British Formula Three competitors Ultimate Motorsport have said they were in talks to buy a stake in the Toro Rosso Formula One team.
“We are in negotiations so I can’t reveal too much about it until everything is final,” Ultimate team principal Barry Walsh, whose team are backed by Angolan state oil company Sonangol, said.
“We always set out with Formula One as the target,” he said.
“I would only have got involved in the project in the first place if I was confident we could take it all the way to F1, that is the aim.”
Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi, are co-owned by Red Bull energy drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz and fellow-Austrian former grand prix driver Gerhard Berger.
On its website, Ultimate says its goal is to become a “formidable force on the motorsport ladder”.
“If our plans go the right way, I’d like to think we could be on the grid for 2009,” added Walsh. “The aim is to have the whole structure, with the academy from karting, through Formula Three and the World Series, and Formula One at the top.”
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