Team gives Davidson promise

The highly-rated youngster, who was one of the sensations of the 2004 season with his performances in Friday practice, had been in the running for a seat alongside Mark Webber but was forced to pull-out of a planned evaluation test because BAR and Williams could not agree on options for his services for 2006.

That has left Davidson resigned to a year of testing for BAR's crucial 2005 campaign, and he is due to rejoin the team for his first test of the winter at Jerez in Spain this week, and fearful that a similar tug-of-love over his services for 2006 could see him miss his chance of a race seat again.

But BAR's new team boss Nick Fry has told autosport.com that although the team welcomed his return to the fold as test driver for this season, it would do everything it could to help him land a full-time race drive for 2006 - even if it could not offer him a seat itself.

"We are sure Anthony will do an excellent job for us in 2005 and he will be in with a chance of a race seat with us for 2006," said Fry. "If we were not in a position to offer Anthony a drive for 2006 then we would support him in moving elsewhere."

Speaking about why Davidson's chance with Williams fell apart, Fry said: "We did as much as we could to try and help Anthony, but it looks like Williams chose not to test him. That is why he is back testing with us now - and we look forward to working with him next year."

BAR's current line-up of Jenson Button and Takuma Sato both have contracts that run until the end of 2005 - meaning there is a very real chance of Davidson being handed the opportunity of a race-seat in 2006.

Button himself remains linked with a switch to Williams for that campaign, and his contract is understood to have performance-related clauses that could effect that switch for him.

Team insiders claim that Davidson has a very real chance of moving up to a race seat, although it is claimed that with only two grands prix experience under his belt he would unlikely be chosen as a team leader if the outfit was gunning for the world championship.