Zonta has been keen to race again after losing his seat at BAR at the end of last season, but chose to follow the currently popular route of testing for a top-six team in order to boost his career, rather than joining a slower team.

A potential block to the deal is that Mazzacane and Prost have always denied his contract contains a performance-related clause, which means the team would have to buy him out the agreement. Gaston’s personal sponsor, PSN, also sponsor the Prost outfit and Alain must be worried of losing them if Mazzacane was dropped.

More of a problem is the further in the future for the young Brazilian. He says he has a good chance of a seat in the 2002 Jordan and would much prefer that to a move now to the not so competitive Prost team.

Commenting on the speculation, he confirmed to Autosport that he has to look further ahead than 2001. "I would love to race this season, but I am not sure whether that would be good for the long term."

Geraldo Rodrigues, Zonta's manager, confirmed that Ricardo's future is with the Irish team. "At the moment Ricardo's main opportunity is to drive for Jordan next year, and he is focusing on his job of testing traction control for the team. We respect Alain and Pedro Paulo (Diniz), and Ricardo is crazy to drive, but his main objective is Jordan."