"Black Boxes" To Be Used For First Time In F1!!

PORTIMAO, Portugal – 2nd of May, 2008 – French driver Philippe Dessertenne is going to have a new team mate this weekend with the arrival of Swedish driver Pierre Lundin replacing Peng Lin Wu for this weekend’s 10th Annual Grand Prix of Portugal on the Arade River in lovely Portimao.

“I’m really excited to be back,” stated the 40 year-old driver. “I don’t really know this boat very well since it is not my boat from a year ago, but I feel after a few sessions it hopefully will fit me like a glove.”

The driver who lives just outside Stockholm, finished with an impressive 4th position in last year’s championship with 51 points on the strength of two podium finishes and 4 top-5 finishes in the 6 races he completed last season. He has raced in Portimao three times previous with a 6th place finish last year after two straight failures to finish in 2003 & 2004.

Pierre returned full time a year ago after sitting out most of three seasons before getting back full force with Italian Fabio Comparato in 2007. He is the 1997 F2 European Champion as well as the 1998 F2 World Champion. He is hoping to also run at the next round at the Grand Prix of Finland in Lahti the first weekend of June.

Making it’s long awaited appearance is the new safety device instituted by series Promoter Nicolo di San Germano, by having each boat beginning here in Portugal the called “The Witness”. The unit measures acceleration forces on a boat that either crashes or flips. The small light weight unit is manufactured by “inthinc”. Mike Lyons co-founder of inthinc and Bob Oosdyke who is the marketing director are on site to provide support and smooth sailing in the inaugural data collection.