Red Bull search narrows to four.

The inaugural Red Bull F1 Driver Search narrowed to four when a quartet of young American drivers were selected by a panel of judges to race in Europe with funding from Red Bull energy drink next season.

The foursome all share Red Bull's desire to eventually see an American driver ending up in Formula One, and Paul Edwards, Grant Maiman, Joel Nelson and Scott Speed were selected from 13 hopefuls who participated in nearly a week of assessment at the state of the art Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France.

"We had 13 tremendously talented American racers here," said programme manager Danny Sullivan, "All the boys were so good that it made our decision very, very difficult. Besides being among the fastest during the lapping sessions, we had to consider not only each driver's individual experience, but also the variety of the cars they've driven and the variety of the cars we utilised here at the run-off. To do this right, to find the drivers most likely to succeed in the extremely competitive European racing universe, the judges had to factor all of it in."

Twenty-four-year old Californian Edwards has more than four years of experience racing in Europe, while Maiman, also 24, has been racing cars since 1999. Nelson, however, is only 20 and has been racing for approximately one year, while Speed, a year younger again, has raced karts since the age of ten and formula cars since 2001.

Sullivan introduced the initial 15 drivers during a press conference at the SAP United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis. The racers, aged 16 to 24, were assessed in an intense, five-day testing programme, in front of a judging panel comprising Sullivan, who won the 1985 Indianapolis 500 and is a former F1 driver, Bertram Schafer, owner of successful German F3 team Bertram Schafer Racing, former FIA F3000 team owner Dr Helmut Marko, race school owner Skip Barber, and Alan Docking, owner of British F3 squad Alan Docking Racing. The judges represent more than 200 years combined in racing experience, most of which has been in the area of spotting and developing up-and-coming driving talent.

Two drivers who were invited - AJ Allmendinger and Ryan Hunter-Reay - did not participate in the test after signing with teams in the United States to race in 2003, while, according to Sullivan, the other nine drivers who participated at Circuit Paul Ricard but were not selected made an impression on the judges.

"Each were utterly impressive and will likely be considered again for next year," the veteran racer said.

According to programme officials, decisions will be made in the next ten days with regard to which European series and teams each of the four drivers will be competing in.