The announcement that Minardi is to hold a press conference in Austria on Tuesday has sent the F1 media into a frenzy.

Other than the second seat at Red Bull, which will be filled by either Christian Klien or Vitantonio Liuzzi, the only remaining vacancy for 2005 is that at Minardi alongside Christijan Albers.

Autosport magazine will be hoping that Nicolas Kiesa gets the driver, mainly because it has already named the Danish youngster in its 2005 preview, however a final decision has yet to be made.

Minardi has confirmed to Pitpass that there are a number of drivers in the frame, not merely for the race seat, but also the third/test driver role.

Kiesa is on the shortlist, but so too is Patrick Friesacher, Robert Doornbos, Zsolt Baumgartner and Jeffrey van Hooydonk.

As ever, the deciding factor will be money, and it is known that several drivers are desperately trying to scrape together the required funding.

Yes, there is a press conference in Austria on Tuesday and yes Friesacher is Austrian. However, though the team rates him highly, nothing has been decided at this time (Saturday AM).

Much can happen over the next couple of days, someone could miraculously find the required funding. However to claim that Friesacher will definitely be the Faenza outfit's second driver is simply wild unfounded speculation.