Friday October 18th, 2002

The Red Bull F1 Driver Search program was completed on Thursday after a four-day shootout between 13 young American drivers at the Paul Ricard circuit in France.

The program is aimed at findind and funding United States' most promising young drivers with the hope of having a Formula One driver again after nearly ten years without one.

Paul Edwards, Grant Maiman, Joel Nelson and Scott Speed were chosen by a select panel after being judged the most likely to make it to Formula One. The four drivers will be funded by energy drink Red Bull to take part in Europe's junior championships in 2003.

"We had 13 tremendously talented American racers here," said the program's manager Danny Sullivan. "All the boys were so good that it made our decision very, very difficult. Beside being among the fastest during the lapping sessions, we had to consider not only each driver's individual experience, but also the variety of the cars they've driven and the variety of the cars we utilised here at the run-off.

"To do this right, to find the drivers most likely to succeed in the extremely competitive European racing universe, the judges had to factor all of it in."

Within the next 10 days, the decisions will be made regarding which European series and teams each of the four drivers will be competing in.

Published at 12:44:06 GMT