A spokesman for the Walloon region's finance minister, Philippe Malburny, has said that there is still hope that next year's Belgian Grand Prix will go ahead, despite the race promoter going bankrupt, but much of this lies with F1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone.

"We are searching for a solution for the Grand Prix but not at any price," said Malburny. "There are two possibilities, either we organise it or we don't."

One of the options is to find private investors, while the other is to convince Bernie Ecclestone to take over as race promoter. Ironically this would mean that as race promoter and commercial rights holder, he would effectively be paying himself.

In 2005, following poor ticket sales, the Walloon government had to bail out promoter, Didier Defourny, with a loan of £10m ($18m), which led to a major political argument, with parties claiming that the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Talks with Ecclestone continue, however, race fans are warned not to purchase tickets for next year's event until the issue has been fully resolved. The uncertainty over the event will not help ticket sales, which, having been poor in 2005, were blamed as one of the main reasons for Defourny's failure.