THERE will be a strong south coast interest in the new Formula BMW Championship this summer with Southamp-ton's Matt Harris and Bournemoth's Jonathan Le Gris lining up for the same team.

Barwell Motorsport, who have made a name for themselves in the British Touring Car Championship, have signed up the youngsters for the 12-round series which will be launched at Thruxton over the Easter holidays on April 11.

Barwell have strong and successful links with this part of the world. Hampshire's James Kaye was a winning driver for them in the BTCC and Salisbury's Alan Blencowe was a regular podium finisher in last season's BTCC Production Championship.

The team, in fact, won production honours thanks to No 1 driver Luke Hines. Now they are branching out into Formula BMW, for single-seater racing cars powered by 150mph 1200cc BMW motorcycle engines.

Chris Needell runs the team and his famous brother Tiff, the ex Formula One, Touring Car campaigner and TV presenter has come on board as driver coach and PR man.

Gregg schoolboy Harris at 17 will be one of the youngsest drivers in the championship yet in just a short time racing single-seaters, he has made a strong impression.

He arrived via the familiar route of kart racing but after an unspectacular time in club racing at Clay Pigeon, Harris tried his hand at single-seater racing cars and was quickly on the pace.

Harris, from Curdridge near Botley, got his first taste of the fast cars in a five-day intensive race course at Silverstone and took to it like a duck to water.

By the end of the course he was winning races and when he entered his first BRDC single-seater competition last year he claimed four podium finishes. "It was obvious he had a talent for racing and we took it from there," said his mother Lesley.

When Harris contested the Formula Palmer Audi Autumn Championship over four races at Snetterton and Donington, he finished third overall and he was racing against drivers who had just come off the full FPA Championship for 2003.

He broadened his experience with drives in the Formula Winter Series and in UK Formula Ford and did a weekend's testing in Spain for the front-running Falcon Formula Renault team.

Harris was soon matching the pace of drivers who had been there all week, and clearly Barwell see potential which Tiff Needell can hopefully develop.

Matt's father Ian, who is a Patent attorney in Southampton, believes in his son so much that he has underwritten the budget for the season which is around £175,000 while a potential sponsorship deal with a big Southampton dealership is currently being negotiated.

It seems that Matt's talent for racing comes from his father who at 50 got behind the wheel of a racing car for the first time and finished runner-up in a BRDC winter competition.

Formula BMW has already been launched successfully in Germany and in Asia and as it will run alongside this year's BTCC, it is guaranteed a big audience.

Harris's teammate Le Gris is a successful kart racer and a third driver will be brought in soon by Barwell to underline how seriously they are taking the new championship.