Galatasaray SK club and Playteam Sarafree are to contest the forthcoming Superleague Formula, which is due to get underway in August 2008.

"After long discussions and several working meetings in Istanbul, my dream has progressed. Scuderia Playteam is now ready to join this unique Superleague championship with a great partner: Galatasaray SK," said Giambattista Giannoccaro, owner and founder of Scuderia Playteam.

Scuderia Playteam invited a number of leading drivers to test its cars from various racing series at Vallelunga, near Rome (Italy), from February 4-6 in preparation for the team's new upcoming challenge. Amongst them was the young Davide Rigon. Other drivers were the F3000 Euroseries champion, Marco Bonanomi, who currently competes in the GP2 Asia Series with Piquet racing, Giacomo Ricci, 2006 European F3000 champion and Alessandro Pier Guidi who competed on the Maserati MC 12 in the FIA GT Championship. Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque, Frenchman Bruce Jouanny and Turk Jason Tahinci also joined them and recorded plenty of mileage while logging competitive lap times to prepare for this innovative formula.

Giambattista Giannoccaro went on to add: "We are finalizing contracts with drivers and are convinced of being able to be ready to produce a high level great race weekend entertainment package for spectators around Europe. I'm sure the Galatasaray SK fans will closely follow the launch of our Superleague Formula, and cheer for us in the competition. I love excellent football. Galatasaray SK is one of the best football clubs to come to the race track, and at Scuderia Playteam we are putting together the best racing resources. The entire grid of this new Formula is filling up and I can foresee it will be a tough and high level competition. We will be ready for the first race scheduled to kick off at Donington Park in England in August 2008."

The Scuderia Playteam's goal is to join the Superleague Formula with a car that provides extremely high performance powered by the Menard Competition Technologies V12 engine. Once the team has confirmed designation of the drivers, the car will be unveiled by the players at the Galatasaray SK club's home ground.

Mr.Ozhan Canaydin, President Galatasaray SK continued: " I am glad that we have put this project together with Playteam. Please join us early March for the Kayseri league match at Ali Sami Yen , the home of the Galatasaray SK football club to support us for the official unveiling of the team, the first next step of our important project.

Galtasaray SK joins FC Porto, AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven, Olympiacos, Borussia Dortmund, RSC Anderlecht, Flamengo, FC Basel, and Sevilla in the competition.

Provisional Calendar

Donington, UK - August 30/31

Nurburgring, Germany - September 20/21

Zolder, Belgium - October 4/5

Italy, (location TBA) - October 18/19

Estoril, Portugal - November 1/2

Spain, (location TBA) - November 22/23