Drewer flies in from USA to race in Australian Formula 3 Drivers Championship.

American based Tom Drewer is to race for the R-Tek Formula 3 team in the Australian Drivers Championship at Phillip Island this weekend. (May 1-2).

It will be Drewer’s first race in a Formula 3 open-wheeler with the former Adelaide driver in his third year in the USA concentrating on driving prototype sports cars in the IMSA American Le Mans Series.

In his first season (2008) in the USA Drewer won the IMSA Lites 2 Championship with ten victories, eleven pole positions and five lap records.

Last year he competed in a Panoz Elan L1 sports prototype and finished seventh in the senior title chase with ten top 10 finishes, a pole position, and a podium finish in the last race of the series to his credit.

As a result of his successes Drewer has been rewarded with successful tests in an Oreca Courage Formula Le Mans LMPC prototype sports car and the Panoz Team PTG Esperante GT2 machine.

Two weeks ago he also successfully drove for the APR team in the world racing debut of the VW Golf Mk 6 GTI at Barber Motorsport Park in Birmingham, Alabama USA.

The event was a two and half hour endurance race as part of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge for production based cars.

Commenting from the USA today on his ‘Down Under drive’ Drewer said:

"It’s only a brief visit back to Australia, but its fantastic that Ian Richards from R-Tek has given me the opportunity to race a Formula 3 Dallara in the Australian Drivers Championship. The decision was only made today and I will barely make it to Phillip Island in time to jump in the car!

The drive has also come with support from Daily Planet and James Rosenberg from Gawler Farm Machinery, who of course supports another South Aussie driver Tim Slade in the V8 Supercar Championship.

Ian Richards is a great race engineer and a friend of my father Mike, and I am really thrilled to be driving one of his cars.

Not having driven a F3 car before, we will just see how it goes.

I have certainly raced plenty of high down force cars on the ultra fast North American circuits such as Road Atlanta, Miller Motorsport Park, Laguna Seca, and Mosport in Canada, so I guess that experience and the nature of the Phillip Island layout should help, but as with every new car it will be a steep learning curve particularly with no testing".

The Australian Drivers Championship is Australia’s premier open-wheel category and attracts a diverse group of competitors from around the world including the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and China.