possible to offer full funding to selected drivers; where we as a team do not have to rely on funding from young drivers. Branson Lifestyle's CEO has this already discussed at length with us and we might be able to initiate this "step" very soon via a program leaning on the success of that what is currently in use in Canada for karting. More to that in the very near future."

Atlantic Racing Team's test schedule is now confirmed; In addition to privately arranged testing in Europe, Atlantic Racing Team offers now:

February 7th to 9th in Sepang, MY - F1 track;

February 11th to 13th in Zhuhai, China at the A1GP track

Then

March 8th to 10th again in Sepang, MY;

March 12th to14th in Zhuhai, China.

-source: atlantic racing team