Burti hot favourite for Jaguar race seat

The Brazilian, who has impressed the team with his testing form and as a last-minute stand-in for Eddie Irvine at the Austrian Grand Prix, is said to be "95% certain" of grabbing the seat vacated by Johnny Herbert at the end of this season.

A contract is still to be signed, but sources close to Burti say he is increasingly confident of landing the drive, according to this week's Autosport magazine.

With Dario Franchitti set to re-commit to Champ Cars with Team Green and Tomas Scheckter more likely to be offered a testing role, the only other candidate on Jaguar's list is Jean Alesi.

But with the Frenchman poised to re-commit to the Prost team, following team boss Alain Prost's likely decision to stay at the helm and its soon-to-be-confirmed deal to run Ferrari engines next year , Burti is now an almost certainty for the drive.