The final driver line-up has been announced for the 17 cars entering the first race of the football-themed Superleague Formula at Donington Park this weekend.
Reigning British Formula Renault champion Duncan Tappy, from West Ewell in Surrey, will drive the Tottenham Hotspur entry.
Tappy has also raced in this year’s Renault World Series, served as the A1GP Team GBR rookie driver in last season’s Mexico City event, and has twice been a finalist for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.
Spanish GP2 driver Adrian Valles will drive the Liverpool entry which – like the Premiership football team it’s linked with – is also under Spanish management.
Valles was the official tester for the short-liver Spyker Formula One team, and has competed for a variety of different teams in GP2. He is currently with BCN Competicion, but has retired from three of the last five races for them.
He said: “I am really happy for the opportunity to represent Liverpool. I have followed the club closely ever since Benitez took over the helm and obviously there are a lot of top Spanish players representing the club as well.
“Liverpool is one of the most famous clubs in the world so it really is a honour to drive their car in the inaugural championship.”
As well as the Premiership cars and Scotland’s Glasgow Rangers, there is additional British interest in the form of Melton Mowbray’s Craig Dolby, who has been named as the driver for Belgian team Anderlecht. Dolby is a past winner of the Belgian Formula Renault Championship for Team Astromega, which is running the Anderlecht and Flamengo entries.
Superleague Formula had planned to run 20 cars, but seems to have been forced to settle for 17. Drivers have experience in a variety of formulas, with Champ Car and GP2 well represented. The full entry list is:
3 – AC Milan (Italy) / Robert Doornbos
4 – Galatasaray (Turkey) / Alessandro Pier Guidi
5 – PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands) / Yelmer Buurman
6 – Al Ain (United Arab Emirates) / Andreas Zuber
7 – Flamengo (Brazil) / Tuka Rocha
8 – Anderlecht (Belgium) / Craig Dolby
9 – Olympiacos (Greece) / Kasper Andersen
10 – FC Basel (Switzerland) / Max Wissel
11 – Borussia Dortmund (Germany) / Nelson Philippe
12 – Beijing Guoan (China) / Davide Rigon
14 – Corinthians (Brazil) / Andy Soucek
16 – FC Porto (Portugal) / Tristan Gommendy
17 – Glasgow Rangers (Scotland) / Ryan Dalziel
18 – Sevilla FC (Spain) / Borja Garcia
19 – Tottenham Hotspur (England) / Duncan Tappy
21 – Liverpool (England) / Adrian Valles
22 – AS Roma (Italy) / Enrico Toccacelo
* We’d like to bring you photos of the cars’ paint schemes, but unfortunately Superleague Formula have now failed to reply to three requests for media access… All sorted now – thanks guys.