Christian eager to get ahead despite famous family tree

Christian Jones knows that being a member of racing royalty has its privileges. But as the 25-year-old Australian has discovered, he also knows that being the son of former F1 champion Alan Jones isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Jones is attempting to emulate his legendary father's footsteps. But don't believe for a moment that he's the pampered son, for Jones has been standing on his own two feet for most of his career.

An entrant in next week's Macau Grand Prix after receiving an invitation to compete in the Far East Classic, Jones says that while having a famous dad is indeed advantageous, it didn't exactly open the way for him to compete in the highly competitive world of motor racing.

'At the end of the day, whether you are racing in Euro F3 or British F3, you need a million US [dollars] just to do that right. It was unattainable unfortunately,' explained Jones, who is instead carving a niche in Asia, where he is lying second in the Asian F3 series

'My dad won the Formula 1 championship in 1980 and not 1990 so he doesn't have a million dollars to let me go racing. We have always had to go for the sponsorship. So many guys are struggling to get the money. Oddly enough, guys like myself are even struggling to get funding,' said Jones.

'I've got more of an advantage with a father who is famous. But on the other hand, you have a lot of fathers out there who have millions and millions of dollars and they don't need to find sponsorship. So you have to look at it in a different way. Unfortunately, we don't have the family money. What we do have is a name and I try to use it to the best advantage.'