Nordic confirms exit.

Just two years after lifting the team and drivers' championships, Nordic Racing has confirmed that it will not be contesting the 2003 FIA F3000 series.

The withdrawal is not entirely unexpected, as Nordic had yet to turn a wheel during 'winter' testing and team manager Chris Mower has already moved on to pastures new on the American side of the Atlantic. With father Derek also admitting that the time had come to take a back seat, it was more a question of when the announcement would come.

The team's entry and equipment has apparently been sold to a little-known Spanish team called Barcelona Competicion, but little else is known about the newcomer's ambitions for 2003.

Nordic Racing began its F3000 history back in 1993, running a single car for Italian Alessandro Zampedri. A succession of two-car entries followed, with drivers of the calibre of Oliver Gavin, Marc Goossens, Marc and Jordi Gene and Kevin McGarrity trying in vain to capitalise on the Belgian's first win for the team, but it was left to the 2001 pairing of Justin Wilson and Tomas Enge to put Nordic on the map, dominating the series and ending the year first and equal second in the standing respectively. The teams' title was a formality in the same year, with just Mark Webber providing any real opposition.

With Enge moving to Arden International and Wilson seeking F1 employment for 2002, Nordic struggled to recapture the glory days, and the inexperienced duo of Ryan Briscoe and Zsolt Baumgartner struggling to achieve any top six results. The Hungarian eventually broke his, and the team's, duck in the final round at Monza.