31/10/2009
NEWS STORY
Campos Meta, one of several new teams entering F1 next season, has announced that Bruno Senna, nephew of three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna, has signed for the team.
In a brief statement issued this morning (Saturday), Enrique Rodriguez de Castro, boss of the Spanish outfit, said: "It is a great pleasure to welcome Bruno Senna to the team. We have followed him closely since his early days in minor series and testing how quickly he developed his speed and skills at GP2 to become on the most promising drivers of his generation. It is astonishing how fast he is entering the F1 scenasrio after just a few years in motor racing.
"For Campos Meta it is an extraordinary honour to return the name of Senna to F1. The deal with Senna confirms and re-enforces our prime objective of being not only the first Spanish Formula One team, but rather the first Iberian-American F1 team."
Having dabbled in Formula BMW and Formula Renault, in 2005 Senna moved up to F3, driving for the Raikkonen Robertson Racing team. He remained with the team for 2006 and finished third in the British F3 International Series. Remarkably, all four victories that season were achieved in the wet.
In 2007 he moved up to GP2 with Arden International. Finishing the season eighth overall, his best result coming at Barcelona where he won the Feature Race.
He remained in GP2 in 2008, though this time around he was with iSport International. Two wins and a string of podium finishes saw the Brazilian finish runner-up, the youngster scoring an emotional win at Monaco, the circuit his Uncle had dominated in F1.
In November 2008, Senna tested for the Honda F1 team at Barcelona and though he gave a good account of himself, leading to widespread speculation that he would partner Jenson Button at Brackley in 2009, his hopes were dashed when Honda withdrew from F1 just weeks later.
When he also lost out on the second seat at Brawn, Senna chose not to return to GP2 or accept the offer of a works Mercedes DTM drive and instead drove the Oreca LMP1 at a number of events including the Le Mans 24-hour Race.