Lloyd joins Ganassi

Lloyd, 22, who dominated the Indy Pro Series - IndyCar's feeder category - this season, looks likely to race in only a handful of events, one of which should be the Indy 500, as the team seem set to retain former champions Scot Dixon and Dan Wheldon.

But, in addition to what would appear to be a four-race programme, Lloyd will also become the team's chief test driver and race in the Grand-Am Sportscar series, which gets underway with January's Daytona 24 hours too.

"I very much look forward to getting behind the wheel for Chip and his team," said Lloyd. "He has one of those teams that I have always admired from afar so this is a dream come true.

"I am also very excited to work with Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon as I know I will be able to learn a lot from them as I try to take my racing to the next level."

Lloyd's career so far has been a stop-start affair. After a handful of Formula Ford races in 2001, he switched to UK Formula Renault with Motaworld and finished as the runner-up in the series to Lewis Hamilton in 2003, netting him the McLaren/Autosport BRDC young driver award, which saw him test a McLaren F1 car.

Drives in Formula Renault V6 and European F3000 followed before he switched to the USA. Two wins in his maiden year and seven this season, brought him to the attention of Ganassi, a man who last won the IndyCar title in 2003 with Dixon.

"Alex has not only proved himself this season in the Indy Pro Series races, but we were also able to evaluate him first hand at our test in Sebring and subsequently liked him even more," said Ganassi MD Mike Hull. "He is a talented driver and a perfect candidate for our development program.

"In the span of ten days, he took the wheel of two very different race cars for the first time. He showed at Sebring that he is ready to race an IndyCar, and then at Infineon Raceway for the Grand Am event, proved under race conditions, that his skills were immediately equal to the best drivers in the very competitive high horsepower Daytona Prototypes."