Reigning British F3 Champion Nelson Piquet Jr will face a new challenge this weekend when he heads into the first round of the inaugural GP2 Series at the legendary Imola circuit in San Marino, Italy.

In what promises to be a hard-fought season, Nelson will be one of 24 highly-rated drivers battling it out in Formula One's new feeder series, which will run alongside F1 at all the European Grands Prix, with a season finale in Bahrain.

The weekend format will comprise a 30-minute free practice session on Friday followed by a 30-minute qualifying session. Drivers will then compete in a 180km long-distance race on Saturday and an 80km sprint race on Sunday morning. The grid for the sprint race will be determined from the results of the long-distance race, albeit with the top eight positions reversed.

At the Series' official launch day at Circuit Paul Ricard on 6 April, on which drivers took part in a qualifying session to determine race car numbers for their teams for the season, Nelson finished second fastest out of the 24 drivers, and will run car number 3 for the Hitech Piquet Sports team.

Pre-season preparations comprised ten days of testing split over four tests, three taking place at the Paul Ricard high-tech development circuit, with a final two-day test last week in Barcelona.

"Overall, pre-season testing has gone well for us," said the youngster. "The car is easy to drive and in the last couple of tests we had no technical problems. Things seem to be going very smoothly and we are confident we can get the tyres and set-up to work well in Imola. Although we have been testing lots of different things, when we went for a fast lap we were consistently quick, and at the top of the timesheets, so we have to be very happy with that.

"I'm really excited that the season is finally starting. I think Imola is going to be a crazy weekend as there is only half an hour free practice before you get 24 cars on the track qualifying. The key thing for us is to get the car set-up as close as possible to what we need before Friday and then the rest is up to me to get used to the circuit quickly with the car. I've been trying to prepare myself as much as possible and have driven a Porsche Carrera S on the circuit to learn its characteristics. The team has worked so hard to get ready for this weekend, and I hope everything comes together for the race."