Mike Gascoyne, technical director to the new Malaysian Formula One team that will get underway next season with Lotus branding, has admitted to The Star that Malaysian driver, Fairuz Fauzy will more than likely start his Formula One career in a test and reserve driver role, despite being one of the most experienced and best placed single seater racers in the country.

However, Gascoyne’s reasoning for not putting the Malaysian racer in a full time ride is simple and quite understandable, they don’t want their best hope of having a national driver go places in their team crash and burn due to not having any experience at all in the pinnacle of Motorsports. Instead, they plan to get him that experience through testing and then place him in the car.  

"Fairuz will be in the team probably as a reserve driver or a test driver. He has the talent but we don't want him to 'crash and burn' in the race because of his inexperience. Take Alonso for example. He was signed as a test driver and didn't get a race seat until after three years with Renault and he went on to win trophies. This is exactly what we want with Fairuz, for him to have enough experience because racing in the Formula One is at a much higher level than he used to."