A1 Team France has announced that Nicolas Prost has been promoted to lead driver for the next round of the 2008-09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Championship, which takes place this weekend. He will take over from Loïc Duval who has driven the majority of races for the team over the last two seasons.

Nicolas Prost: "After a very positive outing in China the team's decided to put its trust in me again, which I'm very happy about. It shows that it's satisfied with my work. This winter I've been training very hard and I'll tackle the weekend full of determination. My aim is to be on the pace right away and to be among the front-runners throughout the weekend."

27-year-old Nicolas won the 2008 Euroseries 3000 Championship. He has been the A1 Team France rookie since last season, and in November he raced in the Chengdu round in China.

After 4 rounds, A1 Team France is currently lying fou rth in the overall classification with a victory and 3 rostrum finishes.

Olivier Panis, sporting director: "Nicolas is already completely at home in our team. He's well prepared for this new challenge after a season as test driver with A1 Team France and a race a few months ago. We've already found an efficient way of working together, and we have every confidence in each other. This way we won't waste any time and our objective remains the same - the rostrum!"