Meritus has just completed its inaugural year in GP2 Asia, the final stepping stone for Asian drivers looking at developing their careers for F1. Formula V6 Asia has a proven record in developing Asian drivers for GP2 and Meritus are keen to use FV6A to develop their own drivers to move up to their Malaysian GP2 team.

To that end, we have signed up our 2006 Formula BMW Pacific (formerly known as Formula BMW Asia) champion, 17 year old Earl Bamber of New Zealand and his team mate and runner-up in the 2007 Formula BMW Pacific championship 19 year old Thai driver, James Grunwell.

The first round of the 2008 Formula V6 Asia championship will take place this weekend as the premier race during the Asian Festival Of Speed at Sepang from 15-18 May. The AFOS event bought the rights of the 375bhp Formula V6 Asia championship from Renault in 2005 and the championship quickly grew to be one of the most prestigious formula series in Asia. The 2005 champion, Karun Chandhok went on to compete in GP2 Europe where he has excelled and already won a number of GP2 races. The 2007 FV6A champion, who was from Meritus, British driver James Winslow has already tested and been offered a seat for the Conquest Champ Car season and he has represented his country in the A1GP series.

Prior to joining the Meritus team for 2008, Bamber went on to compete in Formula Toyota New Zealand and Formula 3 Australia and taking into account the points he earned with his two wins on the Hamilton street race last month, according to the Toyota series organiser, he would be the 2008 champion.

For the last six months Bamber ferried himself between New Zealand and Australia where he had back-to-back race duties in Formula Toyota and F3. His outstanding performance in F3 earned him a reputation as ‘The Flying Kiwi’ when he took off over the curves to grab a podium position during the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide. Unfortunately he was unable to complete the championship due to loss of a sponsor.

Bamber is not new to FV6A, having completed three rounds of the season last year where he started from pole with outstanding qualifying performance during the first round, but failed to grab the podium finish that he well deserved, due to a dramatic engine failure.

Says Bamber: “I am really happy to be back in Formula V6 Asia with Meritus and I hope to use this fantastic championship as a stepping stone to GP2 or at least to a high level European championship. The car is beautiful and easy to drive and the engine torque is incredible. I love racing at Sepang and I particularly like the North Circuit which we will be using this weekend”.

Bamber continues to say “It’s fantastic that Meritus is using all the technology they have successfully used in their GP2 team and I am particularly looking forward to working with the GP2 Technical Director as he brings with him so much experience and I love soaking it all up!”

Prepared by meritusracing.com