Nick Fry, the CEO of the Honda Racing F1 Team, has said that he is increasingly confident a buyer will be found for the Brackley-based outfit - and that around twelve offers are currently being considered.

Honda confirmed it was withdrawing from the FIA Formula 1 World Championship last month and subsequently it put the team up for sale.

Since then there has been considerable interest and Fry added that while nothing is yet 100 per cent certain, it is pretty close. Indeed he wants to ensure any takeover will guarantee the future of the squad for at least two years.

"We had, as you might expect, a huge amount of interest at the start - probably well in excess of 30 groups came to us," he told BBC Sport Online. "We have narrowed that down to something in the region of a dozen.

"Right at the start of this process [F1 boss] Bernie Ecclestone said that he was 100 per cent confident that we'd be on the grid in Melbourne.

"I have to say that I wasn't quite so sure where his confidence came from. But as we've gone through this process, my confidence based on what we've seen has increased - maybe not to 100 per cent but it's pretty close.

"We are currently talking to Honda about what is the best bet for the future.

"Neither [team principal] Ross [Brawn] nor I want to stand there again and say that everything is fine if in one or two years' time we fall flat on our face again. So we are really looking towards a two, three, five year plan for the team.

"We have got a team that has benefited from £75 million worth of capital investment in the last three years. They have probably got some of the best automotive and other technology in the country, if not the world, and it has got an immensely highly-skilled technical staff led by Ross. So there is a huge amount going for it."