Salisbury driver, Ross Curnow, has confirmed that his plans for 2007 are still uncertain after a fruitless search for backing over the last few months. Whilst there has been a great deal of interest from teams eager to run him this year, all the offers have come with a budget requirement well beyond the capabilities of Ross and his family.

His manager, ex-touring car champion Alan Curnow, said: “It’s such a shame - he’s obviously highly rated because the phone’s been ringing constantly. We’ve been talking to teams in F3 and Formula Renault and also had approaches from people running in championships in Europe and the US. The problem has been finding the budget to help us move forward.”

He went on: “We’ve had discussions on the possibility of a syndicate of backers becoming involved and that would have the great benefit of providing a long term career path for Ross. There’s still interest there but we all recognise that we’re not going to be able to put a deal together in time for a competitive drive in 2007.”

 “Of course, we’ve now got something of a chicken and egg problem because it’s difficult to approach individual companies without a clear plan and we don’t know what we’re going to be doing before we know how much we’ve got available….”

Ross was similarly disappointed: “I lost a top F3 drive simply because we couldn’t produce the finance and it’s been a difficult few weeks for us. I’m currently working in the industry and doing some driver coaching and if we can’t finalise a drive, I’ll no doubt take up some of the offers to do some testing. I’m very keen to get to grips with some of the European circuits, however, and we’re pursuing a couple of options which might enable me to do this without a huge price tag.”