Friday December 24, 05:14 PM
Australian Formula One team owner Paul Stoddart's latest driver is a rookie bankrolled by a media tycoon who was behind the Big Brother and Fear Factor TV sensations.
Stoddart's signing of 25-year-old Dutchman Christjan Albers for the new season starting in Melbourne in March leaves five vacancies still to be filled in the field of 20.
Albers is a former champion in Germany's Formula Three series who has spent the past four years driving in the DTM - the German Touring Car Championship - which, along with Australia's V8 Supercars series, is rated the best tin-top racing in the world.
He was runner-up in the DTM last year and was also Minardi's reserve F1 driver in 2001 and 2002.
He had trialled with the Jordan team as well as Minardi recently in his quest to gain a spot on the F1 grid next year.
Albers' financial patron is John de Mol, a hugely wealthy Dutchman who was involved in the Endemol company that built a vast TV empire on the back of Big Brother and Fear Factor.
De Mol was also once an investor in the Manchester United soccer team.
He is starting a new television channel in Holland and is believed to see his backing of Albers as a way of drawing attention to it and boosting TV audiences for F1 in the country.
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AAP
