Marchy Lee to test for Minardi F1 Team at Mugello

Chinese driver, Marchy Lee, will test for the Minardi F1 team at Mugello in Italy on April 27/28th. Lee, who raced in Asian Formula Three during 2002, will be the first AF3 Series driver to test for a Formula One Team.

Minardi F1 team boss, Paul Stoddart, is quoted as saying he has “been keeping an eye on the progress of Marchy for some time”. Lee resurrected his career driving for Vertex Racing in a selected Asian Formula Three race program in 2002, winning two races in Sepang, before taking a gamble by stepping back to Formula BMW Asia last year. He dominated the series taking an emphatic championship victory.

Lee’s cause will have undoubtedly been aided by the fact that Minardi F1 have a tie up with Asian Motor Sport through Minardi Team Asia who enter teams in both Formula BMW Asia and Asian Formula Three. Paul Stoddart was on the pit wall to watch Minardi Team Asia compete the Bahrain and Shanghai GP support events and the performance of Marchy Lee would not have gone unnoticed. Lee won in both Bahrain and Shanghai although Minardi Team Asia’s Moreno Soeprapto stole his thunder by winning the second Shanghai GP support race.

“We hope that Marchy will be the first of many graduates of Asian Formula Three to drive in Formula One and we look forward to seeing the first Asian Formula Three driver race in a Grand Prix” said AF3 Chairman Eddie Pena.