It was a case of double Dutch for Minardi here Friday (July 22nd) as Dutch driver Robert Doornbos joined compatriot Christijan Albers ahead of his race debut in Sunday's German Grand Prix.

Doornbos, who has been third driver for Jordan for most of the season, switched to Minardi as a replacement for Austrian Patrick Friesacher, who lost his drive after his sponsors failed to make a scheduled payment to the team.

Team boss Paul Stoddart was delighted with Doornbos' arrival as it marks the first time in modern Formula One that a team has run two Dutch drivers and he praised the newcomer's performance after no prior running.

"I was extremely pleased," said Stoddart. "Robert had never driven the car, he had only sat in it for a seat fitting. It is always hard to step up from a test driver into a race seat at short notice and I think he did a credible job."

Doornbos, 23, tested for Minardi last year but after stepping up to the race team he finished 21st fastest and said: "It's been a good first day. Already I feel very comfortable in the car and I ended with a long stint in practice.

"This morning we tried various things with the set up, but I already had an idea of which way I wanted to go and between me and my engineer we found a good way of working."

Doornbos finished just one place and one tenth of a second behind Albers, whose day was marred by a collision with Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault when both drivers spun off. But aside from the accident Stoddart, whose team also used to run Dutch driver Jos Verstappen, believes the competition between the two Dutch drivers will help the team push further up the grid.

"I think the guys will actually feed off each other and I think we will see a slight improvement," he said. "We will probably get 110 percent out of each of them at every event, and that is what we want."