Richards to reveal plans 'in a few weeks'

Prodrive boss David Richard hopes to be able to confirm his future Formula One plans within the next few weeks as discussions about becoming a McLaren customer team continue

Richards said at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April that he hoped to be able to announce details about his F1 team at Silverstone this weekend.

However, with sponsorship and funding issues still to be fully resolved even though a basic agreement is understood to be in place with McLaren, Richards has said that news should come soon.

"The reality is that what we said in Bahrain was we would hope to announce something in the summer," he said during a visit to the British Grand Prix. "Because of the natural deadlines, that was when we had to get things moving by.

"It would be nice to have something to announce now, but the truth of the matter is we are a few weeks away from sorting it out. So there will be no announcement this weekend.

"The issue is making sure we have got robust contracts in place for the period of time."

When asked what the state of his team's sponsorship negotiations were, he said: "It is quite well advanced. It is all very well people agreeing things and signing heads of terms, but you need to get things contracted before you go formal on anything."

Richards would not confirm that McLaren were his definite partner for , but said that he was now only speaking to one team.

"I am not going to comment on who the partner is," he said. "You can surmise yourself, but we have a favoured partner and we are working exclusively in that direction."