Porteiro finished 10th in the championship last year, scoring one win at Oschersleben. Team manager Valmiro Presenzini is happy with his new driver.

"I have long worked hard to complete these negotiations. I'm happy because we have two major drivers with which to achieve prestige. We are the World Champions in office and want to remain highly competitive in 2009.

Felix has already won races of WTCC and will bring experience to our team. Porteiro, Tanev are two drivers that are young and talented and will, as always, receive material of high level from PROTEAM," said Presenzini to stopandgo.tv.

A third car could run over the events in Europe. Rumors indicate that it could be an Italian driver behind the wheel but not excluding other prestigious names such as Duncan Huisman.