Former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr. will make his Indy Lights debut for Carlin this weekend in Toronto. Piquet Jr. is currently leading the FIA Formula E Championship - the championship for electrically powered single seater racing cars. Piquet Jr. will take over the wheel from fellow Formula 1 driver Max Chilton who will be racing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the new and radical Nissan LMP1 project.

Piquet Jr., son of three time Formula 1 World Champion Nelson Piquet Souto Maior, has been racing a wide range of motorsports since his last season of Formula 1 with the Renault F1 Team in 2009. After racing NASCAR in both trucks and cars he's also been racing successfully in the Global Rallycross championship.

Eventhough several years racing in the United States this is the first time he will be racing a national single seater series. Trevor Carlin, team boss of Carlin, believes the wealth of experience of single seaters on street courses will favour the team tremendously in this the inaugural season of the Dallara IL-15 Indy Lights racer. Eventhough Nelson Piquet Jr. hasn't raced for Carlin Motorsport in the past the team has raced against him when Piquet Jr. won the British International Formula 3 Championship back in 2004 - four years prior to his Formula 1 debut in the Australian Grand Prix.

Piquet Jr. is a driver of controversy though as he left Formula 1 after a major scandal. After being dropped by the Renault F1 team in 2009 rumours surfaced that Piquet Jr deliberately had crashed out of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to help his team mate Fernando Alonso - who went on to win the race. Piquet Jr. told the FIA that he had been asked to crash by his team boss Flavio Briatore and engineer Pat Symonds. The Renault F1 team was charged with race fixing. In the current motorsports climate where betting is an integral part of the sports experience this is not something that is taken lightly. With the likes of William Hill F1 betting page and others offering their services race results can not be fixed. Therefor the Renault F1 team was charged with conspiracy and race fixing. Piquet Jr. was given immunity for delivering his evidence. Flavio Briatore was indefinitely banned from all FIA sanctioned motorsport events, but this ban was later overturned when Briatore counter-sued FIA.