America's Ferrucci to make British F3 debut at Brands Hatch

American Santino Ferrucci has joined the grid for this weekend's British Formula 3 Championship round at Brands Hatch. He will line up in a Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes, alongside championship leader Matt Rao and runner-up Martin Cao.

Ferrucci has raced in the Formula 3 European Championship this season, but missed the opening rounds as he was not old enough to belicensed – he celebrated his 16th birthday at the end of May.

Since then he has taken a best European result of fourth with EuroInternational, and a best of second in a limited German F3 Cup campaign.

Fortec team manager Dan Mitchell said: "We really wanted to get a driver from the European championship into it to see how our guys compare. He'll be a good benchmark."

Ferrucci will not drive the Fortec machine until the half-hour free-practice session on Saturday morning.

Rao and Cao are both hoping they can contest the final two European F3 rounds at Imola and Hockenheim in October with Fortec, while Cao has entered the Macau Grand Prix with the team.