THE 20-year-old nephew of Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna will make his car racing debut at the Brands Hatch circuit near West Kingsdown this weekend.

Bruno Senna will race in the two Formula BMW races that will take place at the British Touring Car Championship meeting, driving for top team Carlin Motorsport.

Bruno raced karts until the age of 10 but has not raced anything since then. He is being groomed by Carlin team boss Trevor Carlin for an eventual move into his championship-winning British Formula 3 squad and will complete the final three rounds of the Formula BMW series, starting with Brands.

"I have done a test programme at two UK circuits and now feel that I am familiar enough with the car to go racing," he said. "I am planning to do the last three rounds of Formula BMW at Brands Hatch, Rockingham and Donington.

"I have never run on these tracks, so it won't be easy as the other drivers have tested or raced at two of them. But I'm not worried about this.

"The important thing is to try to qualify in the top 10 places and then get used to racing against the other drivers. I'm looking forward to it."

Trevor Carlin said: "Bruno's testing has been very good and now he needs to get into competition with others - to ascertain his level of competitiveness in qualifying and also to give him the racing experience that he will need to compete successfully next season."