Grapevine: Davidson Set to Replace Yoong at Minardi

Anthony Davidson will become the first Briton to race for Minardi at this weekend's Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix, team sources said on Tuesday.

They said the 23-year-old British American Racing (BAR) test driver would replace underperforming Malaysian Alex Yoong in Hungary and also at the following Belgian Grand Prix on September 1. A formal announcement will be made on Wednesday.

Davidson, who was runner-up in last year's British Formula Three championship behind Jordan's current Japanese driver Takuma Sato, will partner Australian Mark Webber at the team run by Australian Paul Stoddart.

Despite his inexperience, Davidson can be expected to be closer to Webber's times than Yoong and could provide an interesting measure of the highly-rated Australian's talent. Yoong has regularly been some two seconds off the Australian's pace.

Minardi, perennial strugglers who have survived against far better funded rivals since their first Grand Prix in 1985, concentrated mainly on Italian, Spanish and South American drivers before Stoddart took over in January 2001.

Yoong, 26, has brought important sponsorship from Malaysia but has failed to qualify for three races this season, most recently at the last German Grand Prix, and the team are concerned that he has suffered a loss of confidence.

The twisty Hungaroring is seen as a highly technical circuit and Yoong, who became Malaysia's first Formula One driver at last September's Italian Grand Prix, has not raced there before and could again struggle to make the grade.

Team sources said Yoong would step back into an intensive testing programme to rebuild his confidence and he was likely to return for the final three races of the season in Italy, the United States and Japan.

"Alex will go into a busy test programme to figure out why he's lost confidence," a team source told Reuters. "He will then step back in for the last three races."

Yoong said on his website at the weekend that he would be travelling with the team to Hungary and was mentally and physically prepared to drive.

"I will definitely go to Hungary whether I drive or not," he said. "If I'm not in the car, it's still my responsibility to be there to help the team in whatever way I can. I am still employed by the team even if I'm not racing."

This season Minardi have scored two points, their first since 1999, with Webber finishing a lucky fifth in his home Grand Prix in Melbourne after half the field crashed out.