Identity of new team to be known soon - Honda

The identity of a mystery group planning to become Formula One's 11th team next year will be announced soon, Honda said.

Honda said earlier this week they were hoping to supply engines to the new team but details of who the backers might be remain secret.

"It's an independent team already involved in racing and hoping to enter F1," Honda Racing's president Yasuhiro Wada said.

"They are finalising details and I don't expect an announcement is too far away. I expect it will be made soon.

"We will have a contract to supply engines and also technical assistance," he added.

Japanese driver Takuma Sato, who has lost his drive at BAR for 2006, said he had received an offer from the newcomers following last month's Brazilian Grand Prix.

"A lot has happened so quickly and I'm very excited," Sato told reporters. "It gives me more options. The main target is to be racing in Formula One in 2006."

The timing of Honda's announcement that they could supply engines to the unidentified team has raised a few eyebrows in the F1 paddock.

The carmaker faced a backlash before their home race in Suzuka for letting Sato go and potentially leaving F1 without a Japanese driver on the starting grid next year.

Teams must register for the 2006 championship by November 15.

¤ Racing driver Jarno Trulli will carry the Olympic torch when it passes through his home town of Pescara next year ahead of February's Turin Games. "As a F1 driver I would not be involved in any Olympic Games," the Italian said yesterday. "I thought it would be nice for a driver to be part of it, even if it is only taking the torch." The Olympic flame will be lit in Olympia next month before making its away across Greece and Italy before the start of the Games on February 10. Ferrari are also set to enter the Olympic spirit by displaying the Turin logo on their cars at the final two F1 races of the season in Suzuka and Shanghai.

¤ Renault test driver Franck Montagny is leaving the team to search for a full-time drive elsewhere, the only French driver involved in F1 said. Montagny, a test driver for the French team for two years, said in a statement on his website that he hoped to join the Jordan team, to be renamed Midland in 2006, but needed financial partners to do so.