Impressed by Armaan Ebrahim's performance, fitness level and the technical feedback on him, A-1 Team India on Friday decided to pursue with the youngster as the first driver for the Sydney leg of the inaugural A-1 Grand Prix circuit.
"The engineers and the rest of the team were highly impressed by the youngster's performance, technical feedback and physical fitness levels. They all felt that he would continue to improve with every race, and also the fact that the team recognizes the abundance of talent and potential in this youngster," Team India said in a statement.
India had failed to finish the race in the first two legs of the circuit in England and Germany where Karun Chandhok was behind the wheel. However, 16-year-old Armaan powered India to a commendable 13th place finish in the fourth race in Estoril, Portugal.
A1 Team India arrived in Sydney on Tuesday to get acclimatised to the conditions ahead of Sunday's main race at the Eastern Creek International Raceway.
Work on both the cars has now been completed and the final set-up on the car is being done by the Race Engineer Patrick Roberts, in consultation with Armaan and Team Manager Akbar Ebrahim.
Team India will start with a similar car set-up to what was raced in Portugal, but will be running their new engine and gearbox, which was delivered with the second car. The racecar will be the original car that was raced in Portugal. This is to equalise the engine mileage on both engines, in order to have better mileage management for the whole season.
"The car set-up is a little bit towards the stiffer side at present, and as we understand the track better after the first practice session, we may lean towards a softer set-up," Akbar said.
The Indian team will be without the services of their data engineer and driver coach Andy Pardoe, who injured his back after Portugal. His duties will be shared by race engineer Patrick Roberts and Akbar
Akbar said the Raceway, which is 3.9 km long, is "a very technically challenging track".
"On first glance and by following the track diagram many may get misled that it is a slow and medium corner track. In fact, after walking the track, a few corners are blindingly fast with a few very technical high speed 3rd and 4th gear corners. In fact the entry speed to the first corner should be in sixth gear at around 250 kmph," he said.
