Alexandre Prémat joins Garry Rogers Motorsport
French driver Alexandre Prémat has been confirmed as Lee Holdsworth’s surprise replacement at GRM for the 2012 season.
The 29-year-old sports car and DTM racer will take over from Holdsworth, who has left the team to race for Stone Brothers Racing for this season, and will join Michael Caruso at the Victoria-based team.
“I will either be a genius or…”, Rogers said to the Australian Daily Telegraph. “Some will see it as a shock and a major risk but I really think he is the man for the job.”
“I did a lot of thinking and research and I just thought I couldn’t take the risk of putting another young bloke in. I needed experience.”
“My team has had a lot of success with our young driver program over the years but you no longer can afford the time and results that come with the inexperienced drivers. You need drivers who have a solid knowledge of the technical attributes of these cars and who are able to drive them very fast every lap.”
Prémat is an ex-factory Audi driver, racing for the team for four years in both the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Frenchman also won the inaugural A1GP championship for Team France along with Nicolas Lapierre in 2006, as well as the F3 Macau Grand Prix in 2004.
