T-Sport is to return to the Formula 3 European Championship for this month’s Spa 24 Hours-supporting round with ex-Formula Renault Eurocup ace Ukyo Sasahara. The team missed last month’s Norisring event and will also skip the coming weekend at Zandvoort after parting company with Arjun Maini, who has joined the GP3 Series.

Twenty-year-old Japanese racer Sasahara is one of eight drivers who went into last season’s FR Eurocup showdown with a chance of the title, and first tested T-Sport’s F3 car as long ago as November 2014. He returned to karts this season and, with those commitments a priority, he is available only for Spa and the October Imola round. But the team is closing on a deal with another driver to fill the seat at the Nurburgring in September and the Hockenheim finale in October.

“Ukyo has been on our radar since he tested with the team back in 2014,” T-Sport boss Russell Eacott said. “He is an ideal candidate to run and we hope that these selected outings may lead to a permanent drive with the team for the 2017 season.”

The team will reintroduce the Tomei-built ThreeBond engine for Sasahara. The engine showed strong pace in its maiden race outings in 2015 in the Masters of F3 at Zandvoort and at the Macau Grand Prix, as well as in testing at Pembrey. But it proved down on power in the opening round of the 2016 European championship at Paul Ricard, leading to suspicions that it is adversely affected by altitude – the French circuit is more than 1300ft above sea level, while Zandvoort, Macau and Pembrey are all coastal venues. T-Sport therefore reverted to the British NBE powerplant at intervening races.

TAN BACK WITH CARLIN

Meanwhile, Weiron Tan will return to the Carlin team for this weekend’s European round at Zandvoort, two months after making his series debut at the Red Bull Ring. The Malaysian is understood to be putting a deal together to contest all five remaining rounds of the championship with the British team.