Luca Filippi (right) has announced that, with immediate effect, he will race for the remainder of the 2008 GP2 season with Trust Team Arden, replacing Yelmer Buurman, from this weekend at the Hockenheimring.

The Italian, a current test driver with the Honda Racing F1 team, and his previous GP2 team ART Grand Prix agreed to separate by mutual consent, leaving the path clear for Filippi to join the British based team.

Filippi finished the 2007 GP2 series in joint third position with current championship leader Giorgio Pantano but has had a more difficult season to date this year, a fact that the Italian is hoping to rectify with the move to Arden, who have a strong history of success at this level, in both GP2 and Formula 3000.

It is a challenge that Filippi cannot wait to begin: "I have been wanting to make this move for a while and I'm really, really happy to be joining Arden now: anyone who has looked at their history knows just how much success they have had over the years, and I am looking forward to helping them find more success in the future.

"You only have to look at how well my new teammate Sebastien Buemi has gone so far this year compared to his time in GP2 last year to see what is possible with Arden: he has made exactly the same move as I am making now, and it has worked out really well for him so far.

"For me, I don’t want to spend any time thinking about what might have been: I am spending all of my time concentrating on what we can build together with Arden. I already know most of the team after testing with them during the winter tests, and I think we had a good feeling already between us back then: I am sure that we will build on that relationship very quickly in Hockenheim and can be on the pace straight away.

"I would also like to say thank you to Christian Horner and all of the team at Arden who have made this opportunity possible for me, and of course to my sponsors who have been completely supportive of me during what has been a difficult time: I hope to find some strong results this weekend to show they were right to believe in me, and to really get my championship underway."