MONTREAL, Quebec, (March 13, 2008) – Jensen MotorSport will return to action at the final Cooper Tires Presents The Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda series pre-season test on March 25th and 26th at the MSR Houston circuit. Finnish driver Henri Karjalainen will pilot the JMS team’s #2 car, and Canadian driver Brett Van Blankers will pilot the JMS team’s #22 car.
Henri Karjalainen has already tested the Swift 016 Atlantic car for two days with the Jensen team at Savannah Georgia in November 2007, clocking impressive times relative to all of the other JMS drivers at this test circuit. In 2007, Henri competed in both the top F1 feeder category GP2 Series in Europe, and before this the Asian Formula 3 championship.
Brett Van Blankers has already tested with the Jensen Atlantic squad for four days in 2008, including the official series test at Sebring Florida in February. A native of Vancouver, British Columbia; Brett returns to racing action after a season in the Indy Pro Series in 2006 where he regularly competed in the top 10. Brett returns to racing after missing the 2007 season due a knee injury sustained off-track.
MSR Houston is a circuit where the Jensen team feels very much that it has home field advantage. Jensen was among the first professional teams to test at the circuit, and assisted track owners Al and Leslie Mitchell to develop their business with the open-wheel racing community. The MSR Houston circuit has a terrific mix of high and low speed corners (www.msrhouston.com), which makes it one of the preferred test circuits for professional open-wheel and sports car teams.
MSR Houston made an official link to Jensen MotorSport during the 2006 season, by sponsoring driver Steve Ott to race in our #22 car at the Houston, Portland, and Cleveland events of the Atlantic Championship. Rookie Ott made the best of the opportunity, clocking the pole time for race 1 at the Cleveland Grand Prix, and finishing with a podium (3rd).
Upon receiving news of the revised schedule for the Cooper Tires Presents The Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda, it is expected that Jensen MotorSport will announce our two drivers for the 2008 season.
To learn more about the Jensen MotorSport team, visit us online at www.jensenmotorsport.com
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