Celis handed FP1 outing at Austin

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Force India has announced that development driver Alfonso Celis Jr. will get another opportunity in the team's race car in Friday's first practice session at the United States Grand Prix.

The team posted the news on Twitter, saying: "The #USGP FP1 session sees the return of a known face to our garage - [Celis] will be in the car for the weekend's opening session."

Celis will take over Sergio Perez's seat for the 90 minute practice at the Circuit of the Americas on Friday morning.

It will be the 20-year-old Mexican's fifth outing in the car. He has previously had seat time at Bahrain, Russia, Austria and Italy, as well as at test days with the team away from Grand Prix events.

Celis is one of the drivers hoping that Nico Hulkenberg's decision to leave the team for Renault in 2017 might give him the opportunity to step up to full time Grand Prix racing next season.

As well as working as Force India's test driver, Celis is currently competing in the Formula V8 3.5 Series with AVF where he is currently in ninth place in the championship with his best result of the year so far coming at Spa when he finished in third place in the second race of the weekend.

Celis previously spent two years in GP3 with Status Grand Prix and ART.

Manor will also be fielding a replacement driver in FP1, with Britain's Jordan King getting his Formula One weekend début with Manor Racing.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.