Villeneuve: Stefan GP would be 'best newcomer'

Jacques Villeneuve backs Stefan GP to impress if Serbian team secures a place on the 2010 F1 grid

22 Feb 2010

Former F1 title winner Jacques Villeneuve has backed Stefan GP to be the best of the F1 newcomers in the Serbian outfit secures a place on the grid for the 2010 season.

The Canadian has held preliminary talks with team boss Zoran Stefanovich about a possible deal, although the lack of a concrete slot on the grid means that a deal is still a long way from being done.

However, Villeneuve insisted he would be 'very interested' in Stefan GP if an entry was secured and said that the deal struck by the team with Toyota would give it a realistic chance of being the best newcomer on the grid.

"I had a chat some time ago with [the team owner] just to find out where everything was at," Villeneuve told Auto Week. "It was not about everything that has been written recently, it was prior to that. I'm not involved directly with anything.

"If it happened I would be very interested because it looks like a serious outfit. If they are allowed in, seeing how he's been talking and moving forward even though he didn't have an entry, he is quite serious in getting the thing going. He's done more than some teams [that do have entries].

"The Toyota car wasn't a bad car last year and it has been developed. It would definitely be ahead of all the other new cars."

Villeneuve added that the main issue for the team would be a lack of time to complete much in the way of pre-season testing, although he insisted that the programme would be one that would excite him for the year ahead.

"Now the problem is they won't get any testing, they won't get anything, which is a bit problematic," he said. "But a good base is always a good base. So it wouldn't be a bad proposition - it would be exciting enough to work on."

Following a takeover of the Campos Meta team late last week, Stefan GP's best hope of making it onto the grid would now seem to lie with the troubled USF1 team failing to appear this season.

Team principal Ken Anderson has already revealed that the team is looking to miss the first four rounds of the season to get its house in order.