MG Rover Group today announces that Mark Blundell will be the sixth team member to drive the MG Lola sports cars in this year’s Le Mans twenty four-hour race. Mark brings a wealth of experience to the MG Lola team that already includes Julian Bailey, Anthony Reid, Warren Hughes, Kevin McGarrity and Jonny Kane.

Born in 1966, Mark’s racing career started at the age of fourteen when he raced in the schoolboy motocross. Some three years later he moved his attention to four wheels and set his sights on the Formula Ford Series. He quickly moved from FF1600 to the FF2000 category and in 1986 he won the European crown and runners-up spot in Britain.

More race wins followed and in 1987 he was offered a works Lola seat for the following year. Again success followed and Mark was offered a seat with the Nissan sports car team along with a testing contract for the Williams F1 outfit. In 1990 Mark took pole position in the Le Mans twenty four-hour race, the youngest driver ever to do so.

Mark then moved into F1 where he registered several podium visits. More recently Mark has been racing across the Atlantic in the CART Champcar series notching up many wins. His performance has been such that the readers of Autosport magazine voted him British Competition Driver of the year.

Mark is already well known and respected within MG circles. Before its launch in March 1995, Mark was commissioned to test and provide an

independent assessment of the MGF sports car for dealers

who were about to be offered the MG franchise.

Commenting on the appointment, Rob Oldaker, director of product development at MG Rover Group said: "We are delighted to have secured the services of Mark who is such an experienced driver. His feedback during testing and race driving skills will be vital to our success. The engineering talents of Lola combined with our diverse driver line-up give us a great deal of optimism."

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