Piquet joins Lydden World RX round

Former Renault Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr. will race in the second round of the World Rallycross Championship, the AUTOSPORT World RX of Great Britain this weekend. The Brazilian will compete in the the single-make RX Lites Cup support category.

Piquet left F1 in 2009, and has since raced in the Truck and Nationwide NASCAR series and in sports cars. More recently, the Brazilian raced in the opening round of the U.S.-based Global Rallycross Championship in a Ford Fiesta, the same machine he will use at X Games this summer and during his first taste of European based rallycross competition this weekend.

"I'm very excited about the chance to race again this weekend and I'd like to thank the team and sponsors that invited me to the UK," said Piquet. "I've lived in the UK and won a [British Formula 3] championship there but it's been five years since my last race on British soil.

"This is a good opportunity to learn more about rallycross and get to know the European drivers. It will be my first RX Lites race and it will prepare me well for the X Games, too."

The RX Lites Cup features identical space-frame, four-wheel drive machines that produce 310bhp. Swede Sebastien Eriksson won the opening round of the Lites series in Portugal earlier this month.